Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) says FBI Director Kash Patel needs to be removed from his position “for a whole host of reasons” days after they clashed during a Senate hearing over reporting of Patel’s alleged excessive drinking.
Appearing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Democratic senator was asked by moderator Kristen Welker if he believes the FBI “can function effectively” with Patel at the helm. “Oh, I don’t,” he responded. “But it’s not simply because of this issue, the fact that there are so many reports that indicate that his drinking has meant that he’s incapacitated at many times. As I said, Kristen, I really don’t care what he does on his free time so long as he’s not putting the public at risk, so long as he’s not compromising his important mission as director of the FBI.”
Van Hollen made the remarks after Welker played back a clip of him and Patel butting heads over The Atlantic’s report last month about Patel’s alleged erratic behavior during a Senate hearing Tuesday. Patel has denied the reports, and on April 20, he filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic Monthly Group, the publisher of The Atlantic.
Van Hollen went on to accuse Patel of having “completely weaponized the FBI.” “He went after agents who helped [to] investigate the Jan. 6 rioters. More recently, he went after agents who were a part of the investigation of Trump’s taking classified materials to Mar-a-Lago,” he continued. “They didn’t decide to do that. They were following their orders. And by the way, many of them were part of the counter-espionage unit with respect to Iran. So he fired them at the very moment we need them most when we have this conflict with Iran. So I think he needs to go for a whole host of reasons.”
Later in the interview, Welker questioned Van Hollen over whether he believes Patel will take an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test to disprove the report. “Well senator, you took the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. You challenged Director Patel to do the same. Do you have any indication that he’s actually going to take that test? Or do you think that that was a challenge that, to some extent, you did just to prove a point?” she asked.
“Well, he said in public testimony that he would do it,” Van Hollen responded. “He’s also under oath automatically in the sense that lying to Congress is a crime. So he said he’s going to do it.” He added: “My sense from Patel’s conduct overall is he may or may not do it, but I unfortunately won’t be able to believe the results. Because in that hearing, he did lie several times.”
Watch Van Hollen’s appearance on “Meet the Press” below.
