During the hearing, Patel defended the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files, saying the FBI had complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act and court orders and had released about 3.5 million pages of records, Anadolu Agency reported.
“We have complied with the statute,” Patel said, adding that the bureau would review any genuinely new information.
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Democratic senators accused the FBI of shielding President Donald Trump from political fallout related to Epstein while failing to provide survivors with sufficient transparency and accountability. Patel rejected the criticism.
The FBI director also defended his decision to file a defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic and journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick over a report alleging that he has a drinking problem that affected his work.
“She printed false material. I’m taking her to court,” Patel said, arguing that he was entitled to defend himself as a private citizen.
Asked by Democratic Sen. Peter Welch whether the FBI had investigated Fitzpatrick, Patel said it had not. “The FBI investigates criminals, and the FBI does not investigate personal matters,” he said, following reports that the bureau had opened an investigation into the journalist.
The hearing also focused on the January shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis during a controversial immigration enforcement operation.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota questioned Patel about whether the FBI would support criminal investigations and provide information to the victims’ families.
“We will fully support all those investigations,” Patel said, regardless of whether they were conducted by state or federal authorities. He added that the FBI would support timely and thorough investigations of officer-involved shootings when it was the lead agency.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension previously said the FBI had prevented it from examining evidence related to the shootings.
Sen. Dick Durbin also questioned Patel about FBI investigations into shootings involving federal immigration officers in Illinois, including the shooting of Marimar Martinez by a Border Patrol agent and the killing of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez by an ICE agent.
Patel said those investigations remained ongoing and involved multiple federal agencies. He said the FBI needed to coordinate with state and local authorities before the Justice Department could determine what action to take.
Patel also defended a policy change removing certain incidents of bestiality or animal cruelty committed before the age of 18 from the FBI’s list of automatic hiring disqualifiers.
He said the change was intended to prevent victims of trafficking or coercion from being automatically excluded from employment with the bureau.
“We are not going to criminalize and prevent victims from serving the United States,” Patel said.
Republican Sen. John Kennedy questioned why the FBI had addressed the issue. Patel acknowledged that he initially had a similar reaction but said officials had presented him with cases involving people who had been forced into such acts.
Patel highlighted what he described as the FBI’s public safety achievements, citing 54,000 violent-crime arrests, more than 5,000 arrests of child predators and human traffickers, and the seizure of more than 3,200 kilograms (7,055 pounds) of fentanyl.
Democratic senators disputed Patel’s characterization of the bureau’s record and accused him of politicizing the FBI. Durbin described Patel as “the least qualified and most partisan FBI director” in US history.
