Patel’s nomination heads for a full Senate confirmation vote in the early afternoon.
WASHINGTON—The Senate voted 51–47 to advance the nomination of Kash Patel for head of the FBI on Thursday.
The final vote is scheduled for 1:45 p.m. ET.
Patel gained fame for exposing alleged FBI and Justice Department malfeasance during the Crossfire Hurricane probe into the 2016 Trump campaign.
If confirmed, he would lead an agency that President Donald Trump and some Republicans have accused of being weaponized for political purposes.
“There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI should I be confirmed as the FBI director,” Patel said during a Jan. 30 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.
During the hearing, Patel condemned the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and denied having an “enemies list”—an allegation stemming from a list of names at the end of Patel’s book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.”
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In an appendix to the book, Patel described the individuals named as “members of the executive branch deep state.”
In the same hearing, Patel pledged to aid Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in identifying those implicated in the child sex trafficking activities of Jeffrey