Kash Patel, President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has called the top ranks of the bureau “a threat to the people” and published a list of enemies, vowing retribution for investigations of top Republicans.
He appears — at least for now — to be on a glide path for confirmation, with Republican senators lining up enthusiastically behind him.
As Mr. Patel made the rounds on Capitol Hill this week ahead of his confirmation hearing, he received almost universal praise from G.O.P. members, even those who had raised concerns about some of Mr. Trump’s other picks.
“Kash Patel is the real deal,” said Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of the conference’s more moderate members. “President Trump campaigned on the promise to enforce our laws equally and fairly and restore the integrity of the F.B.I.”
Mr. Patel’s warm welcome is fueled in part by an eagerness among Republicans to avoid incurring the wrath of Mr. Trump and his base after a groundswell of anger at Senate pushback to his picks to lead the Pentagon and the Department of Justice, Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz.
But it also reflects the extent to which a deep distrust of the F.B.I. has become Republican orthodoxy. Following Mr. Trump’s lead, Republicans in Congress have emerged as the chief antagonists of the bureau, deriding it as an institution rotted by corruption and partisanship.
