Days before this week’s high-stakes confirmation hearing of Kash Patel to be FBI director, a bureau insider has come forward with new information questioning Patel’s judgment during sensitive hostage rescue missions, CBS News has learned.
The whistleblower, whose identity is being withheld by Senate Democrats for fear of retaliation, worked with the FBI’s Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, which leads the government’s missions to rescue hostages overseas. The whistleblower alleges that Patel violated firmly entrenched protocols to keep such operations under wraps until the captives are safely in U.S. hands and their families have been notified.
In a letter obtained by CBS News, Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote that Patel, while serving on the National Security Council during the first Trump term, “broke protocol regarding hostage rescues by publicly commenting without authorization on the then-in-progress retrieval of two Americans held captive by Iranian-backed militants in Yemen in October 2020.”
According to the letter, on Oct. 14 at 10:55 a.m., the Wall Street Journal published a story in which Patel confirmed that the two American captives and the remains of a third were exchanged for two hundred Houthi fighters who were being held in Saudi Arabia. According to the letter, the news report was published “several hours before the hostages were in the confirmed custody of the United States.” In the end the Americans returned home safely, but FBI officials involved in the mission were livid over Patel’s leak, which they regarded as reckless and potentially risking tragic results.
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Democratic senators sent the letter Monday morning to Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Acting Treasury Secretary David Lebryk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It asks for all records of communications between Patel and the FBI’s Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell concerning the rescue of the captives, as well as any records reflecting authorization for him to disclose the hostage deal before there was confirmation that the Americans were safely in U.S, hands.
No Republican senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee signed the letter.
A source close to the confirmation said in response to the allegations, “Mr. Patel was a public defender, decorated prosecutor and accomplished national security official that kept Americans safe. He has a track record of success in every branch of government, from the court room to congressional hearing room to the situation room. There is no veracity to this anonymous source’s complaints about protocol.”
The Durbin letter offers a glimpse into the Democratic strategy for Thursday’s confirmation hearing. Knowledgeable sources tell CBS News that senators will seek to show that Patel has engaged in a pattern of poor judgment and self-aggrandizement regarding sensitive life-and-death missions and use that portrayal to cast doubt on his fitness to lead the FBI.
The letter says any official “who puts missions or the lives of Americans in jeopardy for public notoriety and personal gain is unfit to lead the country’s primary federal law enforcement and investigative agency.”
The Democrats plan to highlight another instance where Patel has been criticized for his handling of a sensitive operation aimed at freeing American captives. Two weeks after the Yemen hostage deal, Patel found himself in the middle of another high-risk operation. Philip Walton was a 27-year-old American who had been seized by armed men at his farm in Niger, near the Nigerian border.
The kidnappers transported Walton to Nigeria and demanded a million dollars in ransom. There were also indications that the kidnappers were contemplating turning him over to a terrorist group operating in the region. Patel was accompanying President Trump on a visit to Fort Bragg, the military installation in North Carolina that is home to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. While they were there, Patel received intelligence that Walton would be held at an encampment for several hours, enough time to stage a daring Seal Team 6 raid to rescue the hostage. Mr. Trump signed off on the operation, which involved parachuting into Northern Nigeria and trekking for miles to the compound where Walton was being held.
Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper had greenlit the plan, but there were still some final questions that needed to be answered before he could give the go order – primarily whether the Nigerian government had given the U.S. permission to use its air space. According to Esper’s memoir, Patel, who was the senior director for counterterrorism at the time, assured Defense Department officials that the State Department had received the necessary permission from the Nigerians. But Patel’s information was incorrect: the Nigerians had not given their approval.
By this time, Air Force planes carrying the Navy SEALs were in the air just a few miles from the Nigerian border. Esper wrote in his memoir, “A Sacred Oath,” he realized the government had to make an agonizing decision. He told the White House they could go forward with the operation and risk having their planes shot down — or abort the mission and miss a crucial opportunity to save Walton. But at the last minute, word came that the State Department had received clearance to use Nigerian airspace. The mission went forward, was executed flawlessly, and Walton was returned to safety.
But Esper and other officials were furious at the role Patel had played, believing he had inserted himself into the operation in violation of regular protocol, and then nearly botched it by transmitting false information. According to Esper’s account, Patel’s carelessness carried significant risk for the SEALs.
“I was concerned that being packed in an aircraft burning holes in the sky for an extra hour or so would wear on the special operators, that it might affect their readiness somehow,” he wrote in his memoir.
Esper also wrote of the incident, “My team suspected Patel made the approval story up, but they didn’t have all the facts.”
Patel has denied Esper’s version of events. In his own book, “Government Gangsters,” Patel portrays Esper as a “deep-state” actor who “always seemed to be subverting the president’s agenda,” including by putting up obstacles to counterterrorism raids in Africa and the Middle East.” He argued that Mr. Trump had the ultimate authority to order the mission.
Last week, Durbin met with Patel and asked him about Esper’s account of his role in the nearly botched Nigerian raid. Sources said Patel again refuted Esper’s version of events. Durbin did not yet have the whistleblower’s information about the Yemen hostage deal, but he is expected to closely question the FBI nominee about that episode at Thursday’s confirmation hearing.
However Patel’s answers those questions, there is no suspense as to how Durbin and his fellow Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote. After his meeting with Patel, Durbin issued a statement saying he will not vote to confirm Patel.
“Kash Patel has neither the experience, the temperament, nor the judgment to lead the FBI,” his statement said.
