BALLOT BULLY

Keystone Kash Issues Chilling Elections Threat

The FBI director got into a heated exchange with a Democratic senator during a fractious hearing.

FBI Director Kash Patel has refused to rule out sending federal agents into polling stations at the November midterms.

Senators repeatedly pressed Patel, 46, to say he would not send operatives to the polls, but he avoided any commitment.

And during a furious back-and-forth with Democratic Sen. Peter Welch, 79, at the Judiciary Committee’s annual bureau oversight hearing, Patel said that “election integrity is of paramount importance,” and that “this FBI will not shy away from that effort.”

KASHING OUT

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It is less than two months before the midterms, and Donald Trump, 80, says his party can only lose if their opponents cheat. His efforts to sow doubt ahead of the vote, with Democrats holding a 7-point lead, have sparked fears of interference on the day.

The FBI has always probed election-related crimes from behind the scenes, rather than deploying agents to polling stations. Patel said at Tuesday’s hearing that the bureau would “follow the law,” only to change course when Sen. Welch pushed him on it.

“We have an election crimes community coordinator, so you bet we’re going to have them there, and manning the post for election interference matters,” Patel told the Democrat, who replied: “I thought you weren’t going to be sending people to the polls?”

“When did you hear that? Just another lie,” the FBI director shot back. He then accused the senator of “lying about the men and women of the FBI so you can have a four-second campaign ad.”

When Welch again asked if he would make the “existential” pledge not to “interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November,” Patel replied: “I have pledged unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies.”

Welch asked why Patel was continuing to be a “panderer” to Trump’s claims over cheating in 2020 and the midterms, to which the FBI director replied: “What I believe in is the rule of law.”

The senator also told Patel that his responses suggested little would be done to protect November’s polls, run by states and local authorities, from undue influence by the president’s loyalists within the federal government, including Patel himself.

“This is about whether United States citizens—Republicans, Democrats, independents—are the deciders of this election or there is election interference led by the FBI and the Trump administration,” Welch said.

CONSIRACY TIME

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The Daily Beast has contacted the bureau for comment on this story.

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