WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted against another of President Trump’s nominees: Kash Patel, who was nonetheless confirmed Thursday as FBI director.
“My reservations with Mr. Patel stem from his own prior political activities and how they may influence his leadership,” she wrote in a social media post. “The FBI must be trusted as the federal agency that roots out crime and corruption, not focused on settling political scores.”
She and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine were the only Republicans to vote no, resulting in a 51-49 vote.
Democrats cast Patel as an unqualified candidate whose key attribute is fierce loyalty to Trump. They warn Patel is going to use the FBI to carry out Trump’s revenge agenda, a view bolstered by a book Patel wrote in 2023 called “Government Gangsters.” He lists 60 names in the appendix, though Patel denies it’s an enemies list.
Murkowski said she started out skeptical of Patel, because of the book.
“Basically, you know, it's his own little hit list, and it's like, that's not appropriate,” she said in an interview in her office last week.
But she said she and Patel found common ground on an issue: the need to weed out agents who are bad eggs. The prosecution of former Sen. Ted Stevens, she said, alerted her to the danger.
“Every now and again, we learn of instances where it is not on the up and up. It is not what it should be, and that destroys the trust,” she said. “And when the trust is frayed, we've got real problems.”
In the end, that shared value wasn’t enough to overcome her objections to Patel.
“I have been disappointed that when he had the opportunity to push back on the administration’s decision to force the FBI to provide a list of agents involved in the January 6 investigations and prosecutions, he failed to do so,” she wrote.
Murkowski has voted against two Trump nominees so far this term: Patel, and Pete Hegseth, now the secretary of defense. In her view, both have taken actions that disqualify them from serving.
She’s voted for others, like Robert Kennedy for health secretary, that she still has serious reservations about. She said she needs agency leaders to return her calls about Alaska’s priorities.
“My responsibility here is … to the Alaskans that I represent,” she said. “And if I can't figure out a way to work with these people that are now part of this incoming administration, if I can't work [with] them, I'm not helping Alaskans. I’m not being able to deliver their concerns.”
She said she’s already had an early success with Kennedy, whom Murkowski said has been charged with cutting 10% of the Department of Health and Human Services. She said she reached him by phone last weekend.
“And after we had our conversation, he committed to me that there were going to be no reductions at IHS, [the] Indian Health Service, on his watch,” she said. “It was important to have that line of communication.”
