Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) pressed FBI Director Kash Patel to explain a series of “extremely troubling stories” regarding FBI investigations into journalists and reports of Patel ordering polygraphs and other measures to try to root out leakers.

“I want to ask you about a number of extremely troubling stories recently about your leadership and temperament, and what’s happened to the FBI with you at the top. And in response to all the concerns about your leadership, instead of righting the ship, you’ve taken to polygraphing your employees to scare them and attempt to rat out leakers,” Murray began during Tuesday’s budget hearing, adding:

There are reports that you’re using FBI resources to investigate journalists for reporting. What’s going on? And that is absolutely not what this committee intended when we funded the Bureau. So can you commit to this committee today that no agent hours have been pulled from other work—like counterterrorism or violent crime investigations—to work on matters related to negative press about you or your personal lawsuit?

Patel replied, “Senator, I greatly appreciate the question, and I continue to say unequivocally: This FBI is targeting and investigating no journalists. This FBI is targeting and investigating no journalists. The Obama and Biden administrations targeted dozens of journalists and sent out 1,200 interviews.”

Murray pushed back, “I didn’t ask you about the Biden administration. I asked if you can commit to this committee that no agent hours have been pulled from other work.”
“We have not done so,” insisted Patel.

Murray replied, “Okay, well there are reports that you are using FBI resources to investigate journalists. You are saying to this committee today that that is not true.”

“That’s correct,” said Patel.

New York Times investigative reporter Michael S. Schmidt revealed in late April that the FBI investigated one of his colleagues after she wrote on an unflattering story about Patel.

Schmidt reported that the FBI started investigating Elizabeth Williamson, a Washington DC based features writer for the Times, in March. Williamson penned a report on Patel’s use of government resources to give his country singer girlfriend Alexis Wilkins both security and transportation. “Kash Patel’s Girlfriend Seeks Fame and Fortune, Escorted by an F.B.I. SWAT Team,” was the title of Williamson’s article on the subject, which ran in late February.

The FBI responded to the Times’s request for comment at the time and confirmed the investigation, but added that “while investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking” the bureau is not looking at a case against Williamson.

Patel is currently suing The Atlantic for $250 million after the publication ran a story in which two dozen witnesses alleged Patel has engaged in “bouts of excessive drinking” and had “unexplained absences,” causing concern at the Department of Justice.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

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