Donald Trump pick Kash Patel must prove he’ll restore public faith in the FBI, a leading GOP Senator says

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He added: “That can be sometimes advice, sometimes it is consent.”

Other Republicans who appeared on the Sunday news shows at the end of the Thanksgiving holiday and before returning to work this week were in Patel’s corner.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, said Patel “represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI. … The entire agency needs to be cleaned out.” He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “there are serious problems at the FBI. The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping change, and Kash Patel’s just the type of person to do it.”

He said Patel has “relevant experience” to head the FBI and “he’s the one that can see through the fix here.”

During Trump’s first term, Patel was an aide to the then-Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee before taking roles at the White House National Security Council and later at the Defense Department.

Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday night in a social media post.

Patel has called for a “comprehensive housecleaning” of government workers who are disloyal to Trump and has referred to journalists as traitors, promising to try to prosecute some reporters.

The selection is in keeping with Trump’s view that the government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries. It also shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him.

Grassley said in his post that Wray “has failed at fundamental duties” and that it was time to “chart a new course 4 TRANSPARENCY +ACCOUNTABILITY at FBI.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said Patel was a “very strong nominee,” and he thought Patel would be confirmed.

“All of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI,” Cruz told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”