Kash Patel faces questions on Charlie Kirk investigation in congressional hearings

FBI Director Kash Patel kicked off two days of questioning on Tuesday from congressional committees about his tenure leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation so far. He's also sure to get questions about the assassination of conservative activist and influencer Charlie Kirk last week.

Patel will first be in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in its oversight role of the agency before he faces its House counterpart on Wednesday.

Patel has been criticized for his handling of the Kirk investigation -- sharing on social media at one point that a suspect was in custody, but having to backtrack an hour and a half later -- but Patel has stood by his performance, touting the fact that the FBI caught the Kirk's suspected shooter in less than 36 hours.

Ranking Member Dick Durbin, a Democrat, slammed Patel during his opening remarks on Tuesday, saying Patel sparked "mass confusion" in his posts about Kirk's killing.

Kirk was killed in Utah on Wednesday and the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was caught after his father turned him in to authorities on Friday. Patel contends this only happened because he ordered "against all law enforcement recommendations," as he said on X on Saturday, the release of video and enhanced photos of the suspect.

"For comparative sake, the Boston bombing, the FBI didn't release images for three days," Patel told "Fox & Friends" on Monday morning. "I made an executive decision on an investigative and operational need, and it turned out to be the right move."

He also addressed the criticism that he has faced for how he handled the investigation.

"I was telling the world what the FBI was doing as we were doing it. I continue to do it. I challenge anyone out there to find a director who has been more transparent and more willing to work the media with high profile cases or any cases that the FBI [is] handling."

For his part, President Donald Trump is standing behind Patel, telling Fox News on Saturday that "I am very proud of the FBI. Kash -- and everyone else -- they have done a great job."

Patel is also set to face questions on a host of other issues during his tenure at the FBI, including the firing of three senior agents who sued for reinstatement last week.

Brian Driscoll, who formerly served as the acting director of the FBI during the early days of Trump's second term, Steven Jensen, former acting director of the FBI's Washington field office, and former director in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas field office Spencer Evans all joined in the lawsuit represented by Abbe Lowell, an attorney who has represented other high-profile figures ousted or otherwise targeted by the Trump administration.

The three former officials, whose careers collectively spanned over six decades of law enforcement experience across the ranks of the FBI, allege that the firings violated their due process rights as well as their First Amendment rights to free association and speech.

"Patel not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people," the lawsuit alleges. "As explained herein, his decision to do so degraded the country's national security by firing three of the FBI's most experienced operational leaders, each of them experts in preventing terrorism and reducing violent crime."

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a member of the Judiciary Committee, told ABC News that the lawsuit "contains pretty damning allegations that are now sworn to as part of a court proceeding."

The director is also set to face questions about his so-called "enemies list," a campaign promise to root out who he saw as bad actors in government, as well as his use of the FBI plane.

Whitehouse told ABC News that Patel "brings a genuinely political motive to the repeated instances of political decision making at the FBI." He said it is "really, really, really, really ironic about the people who are supposedly so irate about weaponization is now doing weaponization at an unprecedented scale."

He is also expected to face questions over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The Trump administration has been dealing with blowback it received from MAGA supporters for its decision to not release more materials related to the investigation into Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019.

Epstein, whose private island estate was in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has long been rumored to have kept a "client list" of celebrities and politicians, which right-wing influencers have baselessly accused authorities of hiding.

Trump promised during the 2024 presidential campaign to release the files in their entirety and Patel before taking the FBI job had pushed unsubstantiated claims about who was in them.

The Justice Department and FBI announced in July that they had found no evidence that Epstein kept a client list after several top officials like Patel, before joining the administration, had themselves accused the government of shielding information regarding the case.

Last week, the House Oversight Committee released what it said was a note from Trump to Epstein on his birthday, which the White House and Trump deny was written by him.

On Sept. 2, the committee released more than 33,000 pages of Epstein-related records after it subpoenaed the Justice Department for them, but Democrats on the committee said that most of the files are already public.