The FBI has helped produce what Director Kash Patel told senators Tuesday is the largest drop in homicides in history, while also increasing arrests of violent criminals and rescues of child victims and capturing all 10 of its most wanted fugitives.
He also made the case for Flock cameras, saying they have helped track down kidnapped children, and he pleaded for more money to combat the twin emerging threats of drones and artificial intelligence.
He also dismissed Democrats’ complaints that he is a “thug” and is taking too many vacation days, saying he has taken fewer days off than either of his two predecessors, Christopher A. Wray and James B. Comey, based on flight records provided to Congress, while tweaking travel protocols to save taxpayer money.
His broader point was that he has led a remake of the FBI, ousting agents who had weaponized the bureau for political crusades and restoring the core mission to “crush crime.”
To do that, he said he has reduced the FBI’s footprint in Washington and pushed agents into the field, with major deployments in formerly crime-ridden cities such as Memphis, Tennessee, and Baltimore. They have seen major drops in crime.
“This has been the most prolific run of crime reduction in United States history,” Mr. Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He cited some of the national yardsticks: 31,000 violent gang members arrested, 11,081 child victims located, 5,072 child predators and traffickers arrested and 1,100 potential terrorist acts stopped.
Democrats were unmoved.
Sen. Cory Booker, New Jersey Democrat, called him a “thug” and chided him for being seen celebrating in Italy with the U.S. Olympic hockey team after the men won the gold medal in February.
“He’s like an 18-year-old kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of, doing keg stands and chugging with friends,” Mr. Booker said.
Sen. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, complained about the departures of agents who worked on investigations against President Trump, suggesting Mr. Patel had illegally purged them over politics.
He retorted that the majority of those agents had retired even before he took over at the FBI, after his confirmation in February 2025, and that the ones he did oust were pushed out because they “weaponized law enforcement.”
Mr. Schiff warned Mr. Patel that if Democrats gain control of a chamber of Congress after the November elections, he will face new scrutiny over the ousters, and he ordered the director to preserve all the records concerning the matter.
Things got testy when Sen. Peter Welch, Vermont Democrat, peppered the director about whether he agreed with Mr. Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and whether he would send personnel to intervene in the midterm elections.
Mr. Patel sidestepped Mr. Trump’s comments, saying the president has a right to his opinions, and he said the FBI always has personnel in each of its 56 field offices assigned as crisis coordinators during elections.
When Mr. Welch persisted in those questions, Mr. Patel unloaded on him.
“I want to know how your wealth increased 4,000% since you became a United States senator,” the FBI director said without citing evidence.
“Let’s knock it off,” Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, scolded the two.
Mr. Patel called artificial intelligence “literally the new frontier” in criminal behavior and said investigators struggle to gain access to the technology AI firms use, so the FBI can respond when AI agents go “rogue.”
Mr. Patel said the FBI does not need new laws, but it needs “a lot of money.”
He said the trick will be in figuring out whom to charge — and the answer probably will not be the AI makers themselves.
“We can’t be punishing people if they created something lawfully and then a criminal took it, changed it and dispersed it,” he said.
On Flock cameras, Mr. Patel challenged the growing chorus of voices complaining about overzealous surveillance by the privately operated cameras that communities contract for their neighborhoods.
He said the cameras, which use license plate readers to track vehicle movements, are in public places where there is no expectation of privacy. The FBI seeks assistance from camera operators on a case-by-case basis when it needs to track a target.
He said that it is particularly important in cases where a child has been snatched, and the FBI needs leads. Agents might have a photo of a car, and they take it to Flock, which can then use its license plate reader technology to track the vehicle.
“We have saved children over and over again from these child predators, we’ve retrieved these victims, we’ve also prosecuted these kidnappers,” he said.
Mr. Patel also said it was a Flock camera that helped Providence police and the FBI track down the man who perpetrated the mass shooting attack on Brown University on Dec. 13, 2025.
He said the cameras at the university were not very good and they could not get any facial recognition of the man, but they did get a license plate from a Flock camera.
“We were then able to trace that license plate to the individual and his scheme and ultimately find that individual,” Mr. Patel said. When authorities closed in on Claudio Neves Valente, he took his own life.
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