FBI Director Kash Patel published his own enemies list in 2022, but he doesn’t want to be held accountable now that he’s actually taken retribution against them.
Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Patel plainly rejected that he had ever drafted the kind of list that he included in his book Government Gangsters, which made reference to dozens of individuals who he claimed were “a cabal of unelected tyrants.” But the proof was in the pudding.
“It appears to me that there have been adverse actions of various kinds taken against about 20 of the 60 people on your enemies list,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “You’ve been in office for seven months. At that rate, you’ve got 14 months until you’ve hit all 60.
“Can you explain that?” asked Whitehouse.
“Again, that is an entirely inaccurate presupposition,” Patel said. “I do not have an enemies list.
“You can continue to characterize it as you wish, the only actions we take—generally speaking—for personnel at the FBI are what’s based on merit qualifications and your ability to uphold your constitutional duty. You fall short, you won’t work there anymore,” he added.
“Well, there was a list,” Whitehouse said. “You don’t like it to be called an enemies list, but it had about 60 names, and about 20 have had adverse actions. So I think those are pretty clear facts.”
PATEL: I do not have an enemies listWHITEHOUSE: Well there was a list. It had about 60 names and about 20 have had an adverse action. So those are I think pretty clear facts. pic.twitter.com/owlLswFl6U
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 16, 2025
Some of those names included former President Joe Biden, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, former FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former USAID administrator Samantha Power.
When Patel’s name was floated in December as an option to run the FBI, Paul Rosenzweig, the former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, warned that Patel would be the “poster child of vindictiveness.”
“His infamous public declarations of retribution may lead to the dismissal of any politically motivated prosecutions he initiates against his enemies list of ‘Deep State’ opponents,” Rosenzweig wrote in The Bulwark at the time.
But a fire appears to be growing against Patel in the inner echelons of the Trump administration. Patel’s clumsy handling of the manhunt for Charlie Kirk’s killer left the White House thoroughly unimpressed, with insiders reportedly on the lookout for Patel’s replacement.
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