Kash Patel indicated he had no clue about the name of the white supremacist who carried out the Charleston church shooting.
The FBI director appeared on Capitol Hill for a second day of grilling on Wednesday, where he was asked about a wide range of topics, including the mass murderer Dylann Roof.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove was questioning Patel on violent extremism.
“Dylann Roof, who followed white supremacist propaganda, murdered nine black parishioners in Charleston in 2015. Do you deny this?” the California congresswoman asked.
The FBI director did not straight out deny it, but his response suggested he did not know who Roof was.
“I’m sorry, Dylann Roof?” he asked. “Can you give me some more information?”
“You’re head of the FBI, you probably know this. If you don’t know, that’s fine,” she replied.
“You can give me a reminder. I have a lot in front of me,” Patel responded.
Kamlager-Dove went on to bring up white nationalist Robert Bowers, who gunned down 11 Jewish congregants at a Pittsburgh, PA synagogue in 2018.
The FBI director confirmed that he did remember that deadly mass shooting.
“I’m not saying the other thing didn’t happen, I’m just asking for a little information,” Patel added, referencing the Charleston shooting.
The line of questioning came as some pro-MAGA officials have claimed that violent extremism is a problem of the far-left rather than both sides in the wake of the tragic shooting death of far-right activist Charlie Kirk.
The congresswoman brought up the shooting and President Donald Trump’s response on Fox & Friends, saying that it was the left that had a problem. She asked if Patel agreed with the president.
“I don’t speak for the president. The president speaks for himself,” the FBI director responded.
“Do you agree with the president?” she followed up.
Patel claimed that Trump had said there was ideology on both sides driving violence, which was not what the president had said.
Trump said radicals on the right were oftentimes radical “because they don’t want to see crime,” but the radicals on the left, “are the problem.”
Separately in the hearing, Patel did acknowledge that it was a problem for both sides.
But his lack of knowledge about the massacre of black churchgoers during Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina just ten years ago did not sit well with the Democratic lawmaker.
Kamlager-Dove later posted a clip of her questioning about Roof.
“It’s incredibly shameful and concerning that Kash Patel doesn’t know about one of the most heinous hate crimes against Black Americans in the last decade,” she wrote.
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