Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) took a cautious approach to Kash Patel, President-elect Trump’s nominee to serve as head of the FBI, highlighting his support for current FBI director Chris Wray.
“I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds told ABC “This Week” on Sunday.
“When we meet with him behind closed doors, I’ve had no objections to the way that he’s handled himself, and so I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now,” the GOP senator added about Wray.
Wray was nominated by Trump in 2017 to serve a 10-year term leading the FBI. Trump’s announcement on Saturday indicated he plans to fire Wray and replace him with Patel, a staunch and loyal ally and controversial figure.
“Once again, the president has the right to make nominations, but normally these are for a ten-year term. We’ll see what his process is, and whether he actually makes that nomination,” Rounds said. “[O]nce they’ve been nominated by the president, then the president gets… the benefit of the doubt on the nomination, but we still go through a process, and that process includes advice and consent, which, for the Senate, means advice or consent sometimes.”
Patel is expected to face a tough confirmation fight in the Senate over his complicated background, which includes his role in seeking to discredit the Democrats’ investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia while working as an adviser on the House Intelligence Committee.
Rounds added on Sunday that he wasn’t surprised by Trump’s selection of Patel, noting that picking loyalists has been key to the president-elect’s future Cabinet.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he will pick people that he believes are very loyal to himself, and that’s been a part of the process,” Rounds said. “Every president wants people that are loyal to themselves.”
When questioned on if he thinks it’s a mistake on Trump’s part to fire Wray, Rounds replied, “We don’t speak for the president-elect. We simply respond when we’re asked questions about what we’re going to do.”
“The message, and one that I feel very strongly about, is, is that there is a constitutional separation. The founding fathers did that for a reason,” the senator added. “We accept that the president should have the people that he wants in his cabinet, and on his team. Every president wants that. We give them the benefit of the doubt.”
