The US senate has narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as director of the FBI.
The move places him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite doubts from Democrats about his qualifications and concerns he will do Donald Trump’s bidding and go after the Republican president’s adversaries.
“I cannot imagine a worse choice,” Senator Dick Durbin told colleagues before the 51-49 vote by the Republican-controlled senate.
Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the lone Republican holdouts.
A Trump loyalist who has fiercely criticised the agency, Mr Patel will inherit an FBI gripped by turmoil as the Justice Department over the past month has forced out a group of senior bureau officials and made a highly unusual demand for the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to the January 6 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
Mr Patel has spoken of his desire to implement major changes at the FBI, including a reduced footprint at headquarters in Washington and a renewed emphasis on the bureau’s traditional crime-fighting duties rather than the intelligence-gathering and national security work that has come to define its mandate over the past two decades.
But he also echoed Mr Trump’s desire for retribution.
Mr Patel raised alarm among Democrats for saying before he was nominated that he would “come after” anti-Trump “conspirators” in the federal government and the media.