Peter Welch: “I oppose Kash Patel. I believe he is the dangerously wrong choice to serve as Director of the FBI. We all have great…”

“I oppose Kash Patel. I believe he is the dangerously wrong choice to serve as Director of the FBI. We all have great admiration for the FBI. The men and women there serve our Nation, do hard work every day. For decades, they have served as the nonpolitical Agency that protects us and defends the rule of law. I believe that Mr. Patel is on a mission to wreck the FBI. It is his own words. He wants to turn the FBI building into a monument or museum to the deep state. You know, I believe that this country and Congress is in the midst of a slow-moving but rapidly accelerating constitutional crisis. This is real, and we can ignore it or see it. It began most visibly, of course, on January 6, 2021, when two norms of this Republic--the peaceful transfer of power and the renunciation of violence to affect the outcome of the vote count and certification-- were breached, and where many Members of the House and Senate also voted against certifying the election of the person chosen by the people in their own States. The President continues to say that the election was stolen, and he has coached his nominees to embrace the big lie. The first month of the Trump administration has shown the contempt for the Constitution and the acceptance of lawlessness that is dangerous to the future of our Republic. President Trump's election denialism was an early sign of his disregard for the norms and requirements of the Constitution.…”