FBI At the Polls Bc I’m Annoyed

FBI Director Kash Patel appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and seemed, at least initially, interested in following federal laws against deploying armed federal law enforcement to polling places this fall.

Under federal law, armed federal agents or members of the military cannot be deployed to “any place where a general or special election is held.” That’s established. The reason that Democrats are routinely pressing Patel, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, the head of the Defense Department and other Trump administration officials about whether federal law enforcement officers — whether it’s FBI agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers or others — might be deployed to the polls this fall is because President Trump has been agitating around the idea for some time.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Trump was vocal about his interest in deploying the military domestically to seize voting machines in counties he thought he should have won. Since then, and in the wake of his second term’s nationwide immigration crackdown — the lethality of which has prompted widespread backlash and protests — his allies outside of the administration have been pushing the White House to send ICE officers to the polls in the midterms. Trump’s allies, like podcaster Steve Bannon, have promoted the line that Democrats win elections only when they cheat and have noncitizen voters cast ballots in federal elections for them. The conspiracy theory has been debunked repeatedly over the years, but Trump’s belief in it has formed the basis of most of his legislative agenda for his second term — and has animated all of his Justice Department’s efforts to seize the constitutionally-protected right to administer elections from the states.

‘Don’t Know That We Can’t Legally Do It’

While Patel initially stuck to boilerplate lines about how he has done nothing but follow the law during his tenure as FBI chief, he also suggested that he thinks it is not necessarily illegal for FBI agents to be sent to polling places. It appears he may have been arguing that agents are allowed to follow up on violations of law, a line that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has used when asked if ICE agents might be sent to the polls. (“The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down,” Mullin said earlier this month. “If we’re serving a warrant we will be where we need to be.”)

“I don’t know that we can’t legally do it,” Patel said in response to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asking him to commit to not sending FBI agents to the polls in November. Patel said that he would follow the law and keep agents and intelligence analysts stationed at FBI field offices in case there were any election security-related issues to address.

“The FBI will follow the law,” Patel said. “If there’s a reason to go there, because there’s been a violation of law, we will, otherwise we won’t.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) questioned him about Justice Department policy that restricts federal law enforcement activities or investigations at polling places on Election Day.

“Are you aware of the Justice Department’s long-standing guidance that states that FBI agents cannot conduct investigations inside polling places on Election Day, and that federal prosecutors have no authority to send FBI special agents or deploy U.S. Marshals to polling places?” Klobuchar asked.

“I’m aware,” Patel replied.

“Will you commit to following clear federal law and DOJ policy and not deploy federal agents to polling places?” she asked.

“We will always follow the law and the guidelines,” he said.

But when Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) began questioning Patel about the matter, Patel started wildly obfuscating.