Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) called out FBI Director Kash Patel for not knowing the white supremacist and mass shooter Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine Black people at a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015.
“Dylann Roof, who followed white supremacist propaganda, murdered nine Black parishioners in 2015. Do you deny this?” Kamlager-Dove asked Patel during a Wednesday hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
“I’m sorry. Dylann Roof?” Patel asked. “Can you give me some more information?”
Kamlager-Dove responded, “You’re head of the FBI. You probably know this. If you don’t know, that’s fine.”
“If you can give me a reminder, I’ve got a lot in front of me,” Patel said in response.
“It was national news,” Kamlager-Dove replied.
Watch the exchange above.
Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
Kamlager-Dove was questioning Patel about mass murderers and their motivations on Wednesday. Patel has faced two days of hearings in both chambers of Congress, during which he was also questioned about the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Patel’s loyalty to President Donald Trump.
Patel defended the FBI’s work in arresting Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old who is suspected of shooting and killing Kirk last week at Utah Valley University. Patel said putting out surveillance camera images of Robinson “led to his apprehension.”
But lawmakers questioned Patel about his premature announcement the day of Kirk’s death that the FBI had caught the suspect. (The FBI had temporarily detained a person of interest, but he was not the suspected shooter.)
“I’m seeing FBI leadership more focused on social media clout and on political revenge than on fighting crime,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said.
Patel also got into a heated exchange with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) after Booker told Patel that he wouldn’t last long as head of the FBI.
“You are an embarrassment to the division of this country!” Patel yelled at Booker in response, adding, “Your time is over.”
“You don’t tell me my time is over! The people of New Jersey tell me when my time is — you can’t lecture me!” Booker yelled back.
While questioning Patel, Kamlager-Dove listed off names of mass shooters, including Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people inside a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. Kamlager-Dove asked Patel if he agreed with Trump that the “radicals on the left are the problem.”
Patel said there is ideology on both sides that leads to violence.