Kash Patel flips script on Dem senator after being grilled on J6 pardons: 'Brutal reality check'

"So do you think that America is safer because the 1,600 people have been given an opportunity to come out of serving their sentences and live in our communities again?" Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Patel during Thursday's hearing, pressing him on Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police officers having their sentences commuted earlier this month.

"Senator, I have not looked at all 1,600 individual cases," Patel said.

"I have always advocated for imprisoning those that cause harm to our law enforcement and civilian communities. I also believe America is not safer because President Biden's commutation of a man who murdered two FBI agents. Agent Coler and Williams' family deserve better than to have the man that point-blank range fired a shotgun into their heads and murdered them, released from prison. So it goes both ways."

Durbin responded by downplaying the comparison between Peltier and the Jan. 6 rioters.

"Leonard Peltier was in prison for 45 years," Durbin responded. "He's 80 years old, and he was sentenced to home confinement. So he's not free. As you might have just suggested. He killed two FBI agents. That he did, and he went to prison for it and should have. My question to you, though, is, do you think America's safer because President Trump issued these pardons to 1,600 of these criminal defendants, many of whom violently assaulted our police in the Capitol?"

Patel responded, "Senator, America will be safe when we don't have 200,000 drug overdoses in two years. America will be safe when we don't have 50 homicides a day."

Conservatives and supporters of Patel on social media praised Patel for his response.

In his opening remarks, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said, "Public trust in the FBI is low."

"Only 41% of the American public thinks the FBI is doing a good job. This is the lowest rating in a century," he continued.

Grassley touted Patel's experience as a public defender and at the Justice Department, as well as his involvement in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017 to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

Patel has "managed large intelligence and defense bureaucracies, identified and countered national security threats, prosecuted and defended criminals," Grassley said. "He has done this while fighting for transparency and accountability in the government," giving him "precisely the qualifications we need at this time" to head up the bureau.

Patel's nomination has sparked early criticism from some Democrats ahead of his confirmation hearing, who have cited his previous vows to prosecute journalists and career officials at the Justice Department and FBI that he sees as being part of the "deep state."

Fox News Digital's Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.