Kash Patel can’t say how many non-citizen voting probes FBI is pursuing

By Brentin Mock

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's choice to be director of the FBI, appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FBI Director Kash Patel testified before a House committee Thursday that he didn’t know the number of active investigations the bureau is conducting into foreigners voting in U.S. elections.

“We have a number of investigations, generally speaking,” Patel told Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence committee.

Himes then asked Patel if it would surprise him to learn that the conservative Heritage Foundation’s research turned up just 77 cases of non-citizen voting between 1999 and 2023. “No, because it’s low,” Patel replied, apparently meaning that he believes the real number is higher.

Himes was seeking an explanation for why Congress needed to “grind to a halt” for debate over the SAVE America Act – which would require citizenship documentation for voter registration – when so few instances of non-citizens voting existed in the first place. President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that he wouldn’t sign any more bills until the SAVE America Act l was passed. Republican backers of the bill in the Senate are pushing for a “talking filibuster” in hopes of circumventing the fact that they don’t have the 60 votes needed to pass it.

Meanwhile, Dems on the panel were still seeking answers for why the FBI raided Fulton County, Georgia offices in January, and is investigating Maricopa County, Arizona – both spurred by false claims that voter fraud tainted the 2020 election. Himes said he was “puzzled” that, despite these FBI probes, there were no mentions of fraudulent non-citizen voting dangers in the agency’s recent Annual Threat Assessment report.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard – already under fire for recently suggesting Trump had advance knowledge of the Fulton County raid – also couldn’t produce answers about why the raid was necessary.  

She was asked directly if there was any credible intelligence of foreign interference in the 2020 elections and could only say that she was “continuing to look into the matter.”