During a Senate hearing to review the FBI’s FY2026 budget request, Director Kash Patel was forced to admit that, despite the law requiring it, he had no such request ready to review.

This surprising development came during an awkward back-and-forth with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat and Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which oversees and approves budget requests.

Senator Murray reminded the FBI Director that the budget request was legally required “last week,” and after the director responded, she surprisedly added, “And your answer is you just understand you’re not going to follow the law?”

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Mendacity.

      He knew. He didn’t care. He just put out his hand and dared the Senate not to give him a blank check.

      And he’s going to get that check, because Democrats more are terrified of looking obstructionist than of looking like they can govern.

  • kyle@lemm.ee
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    9 hours ago

    What does “legally required” here mean? I assume there’s supposed to be a punishment?

  • Gates9@sh.itjust.works
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    15 hours ago

    I wonder if they’re advising agency heads to do this so they can fuck with the budget for their wealthy tax break bill?

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      14 hours ago

      No, I think he’s that dumb. Look at the lies the Bush Jr. team came up with before the Iraq invasion. Those were great lies; handcrafted with Old World dedication and aged in oak barrels until they were perfect.

      These clowns are just incompetent.

      • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        People need to drop the “they’re incompetent” shtick if they beat you every time. Because if you get beat by people you think are incompetent, what does that make you?

        • Jhex@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          It implies nothing because it is not competence that is evaluated here.

          Republicans beat Democrats because:

          #1 A sizeable core of the American demographic cannot tell the difference between their elbow and a chair (too stupid) and are fearful of their own shadow

          #2 The alternative, the Democrats, are almost as incompetent as the Republicans making the distinction moot.

  • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    In the photo, the fucker looks like a little kid who didn’t do his homework and got caught in the lie.

    Hardly the brightest and the best.

    • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Well this doesn’t boad well for the branch.

      You let’s Tusli get away with her shit, maybe I should have fucked her too!

  • minorkeys@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Why would any of Trump’s administration care? None of them have been held accountable for anything, except to Trump.

      • Tiger@sh.itjust.works
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        12 hours ago

        Hey us poor whites get screwed over too! It’s not a race war (only) - it’s a class war.

        • walktheplank@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          Yea and you’re included in the use of the term Poor. Your education system has failed you and your society has blinded you.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I’m so tired of the theatrical outrage and shock and surprise. Of fucking course they’re working in bad faith. But no - let’s give all the fucking fascists the benefit of the doubt. You’re not allowed to be fucking surprised by this. It was all in the playbook. The playbook has been published openly on the internet since early 2020.

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Its not tin-foil hat, it’s Putin. Its always Putin, using Skum and HitlerPig as his muscle.

      When will people truly internalize that the two biggest foreign Sociopathic Oligarchs, have partnered up with the most prolific traitor in American history? None of them have any loyalty or patriotism toward America, and only see us as a big, rich, fat, lazy target to be ruthlessly exploited and looted, and it’s happening in real time before our eyes.

      All they care about is money, and either Putin is paying them directly out of the Russian Treasury (HitlerPig would rape and murder his own mother for far less than a billion bucks, and Putin could order a lot more than that), or they’ve cut a deal to split the booty like the pirates they are.

      When it’s not working, it’s working.

      • jaxxed@lemmy.ml
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        9 hours ago

        It’s not Putin. Plenty of home grown idiocy in the US. At the most, the Trump admin is a loosely bribed bunch of useful idiots.

        • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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          8 hours ago

          Of course it’s Putin, and denying it marks you as an unserious person.

          America (amd the Democratic world) has been at war with Russia since 1918, whether you want to admit it or not. This was an unarguable fact by EVERYONE ON THE PLANET for the entire 20th century. It was only when HitlerPig came along with his close ties to Putin that it became a controversial opinion.

          Grow up and get some Critical Thinking Skills.

      • MortUS@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        I feel like, if this were true, wtf are literally all the other countries’ intelligence and agencies doing to prevent such a thing?

        I’d like to think China, while mostly on Russia’s side, would not want Putin having control over the U.S.

        ofc most of NATO wouldn’t want that either.

        Is every other country incompetent, complicit, or is the U.S. just becoming its own oligarchy?

        • WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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          22 hours ago

          The US was warned about Russian influence before Trump’s 2016 election by intelligence agencies in Great Britain, Germany, Canada, France, Estonia, Poland, and Australia- and those are just the ones that spoke out publicly.

          They were called “fake news” and “DNC operatives.”

          Don’t pretend the rest of the world was surprised by this.

          • MortUS@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            Well, I’m glad they spoke out publicly. Maybe they (World Governments) can put in a bit more elbow grease next time to prevent one of the world’s largest militaries from being bought by an authoritarian country at discount prices.

            The CIA can destabilize governments across the world.

            Russia can take over U.S. “Democracy” right in front of the world.

            I guess nobody has inside men anymore. Does Germany, France, Britian not have a CIA of their own?

            My point is that these World Governments have kinda gotten soft if this is where we’re at. Hell, the fact that Ukraine is still at war and not being physically backed is proof enough (though stepping in w/ Russia holding U.S. means that ship has sailed).

            • WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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              19 hours ago

              So… the fault lies with rest of the world who should have worked harder to save the US from itself while Americans plugged their ears and gave them the finger?

              • MortUS@lemmy.world
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                12 hours ago

                I mean, the fault lies with everybody - as we’ve expressed, the writing was on the wall the whole time.

                I don’t expect the ignorant children to prevent the adults from driving the car off the bridge (that’s a metaphor for most Americans).

        • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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          21 hours ago

          china is frenemies with russia, they are definitely not on thier side. China does have russia by the balls though, since they bought up some of siberia.

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Dismantling the FBI seems like a good idea to me anyway. It’s not like their mission is a good one. Maybe in the next government the FBI can be brought back as a federal agency that is narrowly focuses on investigating/punishing local/state level law enforcement.

    But of course the Dems will just approve whatever budget the republicans come up with and facism will continue unabated.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Guess who is in charge of auditing and investigating local cops and police stations?

      click to reveal answer:

      NOBODY ANYMORE!

    • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It’s actually a worse idea. There will still be, nominally, federal control, centralized in him. Other than that, every local and state FBI branch will act as, effectively, a terror cell - they work their own leads, make their own arrests on their own recognizance, and generally conduct business as they see fit. This makes for an incredibly dangerous form of secret police - they have no leaders above the local level, no real command and control, and they’re all tasked with only one thing: make less crime.

      Imagine the Cheka, but they’re organized like al-Qaeda.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        12 hours ago

        If their budget was zero’d out on the federal level where would the local FBI officers get their funding?

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    President Donald Trump’s nomination of Patel to lead the FBI caused a raft of controversy. Patel had publicly pledged to take the agency down and turn its building into something of a “deep state” museum. His apparent lack of preparation for this fundamental hearing will give no solace to critics convinced he was not prepared for the task at hand.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    This is PROOF that DEI is BAD! WHY did Trump appoint a BROWN man?

    -LITERALLY EVERY CONSERVATIVE who isn’t Racist!