WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Wednesday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to sound the alarm on President Donald Trump’s blatant disregard for the rule of law. Murphy condemned Trump’s efforts to use the justice system as a tool to punish his critics and protect his allies, warning the confirmation of Kash Patel to lead the FBI would be a dangerous step toward dismantling American democracy.

On the dangerous nomination of Kash Patel to lead the FBI, Murphy said: “If your plan is to destroy the rule of law and turn the Department of Justice into a political weapon that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent, then Kash Patel is the perfect person to lead the FBI, and that is likely exactly why he was chosen. [...] He has an enemies list. He thinks that people who helped elect Joe Biden are criminals. [...] Honestly, how on Earth are we going to let someone lead the world's most important, most revered law enforcement agency, who is secretly in business with the Chinese Communist Party, who believes that the FBI organized the invasion of the Capitol, who runs a fake charity, who has a brand in order to make money off of his affiliation with Donald Trump?”

Murphy called out Patel’s sham foundation: “While he believes this, he also knows that there's a money-making opportunity in all of this. This is his logo: K$H. He’s a brand. He says all these things because he believes them, but also because it makes him a hero to the gullible conspiracy theorists inside MAGA. He uses them. He sells stuff to them: sweatshirts, T-shirts, lapel pins. K$H. Now if you buy this sweatshirt for $55, it says all net profits go to the Kash Foundation. But you know what we found out, unsurprisingly, is that in 2023, by selling all these sweatshirts and merch, the K$H Foundation had $1.3 million in revenues. Now it purports to support heroic whistleblowers with legal services and other support services. You know what percentage of that $1.3 million went to actual services? Less than 15%. Kash Patel pocketed almost all the money that he made from selling these T-shirts.”

Murphy detailed how President Trump is brazenly using the Department of Justice to curry favor and punish critics: “Trump ordered the Department of Justice to cut a deal with the indicted mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. The deal was simple. If Adams pledged loyalty to Trump and agreed specifically to cooperate with Trump's immigration raids in the city, Trump would look the other way regarding Adams' corruption. The charges would be dropped, and Adams could keep stealing money as long as he was politically loyal to Trump. They didn't hide this deal. Adams and a high-ranking Trump official literally went on TV to announce that they had formed an alliance based upon the release of charges in exchange for political loyalty.

He added: “There is not a rule of law anymore. There is one set of law for people or entities who are loyal to Donald Trump, and there is one set of law for people who dare criticize him. That is not democracy. And if we don't find a way, Republicans and Democrats, to come together to defend the rule of law, if we don't say that what is happening today – deals being cut with corrupt politicians in exchange for their pledges of loyalty to Donald Trump – if we can't speak with one voice about that kind of corruption, well, then our democracy is cooked.”

He concluded: “The law loses all meaning when it becomes simply what the president, what the leader, on any given day decides. This is the worst possible moment to put a person like Kash Patel in charge of the FBI. It is heartbreaking to see so many of my Republican colleagues, many of whom I admire, put loyalty to Donald Trump ahead of loyalty to this country, and more specifically loyalty to that sacred principle, the rule of law. My prediction is that if you vote for Kash Patel, more than any other confirmation vote you make, you will come to regret this one to your grave.”

A full transcript of his remarks can be found below:

MURPHY: “Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, the idea that men and women citizens are bound by a common set of laws that are applied consistently and universally, regardless of one's income or political power or political affiliation, it's a fairly modern invention. Because for thousands of years, laws were simply what rulers used to impose and maintain power, to control people. Laws were applied or crimes were invented for the ruler's critics, and laws were ignored or waived away for those in favor with the regime.

“Now early Americans had watched the British kings apply laws selectively, both in Britain and in the colonies, and they sought – our founders sought – to create a nation where all men were equal in the face of the law, and [where] the law was applied uniformly and justly. 

“That idea – equal justice, the law applies to everybody regardless of who you support politically or who you are aligned with politically – was in many ways the founders’ most vital check against tyranny. That's the difference between a democracy made of equal citizens and an autocracy where the law is simply whatever the ruler decides. It is a foundational principle of American constitutional democracy. It is not something that we can take for granted. 

“Now, I will admit, likely every president has made a decision or decisions that compromised that belief in the rule of law. Often those decisions were related to one of the maximalist powers that the president supposes. That's the power of the pardon. I, for instance, did not agree with President Biden's decision to issue pardons to his family members. I thought that was excessive. I thought that compromised the rule of law. 

“But this President's contempt for the rule of law, Donald Trump's contempt for the rule of law, is unprecedented. What we are all watching right now is Donald Trump throwing away the idea that laws apply to everyone equally. And it is astonishing to watch so many of my Republican colleagues fall in line. Some of them may be on board for the destruction of the rule of law because they want the Trump family to rule forever, but many of them know that this is wrong, what is happening, and their silence is heartbreaking. 

“Donald Trump issued a statement over the weekend: quote, ‘He who saves the country does not violate any law.’ That's a quote attributed to one of the most notorious dictators of the last half millennium: Napoleon Bonaparte. It’s a stunning claim that Trump, not the law or Congress, decides what is legal and illegal. 

“If he had said that in 2017, maybe we could just write it off as Trump being Trump, as just bluster trolling. But this time he is actually implementing a methodical campaign to seize control of the law and apply it differently depending on whether you support him or oppose him. 

“Take, for example, what happened on Friday night. Trump ordered the Department of Justice to cut a deal with the indicted mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. The deal was simple. If Adams pledged loyalty to Trump and agreed specifically to cooperate with Trump's immigration raids in the city, Trump would look the other way regarding Adams' corruption. The charges would be dropped, and Adams could keep stealing money as long as he was politically loyal to Trump. 

“They didn't hide this deal. Adams and a high-ranking Trump official literally went on TV to announce that they had formed an alliance based upon the release of charges in exchange for political loyalty. But when Trump told the highest-ranking Justice Department employees in New York City to execute the corrupt deal, they wouldn't. The top official resigned rather than take part in the corruption. So did the next in the chain of command. By the time that Trump found someone who would implement the deal, seven DOJ lawyers and four of Adams' deputy mayors had resigned because what was happening in plain view was a fundamental challenge, a fundamental corruption to the rule of law, a rule of law that up until today Republicans and Democrats had both revered. 

“Meanwhile, other parts of Trump's team are engaging on the other side of the ledger, targeting and harassing – using the law – the President's critics. Because that's what happens in a nation without the rule of law. Law enforcement lets loyalists like Adams off the hook and is overzealous in targeting critics. 

“Let me give you just one example of what is happening right now as we speak. Last month, Trump's new FCC Chairman opened an investigation into a single radio station that had the audacity to simply file a news report about an ICE raid that was happening locally. Multiple other sources filed similar reports with similar footage, but only one investigation was opened, and you guessed it, it was against the radio station that was owned by a high-profile critic of Donald Trump, George Soros. 

“So the game is clear. Like, we can see it. They're not even hiding it. There is not a rule of law anymore. There is one set of law for people or entities who are loyal to Donald Trump, and there is one set of law for people who dare criticize him. That is not democracy.  And if we don't find a way, Republicans and Democrats, to come together to defend the rule of law, if we don't say that what is happening today – deals being cut with corrupt politicians in exchange for their pledges of loyalty to Donald Trump – if we can't speak with one voice about that kind of corruption, well, then our democracy is cooked.

“Which brings us to the pending nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel. If your plan is to destroy the rule of law and turn the Department of Justice into a political weapon that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent, then Kash Patel is the perfect person to lead the FBI, and that is likely exactly why he was chosen.

“Listen, Kash Patel is a joke. Many of my Republican colleagues know this. He has spent the last four years taking the most extreme positions inside the world of MAGA in order to make money for himself. 

“For instance, he says that he can provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the FBI was behind the January 6 invasion of this building. Let me say that again. The man that my Republican colleagues are about to vote to lead the FBI believes that there is irrefutable proof that the agency he is about to lead secretly organized the violent assault on the Capitol. That is bananas. My Republican colleagues know that. That is a lie. And we're about to put this guy in charge of the FBI? An agency that he claims organized a secret plot to invade the Capitol?

“He wrote a book called ‘Government Gangsters’ and at the end he added an Appendix entitled ‘Enemies List.’ Like, straight out of the McCarthy era. He has a list – he wrote it down – of people he believes are enemies of America. And, shocker, they're all Democrats, or Republicans who dared speak out and criticize Donald Trump. 

“You're going to put at the head of the FBI – the agency that can arrest anyone they want, put people in jail – a man who thinks that anyone who disagrees with Donald Trump politically is an enemy of the United States. Patel has further suggested that anybody who administered the 2020 election could be subject to arrest. Why? Because he believes in his heart that the election was rigged, despite the fact that Joe Biden won by seven million votes – far, far more than Trump won by in 2024. So anybody who helped rig the 2020 election is, in his mind, a potential criminal. 

“This is off-the-wall stuff. But of course it is, because while he believes this, he also knows that there's a money-making opportunity in all of this. This is his logo: K$H. He’s a brand. He says all these things because he believes them, but also because it makes him a hero to the gullible conspiracy theorists inside MAGA. He uses them. He sells stuff to them: sweatshirts, T-shirts, lapel pins. K$H.

“Now if you buy this sweatshirt for $55, it says all net profits go to the Kash Foundation. But you know what we found out, unsurprisingly, is that in 2023, by selling all these sweatshirts and merch, the K$H Foundation had $1.3 million in revenues. 

“Now it purports to support heroic whistleblowers with legal services and other support services. You know what percentage of that $1.3 million went to actual services? Less than 15%. Kash Patel pocketed almost all the money that he made from selling these T-shirts. 

“He even hocks a COVID vaccine reversal pill. Let me say that again: the incoming director of the FBI, in addition to selling T-shirts and pocketing most of the proceeds, also sells a vaccine reversal pill that is just pure snake oil. But if there are enough people loyal to Donald Trump to buy anything Trump's lieutenants sell on the internet, then fair game. 

“To top it all off, just recently after his confirmation hearing, we also found out that Kash Patel has been a fashion consultant to a shadowy holding company controlled, it seems, by members of the Chinese Communist Party. Honestly, how on Earth are we going to let someone lead the world's most important, most revered law enforcement agency, who is secretly in business with the Chinese Communist Party, who believes that the FBI organized the invasion of the Capitol, who runs a fake charity, who has a brand in order to make money off of his affiliation with Donald Trump? He has an enemies list. He thinks that people who helped elect Joe Biden are criminals. 

“This is a really dangerous moment. It’s a really dangerous moment. This deal that Donald Trump just cut with the mayor of New York, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. I admit that prior presidents have made decisions that compromise the rule of law. But we've never seen anything like this, so brazen and out in the open, that the mayor of New York and a Trump official would go on national TV to announce that they had made an arrangement in which Mayor Adams could continue his corruption as long as he was politically loyal to Donald Trump. 

“They did that out in the open on TV because it's a signal to everybody else out there that the law will be applied differently to you if you are loyal to the president and that the law will be zealously applied to you, maybe in excess of the letter of the law, if you are a critic of the president. That's why they went on TV, to show the world the corruption, as a signal that things are different now, that the law is not the law, the law is what President Trump decides the law is. 

“The law loses all meaning when it becomes simply what the president, what the leader, on any given day decides. This is the worst possible moment to put a person like Kash Patel in charge of the FBI. It is heartbreaking to see so many of my Republican colleagues, many of whom I admire, put loyalty to Donald Trump ahead of loyalty to this country, and more specifically loyalty to that sacred principle, the rule of law. My prediction is that if you vote for Kash Patel, more than any other confirmation vote you make, you will come to regret this one to your grave. I yield the floor.”

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