FBI Director Kash Patel was pressed on Wednesday about the exclusion of Ed Martin’s ties to an alleged Nazi sympathizer in his FBI background check after Martin was nominated by President Donald Trump to be U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.

Patel faced questions from Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) while testifying before the House Appropriations Committee about how the FBI background investigation report that was sent to Congress on Martin excluded information on his ties to former Jan. 6 defendant Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, despite the latter’s record of antisemitic public statements and posting photos of himself dressed as Adolf Hitler in 2024. Martin has since apologized for saying Hale-Cusanelli was being “slurred and smeared” by antisemitism allegations and asserts he did not know of his associate’s past comments.

“I’m not familiar with Mr. Martin’s specific BI investigation, but I can tell you how the BIs are done for everybody at the FBI. We have [career staffers] running the entire Inspection Division and HRD component. That has not changed since I’ve been in the seat. And every BI has been held to the same standard by them. And either they pass along the information from their investigations that they cultivate, or they don’t. We do not tell them what to pass on and what not to investigate,” Patel told Meng.

Pressed by Meng on if he believed that type of information would be relevant to a BI report, Patel replied: “That’s up to the field agents, ma’am, I can’t rewrite that for them. They have a way of doing these investigations that I have not inhibited or changed or altered since I got in the seat.”

Later on in the hearing, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and Patel agreed on the need to continue supporting the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which bring together federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies for counterterrorism missions, with Patel, who used to be a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice, noting the utility of federal resources to smaller law enforcement operations dealing with terrorism concerns. 

“The best cases I ever made as a terrorism prosecutor was on the task force, because we had embedded state and local authorities with federal authorities. State and federal prosecutors working every day together, bringing cases where you could bring cases, because sometimes you couldn’t bring them in state court, and sometimes you can’t bring them in federal court,” Patel said.

The hearing briefly became heated during a tense exchange between Patel and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), when Dean accused the director of being involved in the recent dismissal of some FBI officials, despite testifying during his confirmation hearing that he had no involvement as a private citizen in any firings at the bureau. It is not clear which officials she was referring to, though Dean alleged that the FBI director had “likely committed perjury” as a result, citing “multiple whistleblowers” who had come forward. 

“We should worry more about your lack of candor. You’re accusing me of committing perjury. Tell the American people how I broke the law and committed a felony. Have the audacity to actually put the facts forward instead of lying for political banter so you can have a 20-second donation hit,” Patel retorted.