Kash Patel FREEZES As Cory Booker Exposes His Grand Jury Immunity

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Mr. Patel, if I can jump right in. Uh 12 prosecutors, career prosecutors were involved in an investigation and prosecuting the cases against President Trump >> and were recently fired.

[00:00:11]>> Uh some of those that were involved uh were involved in the Mara Lago classified documents case. Do you know who Brett Reynolds is?

[00:00:18]>> Maybe, but it doesn't uh ring a bell at this point. Sir, >> you're you're under oath. You have no recollection of who Brett Reynolds is.

[00:00:24]If >> you could provide me with a little more context, I could possibly remember. on Capitol Hill under oath in a room built for oversight, but suddenly feeling more like a courtroom with better lighting.

[00:00:34]Senator Corey Booker put Cash Patel in the chair and dropped the number that changed the temperature. 12 career prosecutors tied to Donald Trump investigations had recently been fired, including people connected to the Mara Lago classified documents case. That is not a housekeeping memo. That is not some boring HR shuffle buried inside a federal agency spreadsheet. That is the kind of number that makes everyone in the room ask the same ugly question.

[00:01:01]Were prosecutors and FBI personnel being removed because they did something wrong or because they touched the wrong political nerve? And when Booker asked Patel whether he knew the names, whether he knew the plans, whether he knew if FBI agents connected to Trump investigations were being punished, Patel's answers did not sound like a man clearing smoke. They sounded like a man standing inside it and insisting he could not see the fire. Sir, that that's a yes or no question. Are you aware of any plans or discussions to punish in any way, including termination, FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations?

[00:01:35]>> I'm not I am not aware of this, Senator.

[00:01:37]>> There there is no evidence of wrongdoing by FBI employees involved in these investigations. If you do pursue investigations of those involved, will you commit to using standard processes, including a standard review by the FBI Inspections Division and the Inspector General?

[00:01:56]>> Senator, I will honor all those review processes.

[00:01:58]>> You will honor those review processes?

[00:02:00]>> Yes, Senator.

[00:02:01]>> If these are actions that the FBI employees If there are actions against FBI employees that do not follow those standards process that happen before you get in, will you commit to reversing any decision prior to your arrival? so that those standard processes and the standard review by the FBI inspections division will take place.

[00:02:20]>> I don't know what's going on right now over there, but I'm committed to you, Senator, and your colleagues that I will honor the internal review process of the FBI.

[00:02:28]>> This was not a normal Senate hearing.

[00:02:30]This was a public stress test of whether federal law enforcement still belongs to the Constitution or whether it can be bent into a revenge machine for the most powerful person in the country. Booker was not simply chasing a headline. He was forcing Patel to explain what was said, what was hidden, and what suddenly became, "I don't recall the moment the question got too close to the Mara Lago classified documents investigation."

[00:02:53]Patel admitted he testified before the grand jury, admitted he used his fifth amendment rights, admitted he testified under compulsion, and Booker pressed the obvious next question. What information did he provide after receiving immunity?

[00:03:06]That is where the hearing stopped feeling political and started feeling prosecutorial. Because Booker's point was brutally simple. If Patel did nothing wrong, if the process was clean, if transparency is really the value he claims to worship, then why did the answer keep running away from the question? Booker's strongest move was not volume. It was sequencing. He did not walk into the room swinging wildly.

[00:03:29]He walked in like a prosecutor, laying exhibits on a table, one sheet at a time, until the witness had nowhere comfortable left to stand.

[00:03:38]According to public reports, you were subpoenaed by the federal prosecutors to testify as a witness before the grand jury investigation investigating the Mara Lago classified documents case. And you testified before the grand jury, correct?

[00:03:50]>> Yes, sir.

[00:03:51]>> And when you were before the grand jury, you pled the fifth on the basis of self-inccrimination. Correct. I bled I utilized my constitutional rights during that process with the advice and consent of counsel and appeared before that grand jury.

[00:04:03]>> I will take that as a yes. And you are familiar, I imagine, with section 6002 of title 18.

[00:04:08]>> Off the top of my head, Senator, not >> well section 6002 is the immunity statute.

[00:04:13]>> First, he asked about the 12 prosecutors. Then he asked whether Patel knew Brett Reynolds, whether Patel remembered the people connected to the Mara Lago classified documents case, whether Patel had heard of plans to punish FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations.

[00:04:29]Patel kept reaching for distance. He said he did not participate in DOJ removals. He said he was not aware of plans to punish FBI personnel. He said he would honor internal review processes, the FBI inspections division, and the inspector general. But Booker's question was not only about what Patel personally signed. It was about what Patel knew, what Patel discussed, and whether a future FBI director was already walking into office with a list of targets dressed up as reform. That is the difference between a denial and an answer. A denial says, "I did not do that exact thing." Answer explains the system, the safeguard, the paper trail, the promise that career agents will not wake up one morning and find their public service converted into a political death sentence. Patel gave the committee fragments. Booker wanted architecture. Then the room shifted into the Mara Lago grand jury testimony and that was where the hearing became dangerous for Patel. Booker reminded him that public reports said he had been subpoenaed as a witness in the classified documents investigation.

[00:05:32]Patel confirmed he testified. Booker pressed him on whether he had invoked the fifth amendment on the basis of self-inccrimination.

[00:05:39]And Patel wrapped the answer in constitutional language, saying he utilized his rights with advice of counsel. That was a polished answer, but it did not erase the underlying fact. He was compelled to testify, and the issue of immunity was now sitting in the middle of the room like a locked safe everyone could see. Booker then brought in 18 USC section 602, the immunity statute. His point was direct. When a witness refuses to testify because of the privilege against self-inccrimination, a court can compel testimony and that witness receives protection against that compelled testimony being used in a criminal case.

[00:06:17]So Booker asked the question any prosecutor would ask next. What information did Patel provide that required immunity? Not what speech did he give on television? Not what slogan did he attach to transparency. What information did he give when the legal system had him under oath under compulsion inside the classified documents investigation? Patel's defense was that the grand jury material was sealed by the Department of Justice and Booker attacked that defense immediately. He pointed to rule 6E, explaining that grand jurors, court reporters, and prosecutors are bound by secrecy, but witnesses are not bound in the same way. That mattered because Patel was not being asked to leak someone else's secret strategy. He was being asked to tell Congress what he himself testified to. The distinction was surgical.

[00:07:04]>> No, I testified through compulsion by court order.

[00:07:07]>> You received immunity for providing information that was self-inccriminating. Do you remember the name of the prosecutor who questioned you?

[00:07:15]>> There were multiple, Senator, I do not.

[00:07:17]>> Was it one of the peop were any of them people that were fired this past week?

[00:07:21]>> I have no idea. Senator, >> are you certain you're under oath?

[00:07:24]>> I'm aware that I'm under oath, Senator, and I have no idea. And I did not participate in the removal of any DOJ prosecutors.

[00:07:29]>> What was the information you provided that you received immunity for?

[00:07:33]>> Senator, I would love my grand jury testimony to be released, but as you know, that grand jury testimony has been sealed by the Department of Justice, and I'm not allowed to discuss it here.

[00:07:41]>> Well, I find it troubling that you do not know the law here, and let me tell you what the law is. Booker was basically saying, "Do not hide behind a locked door when the law says you are holding the key." And that is why the what are you hiding moment landed so hard. Patel said he wanted the transcript released. Booker said Patel could answer right there. Patel said the testimony covered 3 weeks and he could not recall everything. Booker narrowed it down to one explosive question. Did Patel testify that he witnessed Donald Trump declassify documents? That was the moral pressure point. Because if Patel had witnessed declassification, that would be politically valuable, legally relevant, and easy to say clearly. If he had not, then the silence itself became the story. And if he could not answer after invoking transparency all day, then Booker had exposed the contradiction at the center of the hearing. Patel wanted the authority of a lawman, the loyalty of a political warrior, and the convenience of a witness who suddenly could not remember the one answer Congress needed most.

[00:08:42]Then Booker widened the lens because the grand jury testimony was not floating in empty space. It was connected to a broader pattern and that pattern was uglier than one evasive answer under oath. The concern was no longer only whether Cash Patel remembered one prosecutor, one transcript or one classified documents question. The concern was whether the FBI and the Department of Justice were being reorganized around political fear, personal loyalty and punishment disguised as administrative reform.

[00:09:11]Because when career prosecutors tied to Donald Trump investigations are removed, when FBI agents connected to sensitive cases suddenly face pressure, and when senior leadership is decapitated while political appointees move closer to the machinery, the public has every right to ask whether justice is being managed or hunted. And this is where the evidence stack becomes impossible to dismiss with a shrug. According to the reporting described in the record, Patel came under fire again and again for damaging headlines and then within hours or days, FBI agents and staff saw their careers ended. One report said there were four key instances where the timing looked less like coincidence and more like a reflex. Bad press lands on Patel and firings land on the FBI. That is not proof of motive by itself, but in oversight, timing matters because timing is often where power leaves fingerprints. The first instance involved reports about a lawsuit claiming Patel knowingly broke the law when he fired three top FBI officials.

[00:10:13]Soon after, 10 FBI agents who had been pictured years earlier taking a knee during protests after George Floyd's killing were ordered fired. Think about the absurdity of that timeline. like a boss getting criticized at work and then firing employees for something from 5 years ago. Not because the old act suddenly became urgent, but because the boss suddenly needed a show of strength.

[00:10:35]That is not discipline. That looks like message sending. The second instance involved flight records showing Patel used an FBI jet to visit his girlfriend at a Penn State event. The next day, a 27-year FBI veteran, Steven Palmer, who headed the critical incident response group overseeing the FBI jet fleet, was fired. Again, the issue is not merely whether Patel had authority on paper.

[00:10:59]The issue is whether authority was being used to protect the institution or to punish the people closest to facts that made the leader look bad. Then came the third example. The New York Times published accounts from current and former FBI employees describing Patel as an unserious leader who had demoralized and weakened the bureau. The next day, Patel ordered the firing of six agents from the FBI's Miami field office along with senior agents, some reportedly connected to the Mara Lago documents case. And then came the fourth example involving Patel's trip to the Olympics in Milan. video of him partying with the USA men's hockey team and whistleblower claims that his travel and confusing orders delayed an elite FBI evidence team from reaching the Brown University mass shooting scene. The next day, at least 10 FBI agents and support staff tied to the classified records investigation were ordered fired. One coincidence is easy to explain. Two coincidences invite suspicion. Three coincidences become a pattern. Four coincidences stacked against agents with experience in counter intelligence, global espionage, Iran, classified records, and critical response work start looking like an institutional crater dug with political tools. That is the moral problem Booker was circling.

[00:12:14]When the FBI loses experienced people, ordinary Americans do not just lose names on an org chart. They lose investigators who track spies, protect evidence, handle national security threats, and respond when violence turns a normal campus, office, or neighborhood into a crime scene. So, the real question is not whether Cash Patel can survive a bad news cycle. The real question is whether the country can survive a justice system where bad headlines for one powerful man become career-ending events for public servants who were supposed to serve the law, not his image. And that is where this hearing stops being a Washington fight and becomes a test of civic memory because the country has seen this movie before. Powerful people wrap themselves in process when process protects them, then treat process like red tape when it protects everyone else. Cash Patel wanted the committee to accept his respect for the Constitution, his respect for internal review, his respect for transparency. But every time Senator Cy Booker reached the part where respect had to become a clear answer, the words started shrinking. That is not a small thing. In a system built on public trust, hesitation from a man seeking control over the FBI is not just awkward. It is evidence of the exact danger oversight hearings are designed to expose. The deeper lesson is simple and it is ugly. Institutions do not collapse only when someone breaks the front door down. Sometimes they collapse when career prosecutors are quietly removed. When FBI agents learn that doing their job on the wrong case can end their career. When witnesses hide behind technical language and when loyalty starts replacing competence as the price of survival, that is how a justice system turns from a shield for the public into a weapon for the powerful. And once that happens, ordinary people are no longer asking whether Democrats or Republicans won the hearing. They are asking whether the law still has enough spine to stand up straight when the person being questioned has friends in the highest offices. My personal view is this. The most disturbing part was not that Booker sounded angry. It was that Booker had to fight so hard for basic clarity. If Patel testified under oath, if he received immunity, if he says he committed no crime, then transparency should not have to be dragged out of him like contraband at a border checkpoint.

[00:14:31]The public deserves answers because the victims of institutional abuse are never the people with chauffeurs, jets, lawyers, and press teams. The victims are citizens who still believe the FBI should chase criminals, not critics, and that DOJ prosecutors should follow evidence, not political weather. So, the final question is not complicated. If the law can be bent for power, delayed by memory, and buried behind, I don't recall, then what exactly is left for the rest of America to trust? If you believe accountability still matters, hit like, drop your thoughts in the comments, share this video, and subscribe for more breakdowns where we follow the evidence, not the excuses.

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