Schiff and Padilla have been aggressively critical of Patel since President Donald Trump nominated him. The senators have charged he’s a conspiracy theorist, and Schiff was named in Patel’s 2023 book as one of Washington’s “corrupt actors of the first order.”

President Donald Trump's pick to head the FBI, Kash Patel, won the approval of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, clearing the way for a vote to confirm a director who has called for a radical reshaping of the nation's top law enforcement agency.