by Jennifer Shutt, Alabama Reflector
May 8, 2025

WASHINGTON — The case of the missing Federal Bureau of Investigation budget request was on full display Thursday, when senators repeatedly asked the law enforcement agency’s director what resources he needed Congress to provide in the upcoming fiscal year.

FBI Director Kash Patel did not disclose a dollar amount, an unusual development at a hearing at which an agency head traditionally discusses a budget request in detail with lawmakers who hold the purse strings.

The Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee hearing came one day after Patel testified before a House panel that he needs more money from Congress than was asked for in the Trump administration’s budget request.

Patel’s written statement to the House subcommittee said the FBI’s total request was $10.1 billion, but during that hearing he told appropriators the agency needed at least $11.2 billion.

Patel rejecting the Trump administration’s official budget request in support of his own proposal to Congress was significant in that Cabinet secretaries almost always stick to the official request, at least during public hearings.

“The skinny budget is a proposal, and I’m working through the appropriations process to explain why we need more than what has been proposed,” Patel said during the House hearing Wednesday.

Never mind

Less than 24 hours later, he reversed course during the Senate hearing, saying his comments were misconstrued.

“President Trump has set new priorities and a focus on federal law enforcement. I’m here today in full support of the president’s budget, which reprioritizes and enhances our mission of law enforcement and national security,” Patel said in his opening statement. “We’re fighting for a fully funded FBI because we want a fully effective FBI.”

What that dollar amount might be was unclear, though.

During an exchange with Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the full Appropriations Committee, about what exactly the FBI needs in terms of funding, Patel said: “I’m not asking you for anything at this time.”

Murray responded by asking if he believed the FBI could “operate without a budget.” Patel responded that he “never said that.”

Republicans and Democrats on the Senate panel repeatedly brought up that the Trump administration’s “skinny” budget proposal, released last week, doesn’t actually include a total funding level for the FBI. It only has one paragraph calling for lawmakers to cut funding by $545 million.

Patel testified during the two-hour Senate hearing that he had identified most of the accounts that could lose funding, though he wasn’t prepared to share that information with the committee or give a timeline when he would.

Patel also declined to tell lawmakers when the FBI would send Congress its spending plan for the current fiscal year, which is required by law and past due.

“I don’t have a timeline on that,” Patel said.

Kansas senator pleads with Patel for details

Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, the subcommittee’s chairman, said he was holding the hearing to get the ball rolling on the upcoming appropriations process and encouraged Patel to get the committee more details.

“We wanted to get every piece of information we could as early as we could, even though the budgetary process and now the appropriations process is disjointed and things are lacking,” Moran said.

Moran said that he was “concerned by the scale of the cut, especially as I know full well it comes on the heels of two years where the FBI’s budget was essentially held flat, forcing it to absorb hundreds of millions of dollars in unavoidable inflationary increases.”

Patel declined to say if he would testify before the committee again after the Trump administration releases its full budget request, which should include considerably more detail and is expected to come out sometime later this year, though the White House hasn’t said when.

The House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees that fund the FBI will write the bill over the summer and will likely negotiate final bipartisan, bicameral bills this fall.

That bill is one of a dozen that provide funding for many of the departments and agencies that make up the federal government, including Agriculture, Energy, Defense, Health and Human Services. Homeland Security, Interior, State, and many more. 

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

The post Puzzled senators question Trump’s FBI chief on nonexistent spending plan appeared first on alabamareflector.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

The article maintains a relatively neutral tone while discussing the FBI’s budget hearings. It presents facts about FBI Director Kash Patel’s testimony, including discrepancies between his statements in the House and Senate hearings. While the article does reference the Trump administration’s “skinny” budget proposal and the challenges faced by the FBI, it does so within the context of Patel’s lack of a clear funding plan. The mention of the Trump administration’s proposal and Patel’s fluctuating statements subtly implies criticism of the administration’s handling of the FBI’s budget. However, the focus is more on the bureaucratic process and the lack of clarity, without a strong ideological stance. This makes the overall tone more neutral, though there are subtle undertones reflecting the challenges the Trump administration faces in providing adequate government funding for its agencies.