Peter Welch
Role at the time: United States senator for Vermont, questioning the witness
Statement summary
Welch read John James’s account of his conversation with Patel into the record and asked whether it was true. When Patel answered that election crimes coordinators in all 56 field offices would be manning their posts, Welch said that contradicted the answer Patel had given Blumenthal minutes earlier, and pressed him on whether agents were being sent to the polls.
“Wait, I thought you weren’t going to be sending people to the polls.” … “So you are sending FBI agents to the polls.” … “This is existential. You told Mr. Blumenthal you weren’t sending FBI agents to election sites.”
Official U.S. Senate video archive of the September 15, 2026 Senate Judiciary Committee "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation" hearing. This single video covers both this case and the related FBI hiring-standards case.
Why we used this label
Relative to the FBI having a presence at Michigan polling places, Welch does more than dispute Patel’s account of his own earlier answer. Calling the prospect existential, and going on to ask Patel to pledge that he will not interfere with voters, treats agents at the polls as a harm to be prevented rather than a description to be corrected. That is why this is a condemnation and not merely a challenge to the characterisation, which is the closest competing label given that his first line does point out an inconsistency.