Sen. Lisa Murkowski is being targeted by Democrats. Alaska Democrats and voters who fit the liberal modeling are getting text messages urging them to call Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office and pressure her to vote against the nomination of Kash Patel as the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The text message comes from a burn phone that is not traceable. It tells the recipient that Patel will “focus on partisan politics and let Fentanyl traffickers run wild.”
The group has been identified by Must Read Alaska sleuths as “Building America,” a Democrat political action committee of out Los Angeles, Calif. that supported Kamala Harris for president and is part of a network of dark money organizations.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski is considered a hold-out vote in the Senate Republican majority, and she has not indicated her decision on most of the nominees that require confirmation by the Senate. But she’s likely to be a no vote on Patel, and that’s what the Democrats want to make sure happens, with the help of public pressure. These kinds of text campaigns from Democrats usually revolve around abortion issues, not presidential appointments and certainly it’s new for Democrats to be concerned about fentanyl.
Patel has received a warm response from conservative Republicans, including Sen. Dan Sullivan, who said he had a good introductory meeting with him, as Patel makes the rounds to meet the senators who will vote on him.
Patel “understands the importance of restoring public trust at the FBI. After our conversation today, it’s clear to me that his experience at the NSC, the DNI, and the Pentagon, and as a public defender and DOJ prosecutor make him more than qualified to lead this critically important law enforcement agency. I look forward to working with Kash and the rest of the Trump administration to ensure we rein in violent crime, including in Alaska where the drug cartel presence, fentanyl, and domestic violence remain serious issues,” Sullivan said after meeting with Patel.
The nominee can only afford to lose three votes and it’s unclear if Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins will be two of them. Murkowski and Collins anchor the far left of the Republican caucus of the Senate.
