WATCH: Sen. Schiff Breaks Down Grilling of FBI Director Kash Patel at Judiciary Committee Hearing on MSNBC

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes to discuss his questioning of Kash Patel, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during today's Senate Judiciary Committee.

Schiff called out Patel for his politicization of the FBI and his continued obstruction on the Epstein files, including the Department of Justice's treatment of convicted sex offender and Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

View the full interview here.

Key Excerpts:

On his reaction to Patel's testimony during Senate Judiciary Committee:

[…] Clearly, I struck a nerve. I think he realized just how absurd the idea is that "Oh Todd Blanche, the president's former criminal defense lawyer, our current Deputy Attorney General meets with this sex offender, the most important witness in the Jeffrey Epstein case, and then is suddenly transferred to a minimum-security prison not suitable for a sex offender like her." And we're supposed to believe the administration had nothing to do with that. It's preposterous.So, I think it was a combination of realizing that what he said was just stupid and not credible, but also he's at risk of losing his job, and he thinks by attacking me, by attacking Cory Booker, by attacking Democrats, maybe he can salvage his job.But my feeling is, look, if he continues to be so incompetent, if he continues to say in a high profile, horrible assassination case that the subject is in custody when the shooter is not in custody, if he continues to embarrass the FBI and the president: he's not going to last long in that job, no matter how much he attacks me or anyone else.

On his reaction to Patel's incredulous testimony regarding Ghislaine Maxwell and the Epstein files:

His testimony was, and it was hard to understand, because it was so far-fetched that Jeffrey Epstein only trafficked women to himself, not to anyone else.Basically, the client list, this celebrated Epstein list only has one name on it, and it's Jeffrey Epstein. That was the import of his testimony. I was struck by it. I think Senator Kennedy and others were struck by it. Of course, there's no one who's, I think, going to be more struck by it than the victims of Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking. But apparently, Kash Patel and the FBI now want the American people and Trump's own base to believe, "Hey, there's only one name on Epstein's list, and that's Jeffrey Epstein." I also asked him about Maxwell in that interview with Todd Blanche, says that there are Trump Cabinet members who are associated with Epstein, and Blanche doesn't even bother to ask who they are. So, I asked him, "Who are they," and he refused to answer.

On the lack of trust in the FBI:

[…] I don't know how any of us can have that confidence for a number of reasons. One is, not only is Patel incompetent, but he is firing all the competent people. A lot of the questioning today, including my own, was focused on his firing senior leaders at the FBI for no other reason than the fact they were assigned cases investigating Donald Trump. Now he, I think, lied about that, clearly today. He's being sued by three senior FBI agents who will take him to court and depose him, and I think, reveal those lies. But he's firing the experienced people, and more than that, he's taking agents off of these important investigations, like sex trafficking, like counterterrorism, like malicious foreign interference. And what is he doing with them? He's putting them on immigration raids. So, it's the diversion of resources, the incompetence at the very top, and the getting rid of people who are the true professionals. And I have to imagine, morale at the bureau is just at an all-time low, because how can you respect someone like Patel. My concluding comments to him after our back and forth is, you can take an internet troll and make him FBI director, but he's still not going to be anything more than an internet troll. And that just makes us a lot less safe.

###