Senate Republicans have largely embraced Donald Trump’s pick to run the bureau,
demonstrating that his anti-F.B.I. stance is now party orthodoxy.

Mr. Patel’s warm welcome is fueled in part by an eagerness among Republicans to avoid incurring the wrath of Mr. Trump and his base
after a groundswell of anger at Senate pushback to his picks to lead the Pentagon and the Department of Justice, Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz.

But it also reflects the extent to which a deep distrust of the F.B.I. has become Republican orthodoxy.

Following Mr. Trump’s lead, Republicans in Congress have emerged as the chief antagonists of the bureau, deriding it as an institution rotted by corruption and partisanship.

It is the culmination of a remarkable turnabout that has been years in the making for a party that traditionally had given unyielding support for the nation’s law enforcement agencies.

In recent years, Republicans have attacked the F.B.I. for its role in investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, including its handling of the so-called Steele dossier;

accused officials there of failing to investigate issues surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop;

and slammed its leaders for authorizing a raid of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in pursuit of classified documents.

The bureau’s most aggressive attackers on Capitol Hill were once largely confined to the House’s hard-right wing.

But as an anti-F.B.I. stance has become a litmus test for Mr. Trump’s base, it is now also widely adopted in the Senate.
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