At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) questioned FBI Director Kash Patel about crimes against indigenous people.
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00:01Director, good morning.
00:03This is a week that a lot of Alaskans are paying attention to.
00:08Monday was the day that we recognized the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
00:15Awareness Day.
00:17I've just been going through the morning clips.
00:19Well, you've been testifying, of course, but this morning, and there's accounts in Anchorage
00:28and Juneau and Fairbanks and Marches and Nome, all recounting very painful stories that families
00:36have endured of their family members that have gone missing.
00:41Law enforcement just was not present for a host of different reasons.
00:46You and I talked about this prior to your confirmation, and it's something that I have been working
00:52on for a period of years now.
00:54We've made some good progress under the first Trump administration.
00:58There was a focus called Operation Lady Justice, and now I'm pleased to see that we have this
01:06expanded to what you're calling Operation Not Forgotten to look into unresolved violent crimes
01:14in Indian Country, including cases involving Missing Murdered Indigenous Persons.
01:21I'm looking critically at the budget here and wondering if you can share with me how the
01:29budget request or what we have of it at this point in time will support this expansion of
01:36Operation Not Forgotten.
01:39I need to be able to give folks back home the comfort that they need to know that these cases
01:47that have gone cold for not just months and years but decades will not be dropped, that
01:55that push for closure will continue.
01:58What can you share with me this morning?
01:59Senator, I greatly appreciate you highlighting and being a champion of crimes on Indian country.
02:06And just this week I was the first FBI director in U.S. history to sit down at the Department of
02:10Interior with the tribal leaders at the stat level, and I also met privately with the parents
02:16of Emily Pike, who was tragically butchered on a reservation in Arizona, and her parents
02:23asked me to find the remaining pieces of her body that have not been returned.
02:29She's a 14-year-old girl, she's still missing her arms, they only have her torso.
02:33What I told them, and what I hope you take back to Alaska and what the rest of the tribal
02:37community hears is that every crime in this country will be treated equally.
02:42Those that happen on Indian country and those that are happening to Native Americans are
02:47just as horrific as they're happening in the rest of the world, in the rest of America.
02:51We've already prioritized resources on our, in our state-level task forces to address these
02:58matters, and I ask the stat to allow FBI agents onto the reservations on a more regular
03:03basis and engage with them directly.
03:05I also invited the community leaders to nominate a law enforcement officer from one of the
03:11tribal jurisdictions to sit with me at the Hoover Building in the FBI so we have a direct
03:17engagement with the community.
03:19And so we are, just one highlight, I think in Wind River we executed an operation that
03:24took down, I can't remember how many dozens of pounds of fentanyl that was heading to an Indian
03:29reservation.
03:30So, you have my commitment that we will not forget it.
03:33Well, thank you for, for that broader commitment.
03:35As you know, of course, we don't have reservations in Alaska.
03:38We don't have the same type of tribal law enforcement presence.
03:42So, some unique aspects of it.
03:47My understanding is that the Alaska field office in Anchorage, along with the two satellite offices
03:52that we have, one in, one in Fairbanks and one in Juneau, they have one FBI victim service
03:58coordinator to communicate with these families.
04:02This has been part of the problem.
04:03It's radio silence out of the agency.
04:06They don't know whether a case is being pursued.
04:08They hear nothing.
04:10So, I would ask that you, you look, as you're looking at your budget, to make sure that the
04:16FBI does include support for victim service coordinators on this.
04:21It's a, it's a gap that is missing right now.
04:25Very quickly, we also talked about the, the fentanyl crisis in Alaska.
04:31We are the one state that is tragically going the wrong way when it comes to fentanyl deaths.
04:37We had a 40% increase in fentanyl deaths in 2023.
04:42So you had indicated that you were going to be doing aggressive work here.
04:48We need to be doing more and I, I, I, I've, I've shared that it ought to be easier to intercept
04:56drugs coming into Alaska because they come by airplane, they come through the mail and
05:02they occasionally come in by boat.
05:05Maybe a little, a little bit driving across through the border.
05:09But we've got the ability to do the interception and right now our numbers are not going down.
05:14I just ask for your continued commitment with this.
05:19We know we're seeing FBI partnering with ICE for arrests and detentions of, of, of immigrants
05:28in Alaska.
05:30Folks are asking me, they're saying, are we using FBI resources, redirecting them from the
05:38fentanyl crisis to, to perhaps pursuing those who are, have been targeted immigrants even
05:45though they're not violent criminals.
05:47So I'd love to have further conversation with you on some of these Alaska specifics, but we
05:52got to start turning that, that, that corner on fentanyl.
05:55Yes, ma'am.
05:56And I think you know this and we're sending a plus up to Alaska in part of this movement
06:01out to the field.
06:02And we'll look to address those specific issues.
06:04And I will work with you in your office to make sure that, uh, Alaska is not forgotten
06:09and that we emphasize it.
06:10Very good.
06:11Appreciate it.
06:12Thank you very much.
06:13Senator Peters.
06:14Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
06:15Director Patel, welcome to the committee here.
06:17Yes, sir.
06:18Director, uh, I've, uh, long been a supporter.