‘Dylan Ruth’? Did FBI director forget Charleston church shooting at hearing?
The director of the FBI seemed not to remember one of the worst mass shooting attacks in South Carolina history or recognize the name of the white supremacist his agency helped put on federal death row during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.
FBI Director Kash Patel was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, answering questions about the bureau’s handling of the investigation into last week’s shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus.
Although President Donald Trump has blamed Kirk’s killing on the “radical left,” Democratic Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California asked Patel about acts of violence carried out by right-wing extremists, including the 2015 shooting that killed nine members of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Those murders were carried out by Dylann Roof, an avowed racist who said he hoped his attack on Black worshipers would launch a race war.
The grisly crime and the manhunt for Roof received wall-to-wall coverage around the world a decade ago. But when asked if he denied that Roof was responsible for the church shooting, Patel appeared unfamiliar with the name.
“I’m sorry, Dylan Ruth?” the FBI director said in the televised hearing.
“Roof,” Kamlager-Dove repeated.
“Roof? Can you give me some more information?” Patel asked.
“You’re head of the FBI, you probably know this,” the congresswoman said, adding, “If you don’t know, that’s fine.”
“You can give me a reminder?” Patel said. “I’ve got a lot in front of me.”
Kamlager-Dove moved on to citing other acts of political violence and again asked Patel if he denied her description of those events.
“I’ll take your presentation as accurate,” he said, without affirming the details of the attack.
Roof’s attack on the historically Black church on Charleston’s downtown peninsula killed the church’s pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, and several of his parishioners during an evening Bible study. Pinckney’s funeral drew then-President Barack Obama to Charleston to give the eulogy, and the murders initiated a push by Gov. Nikki Haley and state legislators to remove the Confederate flag from its place in front of the State House in Columbia.
Roof was later convicted on federal hate crime charges and sentenced to death. He remains incarcerated at a federal facility in Indiana. He is one of three federal inmates currently on death row.
Patel was already facing criticism for his handling of the hunt for Kirk’s killer. The director prematurely announced on social media that a suspect was in custody, only to correct himself when agents released the person after questioning them. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah man, was arrested almost two days after the shooting after a family friend contacted law enforcement.
Patel defended his handling of that case during back-to-back hearings on Capitol Hill this week.
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