FBI Director Kash Patel pledged to bring home American hostages during the State Department’s U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Flag Raising Ceremony.
“Our care and our love and our support will be to you and your families. And standing in this position is really humbling, because now having shared so much time and space in the hostage rescue efforts and those wrongfully detained, whether they’re – are in places like Iran or China or Russia or in the Middle East or Africa, we understand collectively – this team – the operational mechanics it takes to take people back,” he said.
Patel emphasized that Intelligence Community leaders are “fully committed to making sure we zero out the number of hostages and those wrongfully detained, and we bring home the remains of those that we unfortunately could not bring home.”
“And so my singular promise to you and this community is that I will do everything as your director of the FBI to marshal the resources necessary to make sure that no other American family feels that pain,” he stated, noting that the U.S. is “fighting multiple wars overseas, especially in relation to the October 7th and those wrongfully detained there.”
“We still don’t have everybody back. Whatever lawful authorities we have at the FBI, we are going to give 24/7, 365 days to make sure that we zero out this number and to make sure we prevent others from going into situations that you are now all too familiar with.”
President Donald Trump’s nominee for Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Adam Boehler, said during the event that “there’s nothing more important for this country than for everyone to know that if they’re abroad and they’re taken that the country has their back.”
