Well, for more on Patel's hearing and his tenure so far at the FBI, I spoke earlier today with Asha Rangappa.

She's a former FBI agent, now a lecturer at Yale University.

Asha Rangappa, welcome back to the News Hour. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So let's just begin with your reaction to the charges that we learned about today, brought against the accused gunman and the killing of Charlie Kirk, and prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty.

Was all of this to be expected?

Yes, I think so. And what is notable about the charges is that they have tried to find as many ways to charge the most serious crimes possible.

So, for example, they are charging aggravated murder because people other than Mr. Kirk

were put in danger.

There are charges relating to children witnessing this act.

And there's also a targeting enhancement that's included

on many of the counts alleging that the shooter targeted Mr. Kirk because of his political

beliefs. I want to turn now to that hearing featuring the FBI director Cash Patel.

We took questions before a Senate committee and just

want to get your reaction to it. And in particular, how you think he handled some of those

tougher lines of questioning from Democrats in particular? I think that it's a mixed bag,

to be honest. I mean, many of his responses were evading some of the questions.

Now, there is ongoing litigation right now where three senior former FBI officials have sued

Director Patel and the Department of Justice for unlawful termination.

So on many of those questions, he kind of hid behind the

shield that he couldn't answer those questions with ongoing litigation. So I don't know that he was

completely responsive. He was asked, of course, about the firings of those agents. And as you mentioned,

...