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Kash Patel, the FBI director, is now testifying before lawmakers on the Senate judiciary committee. A reminder that the last time he appeared before Congress was in May, when he sparred with senators on the appropriations committee and denied – under oath – allegations of excessive drinking and unexplained absences on the job, dismissing them as “baseless” during a fiery congressional hearing.

Today’s hearing is also expected to be full of heated exchanges. “Mr Patel is the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in our nation’s history,” said Senator Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee’s top Democrat. “The bureau has been reshaped as a political weapon against President Trump’s political enemies and a shield to protect the president and his MAGA loyalists, not the American people.”

The 84-year-old said he was prepared to cast his first vote after rampant speculation about his health

Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate majority leader, returned to the Capitol on Monday and cast his first vote after a months‑long absence that fueled rampant speculation about his health.

One of the highest-profile figures in Congress, the 84-year-old senator has been away from the Senate since mid-June, following what his office said was a fall that left him hospitalized. After weeks of silence, that spurred demands for greater transparency and stoked online conspiracies, McConnell disclosed that he had been “briefly unconscious” and “also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia”. He was discharged from a rehabilitation center last month.