Democratic firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett said Wednesday that the FBI is protecting white supremacists.

The Texas lawmaker, in a hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel, cast doubt on his numbers showing significant drops in crime and on praise from Republicans that the country is safer than before.

“I don’t know who feels safe in this country except for the white supremacists, because I specifically as a Black woman definitely don’t feel safe,” she said.

She went on to tick off troubling threats that have been aimed at fellow Democrats.

“I don’t know if this FBI, under your leadership, if those people would have been caught,” Ms. Crockett said.

She specifically chided Mr. Patel for celebrating the capture of a suspect charged with killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“Honestly, if it weren’t for parents deciding they were going to turn in their child it seems you all wouldn’t have got there, even though he literally confessed online,” she said. “So I’m confused about what it is the FBI is doing except for trying to put on a show.”

She urged Mr. Patel to “do something about the white supremacy problem.”

Mr. Patel declined to respond to the specific attacks, saying he’s focused on the record.

“I don’t give a damn what they say about me as long as I’m succeeding in the mission. We’re succeeding in the mission,” he said.

The criticism of white supremacy stuck an odd note when aimed at Mr. Patel, who is Indian American and was raised in the Hindu faith.

Indeed, those facts drew rare praise from Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who pointed out that former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a white nationalist, “would undoubtedly be turning over in his grave” by Mr. Patel’s ascendance to the job.