A new lawsuit indicates he's too busy chasing online clout to notice.
Justin Glawe at Public Notice:
On July 14, Kash Patel summoned an agent with nearly 20 years experience at the FBI to his office. The agent, Steven Jensen, asked Patel not to fire another agent who would soon become the subject of online vitriol from Patel’s MAGA followers. The agent’s wife had stage four cancer and had just days to live, Jensen said. Patel took it under advisement, then presented Jensen with a “challenge coin,” according to a lawsuit filed by Jensen and two other FBI veterans who were fired in a purge of the agency of anyone deemed disloyal to President Donald Trump. At the top of the coin, “Director.” At the bottom of the coin, “Ka$h Patel.” Jensen was “crushing it,” Patel told him. Then, on August 8, Patel fired Jensen and the agent he had sought to protect, Walter Giardina.
Jensen and two other FBI veterans — Brian Driscoll and Spencer Evans — are now suing Patel, the FBI, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the White House for what they say are their unlawful terminations. Their lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, paints a disturbing portrait of a political purge within the FBI — carried out over the last nine months at the alleged direction of the White House — that targeted agents who worked on the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, the classified documents case and ensuing raid at Mar-a-Lago, and anyone who voted for Kamala Harris or harbors personal political views favoring Democrats. The lawsuit also indicates that Patel and deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, have carried out the purge partly in fear of being fired by Trump, and under the influence — and sometimes direction — of their social media followings of MAGA diehards. In fact, Patel and Bongino are so consumed by their online presence that it could be affecting the FBI’s ability to solve crimes, the lawsuit alleges.
[...]
A shitshow inside a shitstorm
The situation inside the FBI is perhaps worse than “instability,” according to Michael Feinberg, a 16-year veteran of the agency who was fired for his friendship with Peter Sztrok, whose disdain for Trump during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation became endless fodder for MAGAsphere influencers bemoaning the “Deep State” during Trump’s first term. “Under Patel and Bongino, subject matter expertise and operational competence are readily sacrificed for ideological purity and the ceaseless politicization of the workforce,” Feinberg wrote in July. “At a time of simultaneous wars across the globe and a return to great power competition, this makes us all less safe.” Patel’s focus on social media compared to the more traditional, deliberative real-world presence of previous FBI directors was on full display Wednesday evening as law enforcement scrambled to find the killer of right-wing commentator and political operative Charlie Kirk. [...]
Cruel and unusual
Patel and Bongino’s online clout-chasing is simply the b-matter of Wednesday’s lawsuit, which alleges the two men — at the direction of the White House and with help from a handful of political appointees and Trump loyalists — fired Jensen, former acting FBI Acting Director Driscoll, and 20-year agency veteran Spencer Evans as “retribution” for failing to “demonstrate sufficient political loyalty” to Trump. Patel even admitted to Driscoll that he knew the firings were illegal, according to the lawsuit. In an August 5 meeting between the two men, Patel told Driscoll that higher-ups within the administration “had directed him to fire anyone who they identified as having worked on a criminal investigation against” Trump. Driscoll assumed the powers that be who Patel said were dictating the terms of the purge included Bondi, the White House, and Trump himself.
See what happens when the head of the FBI is a right-wing media influencer instead of a seasoned law enforcement member? Bad things happen.
