Under Kash Patel, “FBI” Means Foolish, Belligerent, and Incompetent
From J. Edgar Hoover authorizing extensive surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. to James Comey restarting a flawed investigation into Hillary Clinton days before the 2016 election, many of the previous eight non-acting FBI directors have demonstrated terrible judgment. But Kash Patel may have established himself, in less than a year, as the worst FBI director of all time. He spent 2025 undermining the bureau’s legitimate investigations while launching illegitimate ones, expelling some of his top employees while installing cronies, and forcing some of the nation’s most capable law enforcement officers to serve as chauffeurs for Patel’s girlfriend and her friends.
Even in an administration populated with unqualified and unethical people in high-level positions, personified by Donald Trump himself, Patel stands out. A 115-page report by a group of current and former FBI special agents and analysts, released a few weeks ago, criticized Patel for his lack of experience, his “obsession with social media” and the creation of a “culture of fear and paralysis” within the bureau. And his detractors brought receipts. Most shockingly, Patel, in Utah after the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, reportedly refused to get off his plane until FBI personnel provided him with a raid jacket that he liked.
It wasn’t just any jacket. FBI agents scrambled to find a medium-sized one because Patel didn’t want to wear the available large and extra-large sizes. They ultimately had to force one officer to give up hers, according to the report. Then Patel noticed that the medium-sized jacket didn’t have certain Velcro patches attached. The officers removed the patches from their jackets so Patel could put them on his. Finally, he disembarked. (Patel denies this version, but its specificity makes it very credible.)
The fact that Patel would be horrible at the job was of course practically inevitable, because his only assets were his willingness to relentlessly defend Trump and attack the president’s enemies. As the top aide to the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee, Patel had been heavily involved in efforts to undermine the investigation into ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. That put him on the presidential team’s radar. He joined the administration in early 2019 and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming chief of staff of the Department of Defense.
The top posts he held during Trump’s first term virtually guaranteed that Patel would be a major figure in a second term. So it’s no surprise that Trump pushed Christopher Wray to resign and then appointed Patel to head the FBI. The administration then doubled down on its efforts to hand over a critical agency to unqualified hyper-partisans by appointing conservative commentator Dan Bongino as deputy director. Usually, that job goes to a longtime agent, not someone like Bongino, who not only never worked for the FBI but once called the bureau “irredeemably corrupt.”
