Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
According to a new report created by a group of former and current FBI special agents about the first six months of Kash Patel’s tenure as FBI Director, three of the incidents below are real; I made up the other three. Try to guess which is which:
(1) Patel expensed more than $4,000 to the FBI to pay for creatine and other bodybuilding supplements in an effort to “look more ripped.”
(2) While he received a classified briefing on potential security threats to U.S. landmarks, Patel was seen scrolling the TMZ feed on Instagram.
(3) Patel refused to disembark from an FBI plane at a high-profile crime scene until he was given a size-medium FBI raid jacket; his handlers had to borrow one from a female agent (even then, he demanded that spiffy velcro patches be affixed to the sleeve).
(4) Patel prepared for a press conference to announce a major narcotics takedown by playing Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and practicing stern looks in the mirror of his secure SUV.
(5) After Patel learned that some FBI agents had doubts about whether he should be issued a firearm, he demanded they submit to polygraph tests to determine who had doubted his marksmanship.
(6) Patel ordered all FBI agents to remove special messages from their email signatures, while keeping his own signature boasting of being “#9” (the ninth-ever FBI Director).
Your answers: 3, 5, and 6 are real, while 1, 2, and 4 are not.
The fact that that quiz was harder than it should’ve been speaks to Patel’s toxic blend of arrogance, vanity, and outright incompetence. He’s humiliating himself, and he’s taking the FBI down with him.
The aforementioned report is not some anti-Trump Resistance screed. It was written by a group of experienced FBI agents, past and present, for use by the Republican-led House and Senate Judiciary Committees. The report at times sounds distinctly MAGA themes. It notes derisively that “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is Alive and Well” inside the FBI; exults that “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) [is] No More”; and bemoans the hiring of liberal FBI instructors. Yet despite its inclination toward some of the administration’s favorite talking points, the report shreds Patel for his inept leadership of the FBI. (Deputy Director Dan Bongino absorbs collateral damage; the report labels him dismissively as “something of a clown.”)
Patel’s ineptitude springs largely from his jaw-dropping lack of qualifications. Consider, for example, the contrast with two of his semi-recent predecessors as FBI director, James Comey and Robert Mueller. Whatever his many faults, Comey spent more than two decades at the Justice Department as an elite organized-crime and terrorism prosecutor; eventually became the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and then the deputy attorney general; and was nominated to be FBI director by Barack Obama in 2013 and confirmed 93-1 in the Senate. Mueller fought as a Marine for three years in Vietnam; he was shot in the leg but chose to return to battle and later received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Mueller then became a career prosecutor and was eventually nominated to leadership positions in the Justice Department by four consecutive presidents — two Republicans and two Democrats — and confirmed unanimously by the Senate every time.
Patel, by contrast, worked as a public defender in Florida before hopscotching through various mid-level (non–Senate confirmed) positions with DOJ and the House. Here’s how various FBI agents described his lack of relevant high-end law-enforcement experience in the report: “in over his head”; “neither the breadth of experience nor the bearing an FBI Director needs to be successful”; “may be insecure”; “lacks the requisite experience”; and, simply, “not very good.” Now he holds the reins of a 37,000-person agency with an $11 billion annual budget and more firepower than the military of a small country.
In fairness, sometimes people surprise. We’ve seen government officials who moved up the chain quickly but nonetheless performed admirably. Pete Buttigieg, for example, made the leap from small-town mayor to Cabinet secretary and performed well and with dignity. But since Patel became director, he has continually embarrassed himself and the FBI.
In September, during the intense manhunt for the murderer of Charlie Kirk, Patel infamously rushed onto social media to boast that “the subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.” He was wrong, of course, and had to take it back. (The report details Patel’s “unfortunate obsession with social media”; one agent recommended that the director “stop talking, stop posting, and just be professional.”)
Weeks later, Patel melted down at two congressional hearings that devolved into middle-school food fights. He lashed out at Representative Eric Swalwell, “I’m going to borrow your terminology and call bullshit on your entire career in Congress, which is a disgrace to the American public.” He called Senator Adam Schiff a “political buffoon” and an “utter coward.” He engaged in a shrieking match with Senator Cory Booker. The FBI agents’ report notes (somewhat generously) that Patel “lost his capacity to remain calm and thoughtful” and that his “composure erodes very quickly when confronted by critics.”
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Patel was set off, in part, by questions about his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Indeed, his position has careened from “Release them all immediately” (“Put on your big boy pants,” he crowed awkwardly in a 2023 Fox News interview) to “Nothing to see here” (“No further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” in a July 2025 FBI memo) to, at present, ducking for cover.
Just last week, Patel authorized a ridiculous FBI investigation of six members of Congress who had made a politically controversial — but not remotely criminal — video reminding armed service members that they had the ability to disregard illegal orders. Patel assigned the matter to the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division — which ordinarily counters terrorism. Instead, it’s wasting time trying to interrogate U.S. senators about core First Amendment political speech.
And Patel has gutted the FBI’s own infrastructure. Shortly after he took office, he fired and pushed out dozens of experienced agents who had the temerity to work on January 6 Capitol riot cases or on the prosecutions of Donald Trump. According to the report, Patel has fostered a “culture of mistrust and uncertainty,” and morale within the agency ranges “from ‘fine’ to ‘low’ to ‘bad’ to ‘terrible.’”
Patel poses a dilemma for the next Democratic president, or the next president of either party who wants a half-decent FBI director. Per the position’s statutory ten-year term, he is slated to remain in office until 2035.
The easy call for Trump’s successor would be to fire Patel and install a competent director. After all, Trump himself broke the ten-year standard when he canned Comey in 2017 just three-plus years into his term and when he effectively pushed out Chris Wray after three-plus years on the job in 2025. Turnabout, the future president could rationalize, is fair play.
But if the next president is concerned with respecting the law and restoring norms, he might feel pressure to let Patel serve out the full ten-year term. The law plainly intends to protect the FBI’s independence by creating a position that is not coterminous with the presidency. To fire Patel therefore might look Trumpian in its prioritization of expediency and political loyalty over institutional integrity and good government.
Maybe Trump will do his successor a favor and defenestrate Patel now, or at least soon. Pulitzer-winning journalist Carol Leonnig reported last week for MS NOW that the president “is considering removing Kash Patel as FBI director in the coming months, as he and his top aides have grown increasingly frustrated by the unflattering headlines Patel has recently generated.” White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt denied the reporting, posting on X, “I read the headline to the President and he laughed. He said: ‘What? That’s totally false. Come on Kash, let’s take a picture to show them you’re doing a great job!’”
If anything, the rising uproar around Patel could make Trump less likely to fire him anytime soon; to dispatch his own chosen FBI director within the first year of service would vindicate unfavorable reporting and constitute an implicit acknowledgement of his own appointee’s lousy performance. But eventually, Patel might simply become too much of a liability for the President to bear. Whether Patel stays or goes, he’s already inflicted incalculable damage on the FBI.
