Under intensifying pressure, Kash Patel extends his FBI purge campaign

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It was nearly three months ago when Politico reported that things weren’t “looking great” for FBI Director Kash Patel, suggesting that he appeared likely to be the next high-ranking official to exit the administration. This dovetailed with related observations about just how little the White House has done to defend Patel, or even to say his name out loud, in the face of multiple controversies.

In the days and weeks that followed, the former podcast personality’s troubles managed to get worse. The public soon learned about his personally branded liquor bottles. And his “payback squad.” And his alleged manipulation of crime data. And the “VIP snorkel” excursion at Pearl Harbor. And the failure to disclose an investment in a crypto-fueled business that has contracted with the Justice Department. And odd boasts about having a gold-plated jet ski.

It reached the point last week that even Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined congressional Democrats in questioning Patel’s flights on FBI aircraft and the bureau’s purchase of specially armored BMWs at the director’s request.

One day later, MS NOW reported that Patel, who was apparently planning to fly to Chicago to see his girlfriend, abruptly cancelled his plans after frustrated administration officials summoned him to the White House. Responding to the developments, Hearst columnist Philip Bump explained, “Trump lackeys go into their positions thinking they are protected by the force field that Trump’s base projects around him. But they’re not, because he maintains the force field by ejecting anyone who becomes too big of a liability. You’re on your own, K$H.”

In recent months, when Patel has run into serious trouble, he’s responded by scrambling to save his job and taking steps intended to please Team Trump. With this in mind, one day after the FBI director was effectively called to the principal’s office after a series of embarrassing missteps, Patel took a familiar step. MS NOW also reported:

Two Atlanta-based FBI intelligence analysts were fired last week after refusing to participate in the Trump administration’s investigation of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, three people familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

The analysts, a husband and wife, told colleagues they did not believe the investigation was justified under FBI and Justice Department policies, the people said, adding that the couple was escorted out of their office. The FBI neither confirmed nor denied that the two analysts were fired.

We’ve known for months that Patel has deployed hundreds of intelligence analysts to Georgia in pursuit of discredited conspiracy theories about President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat. There’s no good reason for these deployments — common sense suggests these officials have actual work to do related to law enforcement — and two investigators reportedly balked at the partisan and pointless exercise.

Naturally, they were fired.

They have plenty of company. Indeed, Patel’s tenure as FBI director has been a national embarrassment in a great many ways, but among the most jarring developments this year is the sheer volume of bureau personnel who have been purged for political reasons, leaving the agency destabilized.

MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian noted the ongoing purge “is without precedent in the modern history of the bureau. It raises questions about whether the Trump administration is trying to turn the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency into an instrument of presidential whim — exactly the thing he baselessly accused his opponent of doing.”

That was nearly a year ago. Things are much worse now.

The ouster of the two Atlanta-based analysts comes a month after Patel fired a different group of bureau intelligence analysts in Virginia, despite the lack of evidence that they did anything wrong. One week earlier, Dilanian reported that Patel also fired a senior intelligence analyst, Deputy Assistant Director Emily Morales, who played a role in the FBI’s 2017 assessment of the motives of the gunman who attacked a House Republican baseball practice.

That came on the heels of Patel firing a dozen FBI agents and staff for their role in investigating Trump’s classified documents scandal. In the process, the bureau director gutted the global espionage unit, known as CI-12, shortly before the start of the war in Iran.