After months of controversies, missteps and failures, FBI Director Kash Patel didn’t need another embarrassing report that casts him in an unflattering light. Anyway, let’s check the headlines. The New York Times has reported:
At a secret gathering in May, south of London, the head of Britain’s domestic security service asked Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, for help. British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.
According to the Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC, Patel committed to MI5 that the posting would remain intact. The bureau’s director did not, however, keep his word, and the agent in question left London as part of a White House-directed cost-saving measure.
It was, the article added, “a jarring introduction to Mr. Patel’s leadership style for British officials.”
By any sensible measure, it’s a style that’s failing. Indeed, it’s become challenging to keep up with the FBI director’s many embarrassments. Just in recent weeks, he’s been accused of misusing a bureau jet, prematurely sharing sensitive details about an ongoing case (twice) and overseeing a brazenly political personnel purge.
These developments came on the heels of a brutal federal lawsuit, filed by three former senior FBI officials in September, which characterized Patel’s bureau as fixated on “politically motivated retribution” and consumed by the whims of the Trump White House.
A few months earlier, NBC News reported, “Patel’s approach to his new job has raised concerns that he is not taking the position seriously enough, a dozen current and former DOJ and FBI officials told NBC News. … At the same time, Patel has drawn attention for regularly appearing with celebrities at professional sporting events around the country, according to flight logs and social media posts.” The Times’ latest report added, “Mr. Patel’s inexperience, his dismissals of top F.B.I. officials and his shift of bureau resources from thwarting spies and terrorism have heightened concerns among the other Five Eyes nations that the bureau is adrift.” It’s almost as if putting an amateurish conspiracy theorist and podcast personality in charge of FBI wasn’t a good idea. Nine months ago, Patel was confirmed with the support of 51 of the chamber’s 53 Republican members. To date, none of them have acknowledged the mistake.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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