Is Kash Too Good At FBI-ing?
And is this other guy about to push him out of his job, UH OH?
Uh oh, somebody has snitched to Fox News that Kash Patel’s days as FBI director may be numbered, and that he’s fixing to get transferred to a do-nothing desk, alongside his similarly sidelined deputy, Dan Bongino.
Gossiped the “source with knowledge of ongoing personnel discussions,” “The White House, [AG Pam] Bondi, [Todd] Blanche have no confidence in Kash. Pam in particular cannot stand him. Blanche either.”
Me four!
As it turns out, being angry, egotistical and wildly incompetent (and blindly loyal, of course) may be the skill set that gets somebody a job in this regime, but even fellow MAGAs don’t like working with a person like that! See also, Pete Hegseth. And Patel has enraged people across the spectrum with his incompetent handling of the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s murder.
But back to the babysitter! You’ll recall last month, sad meathead conspiracy theorist podcaster turned deputy FBI director Dan Bongino got sidelined, after reports that he and Attorney General Pam Bondi got into a shouting match over the Epstein Files. Bongos was apparently the last person on the planet to realize that Donald Trump is actually IN them, and that the plan was to cover up the files as hard as they possibly could, while trying to distract the base by releasing files that were already public. And then to have himself, Bondi and Patel swear up and down on their mothers’ eyeballs that there were no files, and Jeffrey Epstein did too kill himself, nothing to see here!
And that made Bongo’s temple-veins throb extra hard, because he’d made much of his career convincing gullible idiots about the Epstein Files that all the Democrats were in.
PREVIOUSLY!
And now whoops, this weekend and today Patel has pissed off all sides of the political spectrum with his embarrassingly botched investigation into the murder of Charlie Kirk, with the FBI falsely announcing TWICE that a subject was in custody when they had the wrong person. First police arrested this poor 71-year-old man and toted him with his pants down, like a pig about to get dressed for a luau. And then it was never clear who the second subject was (or even if there actually was one).
And so Patel screamed and cussed at his employees, as if the buck did not stop with his own self, and running shit was not his job. Leadership!
And then Monday morning Patel fucked up EVEN MORE, going on Fox & Friends and telling them details like that accused shooter Tyler Robinson left a note. But nobody can see the note, it got destroyed somehow, and he can’t tell anybody what’s in it. Maybe it’s in Canada, with his girlfriend who doesn’t own a phone!
What a fuckup this guy is. Watch if you want!
Journalist Adam Cochran has a breakdown on BlueSky of how Patel’s Fox appearance just caused all kinds of trouble for the prosecution’s case, from Patel’s personal friendship with the victim and animus towards the defendant, to him blabbing details like the note, for no other reason than to preen. Patel talks about personally finding a screwdriver on the college roof, many hours after the crime scene should have been processed, and when he had no business processing a crime scene. Holy chain of custody!
And if Tyler Robinson’s parents and roommate hadn’t turned him in, would Patel’s FBI have even found him? We’ll never know! It did not help that for some reason the FBI waited 12 hours to release a photo of the suspect. Or that Patel had been gutting and loyalty-purging the FBI since January, including just a month ago forcing the retirement of Mehtab Syed, in charge of the office that covers Utah, Idaho and Montana. And for no apparent reason beyond being a woman with a foreign-sounding name, who is therefore probably a Democrat. The brains, they have been drained.
Speaking of the DOJ, Maurene Comey has filed a lawsuit over her unexplained firing. She is the daughter of Trump enemy James Comey, sure, but she also prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell. Weird how she got fired right before Todd Blanche sat down with Maxwell! If she had been left out of that sit-down while still working for the DOJ, and was around to watch everybody try to do cover-ups in real time, well, that sure would have smelled bad and made it all harder, wouldn’t it?
Anyway, Patel’s and Bongino’s babysitter shall be rancid bag of cottage cheese/ Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who has now officially stepped down to devote himself full-time to doing the jobs the administration no longer trusts his charges to do. Unlike Bongos, Bailey has at least actually prosecuted cases before. Bullshit ones against influential Democrats, COVID mask mandates, and Starbucks for not hiring enough white people. And he filed a trollsuit against the state of New York for daring to prosecute Trump for fraud. Also he threatened to sue Media Matters for the “fraud” of pointing out that ads for major brands were showing up next to pro-Nazi content on Elon Musk’s hellsite. But at least Bailey has some legal experience?
And, this regime is not about solving cases and gumshoe detective work. It is about REVENGE, against Trump’s enemies past, present and future.
But that only takes you so far! We still do have courts, and the Weaponization Working Group still has to find a juries willing to indict, say, Letitia James for illegally claiming to a mortgage broker that her niece's house would be her primary residence, in spite of James writing “This property WILL NOT be my primary residence” on her paperwork. Or people for like, throwing a sandwich at a member of the National Guard. Juries do not like it when you take them away from their lives only to waste their time.
And as much as Trump would like to will the crime statistics down to zero, high-profile crimes still happen, and then it’s high-profile obvious when the lickspittles don’t know what they’re doing. But maybe Trollsuit Andy will get in there and make the FBI ship-shape in time for the next high-profile casualties.
[OPEN THREAD!]
Wonkette runs entirely on contributions by you, our readers. Thank you for being our friend and keeping us living forever! The button below will let you donate one time or monthly, in any amount of your choosing.
Do you prefer Venmo? Here’s a button you will like.
Ohio has a neat little program for lower income seniors (heh-I'm senior, that thought always makes me giggle) that gives you $50 to spend on local produce in farmer's markets. I just got it but need to spend it by Nov. 30. I'm going shopping this weekend, this will be fun.
Open Thread Chat, Sept. 15. Hitting that right spot.
https://substack.com/chat/1783367/post/ffaf1e8d-408a-4602-a65c-bb6ad802945a