Patel faces congressional hearings after missteps in Kirk assassination probe and turmoil at FBI

Hours after the assassination of Charlie Kirk FBI Director Kash Patel mentioned online that the subject was in custody The shooter was not The two men detained were fleetly distributed and personnel commented the gunman remained at large The false assurance was more than a slip It spotlighted the high-stakes uncertainty surrounding Patel s leadership of the bureau when its credibility and his own are under extraordinary pressure Patel now approaches congressional oversight hearings this coming week facing not just questions about that examination but broader doubts about whether he can stabilize a federal law enforcement agency fragmented by political fights and internal upheaval Democrats are poised to press Patel on a purge of senior executives that has prompted a lawsuit his pursuit of President Donald Trump s grievances long after the Russia inspection ended and a realignment of guidance that has prioritized the fight against illegal immigration and street crime even though the agency has for decades been defined by its work on complicated threats like counterintelligence and society corruption That s in addition to questions about the handling of files from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scenario the addition of a co-deputy director to serve alongside Dan Bongino and the use of polygraphs on specific agents in latest months to identify sources of leaks Republicans meanwhile are likely to rally to his defense or redirect the spotlight toward the bureau s critics The hearings will offer Patel his majority of consequential stage yet and perhaps the clearest test of whether he can convince the country that the FBI under his watch can avoid compounding its mistakes in a time of political violence and deepening distrust Because of the skepticism that several members of the Senate have had and still have it s extremely key that he perform very well at these oversight hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday mentioned Gregory Brower a former FBI executive who served as its top congressional affairs official The FBI declined to comment about Patel s coming testimony to the committee He claimed the subject was in custody Kirk s killing was inevitably going to be a closely scrutinized assessment not only because it was the latest burst of political violence inside the United States but also because of Kirk s friendships with Trump Patel and other administration figures and allies While agents from Salt Lake City investigated Patel s account on the social media platform X posted that the subject for the horrific shooting in the current era that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody Utah Gov Spencer Cox revealed at a near-contemporaneous news conference that Whoever did this we will find you suggesting executives were still searching Patel soon after posted that the person in custody had been circulated That does not deliver the message that you want the society to hear declared Chris O Leary a retired FBI counterterrorism executive It had the opposite effect People start to wonder what is going on This looks like the Keystone Cops and it continues to get worse The next day a scheduled afternoon news conference was canceled for rapid developments as Patel and Bongino flew to Utah It was held instead in the evening Patel appeared but did not speak As the search stretched on for over a day Patel angrily vented to FBI personnel Thursday about what he perceived as a failure to keep him informed including that he was not rapidly shown a photograph of the suspected shooter That s according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press The New York Times earlier communicated details of the call Sought about the scrutiny of his performance the FBI issued a comment saying that it had worked with local law enforcement to bring the suspected shooter Tyler Robinson to justice and will continue to be transparent with the American people Patel s overall response did not go unnoticed in conservative circles One prominent strategist Christopher Rufo posted on X that it was time for Republicans to assess whether Kash Patel is the right man to run the FBI Patel at a news conference Friday and again on social media Saturday touted his oversight of the probe highlighting his decision to publicize photographs of Robinson as a key break in the analysis Robinson s father recognized him from the photos setting off a chain of events that resulted in the son turning himself in Patel received help Saturday from Trump He reposted on X a post from a Fox News Channel journalist who reported she had spoken with Trump and that the president had disclosed that Patel and the FBI have done a great job Then there s the personnel purge On the same day Kirk was killed Patel faced a separate concern a lawsuit from three FBI senior executives fired in an August purge that wiped away decades of institutional experience and that they characterized as a Trump administration retribution campaign Among them was Brian Driscoll who as acting FBI director in the early days of the Trump administration resisted Justice Department demands for names of agents who investigated the Jan riot at the Capitol Driscoll alleged in the lawsuit that he was let go following a clash with Patel over administration demands to fire an FBI pilot who had been wrongly identified on social media as the episode agent in the classified documents study of Trump The lawsuit quotes Patel as having recounted Driscoll his job depended on firing people the White House wished gone The FBI has declined to comment on the lawsuit The other plaintiffs are Spencer Evans a former top agent in Las Vegas whose termination letter cited a lack of reasonableness and overzealousness in implementing COVID- policies while serving as a human support official a claim his lawyers call false and Steve Jensen who helped oversee FBI investigations into the Jan Capitol riot The upheaval continues a trend that began even before Patel took over when more than a half-dozen of the bureau s preponderance senior executives were forced out under a Justice Department rationale that they could not be trusted to implement Trump s agenda There s since been important turnover in leadership at the FBI s field offices Particular left because of promotions and planned retirements but others because of ultimatums to accept new assignments or resign The head of the Salt Lake City office an experienced counterterrorism investigator was pushed out of her position weeks before Kirk was killed at a Utah college mentioned people familiar with the move In July an agent based in Norfolk Virginia Michael Feinberg authored a first-person account saying he was notified to brace for a demotion and a polygraph exam because of his friendship with Peter Strzok a lead FBI agent in the study into ties between Russia and Trump s campaign fired over derogatory text messages sent about Trump Feinberg resigned instead FBI s priorities shift under Patel Patel arrived at the FBI having been a sharp critic of its leadership including for investigations into Trump that he says politicized the institution Under Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi the FBI and Justice Department have become entangled in their own politically fraught inquiries such as one into New York Attorney General Letitia James He s moved rapidly to remake the bureau with the FBI and Justice Department working to investigate one of the Republican president s chief grievances the years-old Trump-Russia scrutiny Trump has routinely called that probe which did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump s campaign a hoax and witch hunt The Justice Department appeared to confirm in an exceptional announcement that it was reviewing former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan pivotal players in the Russia saga listed by Patel in a book he authored as members of the Executive Branch Deep State but did not say for what Bondi has directed that evidence be presented to a grand jury and agents and prosecutors have begun requesting information and interviews from former personnel related to the analysis according to multiple people familiar with the outreach Critics of the fresh Russia inquiry consider it a transparent attempt to turn the page from the fierce backlash the FBI and Justice Department endured from elements of Trump s base following their July announcement that they would not be releasing any additional documents from the Epstein inspection Patel has meanwhile elevated the fight against street crime drug trafficking and illegal immigration to the top of the FBI s agenda in alignment with Trump s agenda The FBI has been key to the federal executive s takeover of the Washington police department participating with partner agencies in arrests for crimes like drunken driving not historically thought of as central FBI priorities The bureau makes no apologies for aggressive policing in American cities the Trump administration contends have been consumed by crime Patel and Bongino have been promoting the number of arrests involving federal law enforcement in an initiative they dub Operation Summer Heat Patel says the thousands of cumulative arrests a multitude of of them immigration-related are what happens when you let good cops be good cops But specific are concerned the street crime focus could draw attention from the sophisticated community corruption and national defense threats for which the bureau has long been primarily if not solely responsible for probing In one example a federal corruption squad in Washington was disbanded this past spring One of the big problems that I see is that the investigative programs that have been hurt the preponderance this year are the ones that really only the FBI does or the FBI does better than anybody else mentioned Matt DeSarno who retired in as head of the Dallas field office