From J. Edgar Hoover authorizing extensive surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jr. to James Comey relaunching a misguided investigation of Hillary Clinton days before the 2016 election, many of the eight previous non-interim FBI directors have shown terrible judgment. But Kash Patel may have established himself, in less than a year, as the worst FBI director ever. He spent 2025 undermining the bureau’s legitimate investigations while launching illegitimate ones, forcing out some of its best employees while installing cronies, and forcing some of the nation’s most skilled law enforcement personnel to act as chauffeurs for Patel’s girlfriend and her friends.
Even in an administration stocked with unqualified, unethical people in top jobs, personified by Donald Trump himself, Patel stands out. A 115-page report from a group of former and current FBI special agents and analysts that became public a few weeks ago slammed Patel for his lack of experience, “obsession with social media,” and creation of a “culture of fear and paralysis” at the bureau. And his critics brought receipts. The most shocking was that Patel, in Utah after the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, allegedly refused to get off his plane until FBI personnel provided him a raid jacket to his liking.
That was not just any jacket. FBI agents scrambled to find a medium-sized one, because Patel would not wear the large and extra-larges that were available. They eventually had to force a female agent to give up hers, according to the report. Then, Patel noticed the medium-sized jacket did not have certain Velcro patches attached. Agents removed patches from their jackets so Patel could put them on his. Finally, he disembarked. (Patel denies this account, but the specificity makes it very credible.)
Patel being horrible at this job was of course virtually inevitable, because his only credentials for it were a willingness to relentlessly defend Trump and attack the president’s enemies. As a top aide on the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee, Patel had been heavily involved in efforts to undermine the investigation into connections between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. That put him on the radar of the president’s team. He joined the administration in early 2019 and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming chief of staff at the Defense Department.
The top jobs he held during Trump’s first term virtually guaranteed Patel would be a major figure in a second term. So it wasn’t surprising that Trump pushed Christopher Wray to resign and then nominated Patel to run the FBI. The administration then doubled down on putting unqualified hyper-partisans in charge of a critical agency by naming conservative commentator Dan Bongino as deputy director. Usually that job goes to a longtime agent, not someone like Bongino, who not only never worked for the FBI but once called the bureau “irredeemably corrupt.”
An FBI run by two Trump hacks has operated exactly as expected. It investigates whomever Trump doesn’t like. So that means hundreds of agents have been reassigned to immigration investigations, even though we already have the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency working on that issue. A few weeks ago, the FBI launched an investigation of six congressional Democrats who previously worked in national security jobs after those lawmakers released a joint video urging current military and intelligence personnel not to violate the law on the orders of Trump aides. It was textbook authoritarianism.
At the same time, the FBI no longer investigates people whom Trump likes or behavior that he himself engages in. The probe of immigration czar Tom Homan, reportedly caught on tape accepting bribes, was stopped. An FBI team that was investigating political corruption has been disbanded. Patel seems to be trying to limit how many files related to Jeffrey Epstein are released to minimize any political damage to the president.
Working at the FBI is now not about your investigative skills, but how Patel and other Trump aides think you feel about the president. Very experienced people are being forced to resign or fired from the bureau either because they worked on the investigations of Trump or are friends with people involved in those probes.
It’s likely that anyone Trump appointed to run the FBI would have harassed the president’s enemies and exonerated his friends, because that’s Trump’s vision for his law enforcement appointees. Attorney General Pam Bondi and federal prosecutors chosen by Trump are doing the same. In fact, a lawsuit filed by recently-fired FBI agents alleges that Patel is largely carrying out an agenda conceived by Stephen Miller and other aides with more power in the administration.
But Patel and Bongino are still bringing some extra incompetence and corruption to the party. Patel spent the early part of 2025 appearing with Trump whenever he could. That was a break from the precedent set by prior FBI directors, who emphasized their independence from politics. It ruined any chance Patel had of being seen as anything but a Trump toady. He seems to be taking advantage of the fact that FBI directors are only allowed to fly on government jets, using the agency’s Gulfstream for numerous trips to watch his singer girlfriend Alexis Wilkins perform and hang out with his friends. Former FBI agents have been very critical of the deployment of SWAT teams to Wilkins’s events, supposedly for security reasons. In one instance, agents reportedly were forced to drive one of Wilkins’s friends home after a night of partying in Nashville.
FBI officials are also frustrated by Patel and Bongino’s social media presences, arguing that they are disclosing too many details of investigations, too quickly, and at times inaccurately. For example, Patel declared that Kirk’s shooter had been arrested a day before that actually happened.
The FBI still does important work, such as the massive investigation that became public last month and appears to show an extensive illegal gambling operation that includes some NBA players and coaches. The agency’s 38,000 employees are very skilled and experienced. I have no doubt they can keep fighting crime even with two incompetent bozos in charge. But a person lacking law enforcement experience, management skills, and most importantly, good judgment should never have been put in charge of such an important agency. Kash Patel as director of the FBI is one of the clearest examples of the mistake America made when it gave Trump a second term.
