Kash Patel Scrambles to Lock Down Leaks, Sending FBI Into Chaos

It’s always a sign that things are going well when you have to break out the polygraph machines!

FBI Director Kash Patel has directed the use of “lie detector” tests to root out leakers at national security agencies, The Washington Post reported Monday, a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent sources from disclosing information to the press that could undermine the president’s policies.

“The seriousness of the specific leaks in question precipitated the polygraphs, as they involved potential damage to security protocols at the bureau,” the FBI spokesperson said of the Trump administration’s latest McCarthyist antic.

While polygraph tests are regularly used by government agencies in hiring practices, as well as by law enforcement for interrogating suspects, they are widely considered to be unreliable indicators of actual deception, instead indicating a subject’s anxiety levels.

“They are stress detectors,” said Steven Aftergood, an expert on intelligence policy formerly with the Federation of American Scientists, to the Post. “If for any reason the questions being posed are upsetting to an individual, your pulse might accelerate even if you’ve done nothing wrong. So polygraphs do not measure truth or falsity.”

Aftergood said the use of polygraphs was the result of “thin-skinned” agency heads who were afraid of “adverse news coverage.”

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a startling internal memo rescinding a Biden-era policy that protected journalists from leak investigations. The updated policy would allow for the use of subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders to collect information and testimony from journalists. “Federal government employees intentionally leaking sensitive information to the media undermines the ability of the Department of Justice to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights, and keep America safe. This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop,” Bondi wrote in the memo.

Bondi pointed to reports that Dan Caldwell, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s senior adviser, had been fired. She also included a report that revealed a “secret assessment” by the National Security Council that determined that Venezuela was not directing members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to invade the U.S. as an example of leaked classified information.

Aftergood told the Post that Bondi’s memo had wrongly presumed that the White House’s communications were all “sacrosanct.”

“It’s like saying dissent will not be tolerated. It is both absurd and offensive,” Aftergood added.

Concerns over leaks within the Trump administration have been escalating since before the humiliating Signalgate scandal last month. On a podcast Sunday, an ex-Hegseth aide said that the secretary and his team had become “consumed” by leaks. “If you look at a pie chart of the secretary’s day, at this point, 50 percent of it is probably a leak investigation,” the aide said.

The growing crackdown in intelligence agencies has created what one former official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence anonymously described to the Post as “a culture of fear that there will be personal retribution.”

A former FBI field office head was more blunt. “Morale’s in the toilet,” they told the Post anonymously. “When you see people who are being investigated, or names [of agents who worked on January 6 cases] being passed over to the DOJ, it’s what the fuck?”

Amazon was almost going to break down tariff prices on its shopping platform for consumer transparency—before the White House threw a tantrum.

Shortly after the e-commerce giant announced Tuesday that it would display tariff costs for its customers alongside its marketplace items’ original prices, Amazon balked, caving to the Trump administration’s demands that it reconsider what the MAGA leader viewed as a “hostile and political act.”

“Why did Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in four years?” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt during a press briefing, adding that “it’s not really a surprise” that Amazon would do such a thing since it has, per the Trump administration, “partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm.”

Hours after Leavitt made the accusation, an Amazon spokesperson said that the larger website had never considered such a move, instead deferring blame to one of its smaller storefronts for low-priced goods, Amazon Haul.

“The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products,” the spokesperson told The Washington Post in a statement. “This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos made unexpected political waves when he appeared at Donald Trump’s inauguration, visually backing the president’s forthcoming administration. Since then, Bezos’s net worth—which is tied up mostly in Amazon stock—has tanked by some $36 billion as Trump has proposed a 145 percent tariff on imported Chinese goods, a move that would practically shatter Amazon’s supply chain and irreparably damage sellers on the market’s platform.

During the same press briefing, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that 18 countries have issued trade proposals to lower tariffs. Earlier this month, the White House promised to make 90 deals in 90 days to drive down predicted costs and erase the trade war, a pledge that economists argue is no less than a monumental task.

Major big box retailers have already rung the alarm bells over Trump’s paused plan. Last week, representatives from Walmart, Target, and Home Depot met at the White House to discuss concerns over Trump’s aggressive tariff plan.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday bragged about ending a military program he described as “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative.”

But that initiative—the Women, Peace & Security program—was started by the Trump administration in 2017 after he signed a bipartisan bill authored by Kristi Noem and Jan Schakowsky. The measure was also supported at the time by Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio. Three of those four people named now work at the highest levels of the Trump administration.

“This morning, I proudly ENDED the ‘Women, Peace & Security’ (WPS) program inside the @DeptofDefense. WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING,” Hegseth wrote on X. “WPS is a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it. DoD will hereby executive the minimum of WPS required by statute, and fight to end the program for our next budget. GOOD RIDDANCE WPS!”

Yet in 2020, Trump-appointed Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman described this same program as a worthwhile national effort.

“By recognizing the diverse roles women play across the spectrum of conflict—and by incorporating their perspectives throughout plans and operations—DOD is better equipped to promote our security, confront near-peer competitors, and defeat our adversaries,” he said.

“When we recognize the diverse roles women play as agents of change; and when we incorporate their perspectives throughout our plans and operations, we are better equipped to promote our security, confront our near peer competitors, and defeat our adversaries,” said Stephanie Hammond, another Trump Defense Department staffer. “It will help the department strengthen alliances and attract new partners by demonstrating U.S. commitment to human rights and women’s empowerment, making the United States the partner of choice.”

The program Hegseth is now vilifying was fully backed by MAGA, and it takes anyone about 30 seconds to figure that out. Another honest blunder from Hegseth—whose name has been rightfully followed by words like “embattled” and “controversy” ever since his Cabinet nomination—would be unsurprising. Or maybe he’s just lying blatantly again.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is trying to prevent Democrats from opening up inquiries into the Trump administration.

Johnson used his authority on Monday to advance a measure in the House Rules Committee that would prevent any votes on “resolutions of inquiry,” which would take away one of the few oversight tools that House Democrats have as the minority party in the chamber.

These types of resolutions are privileged, which push them to the top of the House agenda. If the majority party on a committee does not report a resolution of inquiry to the full House, the resolution can be brought to the floor without the speaker’s permission, forcing a vote.

At the moment, Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee are using one of those resolutions to demand answers from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about U.S. attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, and about how the Pentagon is handling classified and sensitive information. Hegseth’s use of private group chats on the Signal app to discuss U.S. airstrikes in Yemen have prompted House Democrats to push for more information.

Republicans, with Johnson’s backing, have responded by pausing resolutions of inquiry until September 30, hoping that questions about “Signalgate” (and any other oversight attempts) from the Democrats will die out. Republicans hid the pause inside another set of resolutions attacking former President Biden’s environmental policies.

With this cowardly move, Johnson and the House GOP have made it harder for Democrats to ask the Trump administration for documents about Signalgate, or any other issue. It’s a blatant favor to President Trump, and effectively weakens Congress’s oversight powers over the executive branch. It’s more proof that Trump owns the Republican Party and wants to exercise total control over the government, the constitutional separation of powers be damned.

Donald Trump has received failing marks from voters in his first 100 days in the White House.

A new poll by NPR/PBS/Marist published Tuesday found that when asked to give the president a letter grade for his efforts during the first three months of his presidency, 46 percent of respondents who were registered voters selected an “F.”

Twenty-four percent of respondents graded Trump with an “A.”

The poll was conducted between April 21 and 23, amid the president’s crackdown on immigration, threats against the judiciary and due process, and a 90-day easing of his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, which have rocked global markets.

But Trump isn’t very interested in receiving a report card. “The Polls from the Fake News are, like the News itself, FAKE! We are doing GREAT, better than ever before,” he wrote on Truth Social late Monday night.

This is just one in a spate of humiliating polls for the president.

An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll published Sunday found that Trump’s approval rating had plummeted to 39 percent, a 6 percent drop from February. Fifty-five percent of Americans said they disapproved of the job he’s doing in office, which is the lowest first-100-day rating of a president since modern polling began roughly 80 years ago. A poll from The New York Times was similarly bleak, with 66 percent of respondents thinking “chaotic” accurately described Trump’s first 100 days. Fifty-four percent thought Trump had exceeded his executive powers, and 50 percent already said he’s made the economy worse.

Trump was so incensed by that result that he demanded a criminal probe into the pollster.

A top GOP pollster suggested that while Trump wasn’t necessarily alienating his own voter base, he was bleeding independents, nonpartisans, and people who already didn’t like him.