Kash Patel Plays Dumb About Firing Iran Experts Days Before War

FBI Director Kash Patel doesn’t want to take responsibility for his decision to fire an entire team of Iran experts days before the Trump administration attacked the country.

On Thursday, Patel was called to testify about national security before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and Democratic Representative Steve Cohen confronted Patel and asked him when he knew about the administration’s plans to attack Iran.

Initially, Patel said that he’d answer that question in a classified setting, but when Cohen pressed him further, he admitted he knew more than a month before. Cohen then got to the heart of the problem.

“With that knowledge, why did you fire at least a dozen agents in Counterintelligence Unit 12 that specializes in Iran counterintelligence, which makes us much less secure and safe with this war going on from Iranian attacks potentially against our country?” the Tennessee congressman asked.

“I don’t work on timelines when these terminations occur,” Patel replied, saying the firings were the result of unethical or inappropriate behavior. Cohen pressed Patel on whether the people fired were Iran experts, to which Patel said he didn’t believe so.

“They worked in counterintelligence, did they not?” Cohen replied, his voice rising. Patel replied, “I’m taking you at your word sir, I’m not familiar with—”

“You’re the director, I’m not,” Cohen interrupted. “You should know the answer. You fired the people. Where did they work?”

Patel said that the employees were fired for ethical violations, to which Cohen asked if those ethical violations concerned classified documents found in Donald Trump’s bathroom at Mar-a-Lago. Patel said he wouldn’t comment on pending litigation.

It’s hard to believe Patel was intimately familiar with the employees’ ethics violations but had no information about what their jobs even were. Throughout his tenure at the FBI, Patel has done little but promote himself, party on the taxpayer’s dime, and give Trump whatever he wants, including revenge for the bureau’s criminal investigations into the president. Evidently, protecting the American public from threats is a lesser priority.

On Thursday, President Trump was asked why he didn’t warn Japan before he decided to attack Iran last month. His response, in front of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi: “Who knows better about surprise than Japan?” 

“Japan and U.S. are very good friends. But … why didn’t you tell U.S. allies in Europe and Asia like Japan about the war before attacking Iran?” a Japanese reporter asked Trump during his meeting with Takaichi. “We are very confused.” 

“Well one thing, we didn’t wanna signal too much, you know? When we go in, we went in very hard, and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” Trump replied. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor? OK?” Trump said in jest.

The dark joke got some laughs and one sigh. Takaichi looked visibly tense, and struggled to keep the smile she had previously maintained on her face. 

Trump was of course referring to Japan’s 1941 surprise attack on the U.S. Pearl Harbor naval base in Oahu, Hawaii, which killed 2,403 U.S. servicemen and civilians and led to the U.S. entry into World War II. This attack—and U.S. propaganda about it—resulted in a flourishing of anti-Japanese racism at home, including “jap hunts” and the brutal forced internment of about 120,000 Japanese people on the West Coast of the U.S.  

The U.S. knows something about surprise too. It ended the war by dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 civilians in one of the most abominable crimes of war in human history. But things might not have been so funny anymore had Takaichi mentioned that.  

The Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem turned into an ATM for Republican operatives hoping to make a buck off of multimillion-dollar contracts.

Two companies with ties to Kristi Noem’s inner circle raked in millions of dollars from government contracts, Politico reported Thursday.

Safe America Media, which was formed just eight days before it received a massive $220 million ad contract, received at least $15.2 million from a 12 percent commission, according to an internal DHS memo and three people familiar with contracts. The second firm, People Who Think, received at least $7.7 million from its 10 percent commission on a portion of the $220 million, according to the memo. The memo noted that there was only a “limited competition” for the contracts, due to an “urgent and compelling need,” and that the commission rates were beneath industry standard.

Safe America Media LLC then subcontracted Strategy Group, a media company headed by the husband of Tricia McLaughlin, who served as a spokesperson for the DHS. The outgoing secretary was reportedly put in touch with the agency by Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s former adviser and Noem’s rumored beau.

McLaughlin said that Safe America Media was reportedly selected for the contract because of the men who ran it: veteran GOP media operative Mike McElwain and his top ad maker, Patrick McCarthy. The duo have ties to a firm that did extensive media buying for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. People Who Think was co-founded by Jay Connaughton, who worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign. The firm worked on a campaign for Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry that also hired Lewandowski and Strategy Group.

The flashing signs indicating corruption don’t stop there.

Lewandowski asked the country’s largest private prison company for bribes in return for receiving contracts from the DHS, according to an exclusive report Thursday from NBC News.

During the presidential transition, Lewandowski told George Zoley, the founder and executive chairman of GEO Group, that he wanted payment in return for fostering DHS contracts with the company, a senior DHS official and three people familiar with their discussion told NBC News. At the time, Zoley didn’t want anything to do with the deal.

Months later, after Lewandowski had officially secured a gig as a “special government employee” and top adviser to Noem, Zoley offered to put him on retainer and pay a recurring consulting fee, two industry sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. This time, it was Lewandowski who balked. He wanted to be paid in proportion to the contracts GEO Group secured from DHS. Zoley declined again.

Within weeks of that meeting, Lewandowski told a senior DHS official not to award any more contracts to GEO Group, the senior official told NBC News. GEO Group eventually received a new $121 million contract with DHS in December 2025. GEO Group already held multiple federal contracts worth a total of $1 billion per year.

It’s not clear that Lewandowski received any money for securing government contracts—but it seems he certainly tried. His spokesperson denied that these interactions ever took place.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard had her past quotes against war on Iran broadcast at a House intelligence hearing—and was asked why they contradict her current statements.

Democratic Representative Ami Bera put Gabbard in the hot seat when he highlighted her warning on the House floor following Trump’s killing of Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

At the time, Gabbard had decried President Trump’s killing of Soleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war that President Trump took,” and said that it would make brutal U.S. forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “look like a picnic.”

“Director Gabbard, do you still believe that strikes against Iran that don’t have congressional authorization constitute an illegal and unconstitutional act of war?” Bera asked.

“The cost of war weighs very heavily upon me and my colleagues here.... My own personal and political views, as I mentioned earlier—I was asked and required by Congress and by the president in this role as the director of national intelligence to check those views at the door to ensure that the intelligence assessments are not colored by my personal views,” Gabbard replied.

“Do you still believe that war with Iran would be so costly and devastating that it would ‘make our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic’?” Bera asked, quoting Gabbard again.

“Once again, in this role, it is essential that I do not allow any of my personal views on any issues to color or bias the intelligence reporting that we deliver to you and to the president.”

Gabbard spent much of the hearing trying to separate herself from her past statements, while refusing to criticize Trump’s war directly.

“Director Gabbard … there is no imminent threat of nuclear breakout,” Bera pointed out earlier in the hearing. “Did you deliver that assessment to the president?”

“I have delivered the intelligence community’s assessments to the president,” she replied, refusing to elaborate further.

It’s obvious that Gabbard believes we should not be at war with Iran right now. If that’s the case, she should make like her colleague Joe Kent and write that resignation letter.

In response to skyrocketing oil prices as a result of the war with Iran, the Trump administration is considering lifting sanctions on the country it is currently bombing.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business Thursday morning that “we had a break-the-glass plan across the administration, and at Treasury we unsanctioned Russian oil.”

“In the coming days, we may un-sanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water,” Bessent added, claiming that their oil would amount to about “10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out that would have all gone to China.”

Iranian oil has been sanctioned in some form since 1979, and the idea that the Trump administration would consider easing sanctions while starting a war with Iran seems counterintuitive, giving the country an economic lifeline. On Wednesday, the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Venezuelan oil, and last week, it eased sanctions on Russian oil despite the country’s ongoing war with Ukraine.

Does the White House have any long-term plans for its war with Iran? Trump was clearly caught off guard by Iran’s closure and mining of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical choke point in the Persian Gulf where much of the world’s oil flows, and by Iran’s decision to attack oil facilities of U.S. allies in the region.

Last year, the Trump administration chose to decommission several of its anti-mine ships, and also fired oil and gas experts from the State Department. Both moves have backfired, as the ships would be critical to help clear the strait and the experts could have helped prepare for this current oil crisis. Now the White House has been left scrambling to avert an economic crisis.

This story has been updated.