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.

Senator Markwayne Mullin has secured the votes he needed to advance to a final floor vote in the upper chamber, all thanks to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.

Fetterman differed from his colleagues in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Thursday, voting alongside Republicans to advance Mullin’s nomination to the Senate floor.

The final committee tally was 8–7. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Rand Paul joined Democrats in rejecting Mullin’s appointment.

Fetterman has displayed a penchant for Trumpian politics since he moved to Washington, despite the fact that he ran on the progressive ticket. Since Fetterman entered office in 2023, he has sided with Republicans dozens of times, frequently leveraging his position to advance Donald Trump’s agenda. He also voted to confirm several of Trump’s Cabinet selections, including the last DHS chief, Kristi Noem, who was transferred to work in an unknown section of the government following a string of embarrassing scandals.

“In January, I called on the president to fire Noem—and he did,” Fetterman wrote in an X post Thursday, addressing his vote. “I truly approached the confirmation of my colleague and friend, Senator Mullin, with an open-mind.

“We need a leader at DHS. We must reopen DHS,” he continued. “My AYE is rooted in a strong committed, constructive working relationship with Senator Mullin for our nation’s security.”

Mullin has had his own tumultuous history in the Senate. In 2023, the Oklahoma Republican tried to brawl with International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. The hostile exchange was halted by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, but the fallout continued in the days after as Mullin refused to back down from the violence he started. Speaking with podcasters and broadcasters, Mullin invariably escalated the conflict, claiming he would “100 percent” bite and even duel the union boss.

He’s also promoted violence against and attacked his colleagues, spurring accusations that Mullin suffers from severe anger issues.

In a fiery exchange during his committee confirmation hearing Wednesday, Paul raked up Mullin’s reaction to a November 2017 incident in which the Kentucky lawmaker was attacked by his neighbor, leaving him with several broken ribs.

Paul charged that Mullin “went on to brag” that he had “completely understood and approved of the assault,” prompting Mullin to “explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and border patrol agents.”

Mullin’s response was that he was simply a blunt person and that he has had to “really pray about my attitude,” chalking his beef with Paul up to “political differences.”

Mullin also stood by a previous comment that he “understood” where Paul’s neighbor was coming from.

This story has been updated.

Per the families’ requests, media access was reportedly restricted during a dignified transfer of six killed service members at Dover Air Force Base Wednesday. But that didn’t stop the White House from turning the ceremony into content for the internet.

The White House shared several photographs across social media, touting Donald Trump’s attendance at the proceedings with all the esteem an American flag and prayer-hands emoji can provide. “Their courage will never be forgotten,” read another post, with a second American flag emoji.

On TikTok, the White House posted a slideshow of photographs with a piano rendition of “Amazing Grace” playing over top. “The service and sacrifice of the six American heroes will never be forgotten,” the caption read, sounding copy-pasted from ChatGPT.

The images included one of Trump saluting a travel case draped with an American flag. The White House also uploaded a batch of 12 photographs to its Flickr account that showed Trump standing beside House Speaker Mike Johnson and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The ceremony was held to honor six service members who served aboard a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed last week in Iraq, while supporting operations in Iran. The U.S. death toll of Operation Epic Fury has risen to 13 service members.

This was the second dignified transfer Trump has attended since launching his war in Iran. But this is the third transfer ceremony of the war so far: Trump skipped the second after he received immense backlash for wearing his own merchandise during the first proceeding.

This time, he left his gaudy $55, gold-embroidered “USA” baseball cap at home. The White House also previously used a photograph from a dignified transfer earlier this month to illustrate a fundraising email that offered to sell “private national security briefings.”

The White House’s flagrant flouting of the families’ plea for privacy demonstrates that it hasn’t learned anything. Trump is continuing to use dignified transfers for his own political purposes. If not for ads, then for propaganda.

Iran has not gotten anywhere close to developing nuclear weapons over the last year, according to ex-counterterrorism director Joe Kent.

Kent blindsided the Trump administration earlier this week when he suddenly resigned from his post as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, citing the war with Iran—and his assessment that Iran “posed no imminent threat” to the U.S.—as the primary cause for his departure.

In a sit-down interview Wednesday night with Tucker Carlson, Kent explained that Iran’s nuclear program was basically defunct.

“Was Iran on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon?” asked Carlson.

“No, they weren’t three weeks ago when this started, and they weren’t in June, either,” Kent said. “I mean, the Iranians have had a religious ruling—a fatwa—against actually developing a nuclear weapon since 2004. That’s been in place since 2004. That’s available in the public sphere.

“But then also, we had no intelligence to indicate that that fatwa was being disobeyed or it was on the cusp of being lifted,” he noted.

Kent’s resignation sparked a maelstrom across Washington, where top Republicans and Trump officials spent the better part of Tuesday disparaging Kent and his work, branding the Trump appointee as a “crazed egomaniac.” The size and scope of the MAGA reaction was a message to other Trump officials, warning them of the fallout if they publicly criticize the war.

The repercussions continued into Thursday, when Representative Elise Stefanik referred to Kent’s letter as “inappropriate” and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard told Congress that Kent’s decision to blame Israel for the ongoing war was concerning.

In the same interview with Carlson, Kent claimed that U.S. officials had entered a “complacent mode” when dealing with Israel and its shared intelligence, warning that that intelligence could be shared to influence the U.S. administration just as much as it is shared to inform the administration.

“We trust a lot of what they have to say, not keeping in the back of our mind that they have their own agenda and we have our own agenda at the end of the day,” Kent said, noting that the U.S. and Israel’s missions are frequently aligned, though he did not believe this was the case with regard to the Iran.

“I don’t believe our objective has been clearly defined,” Kent said, citing America’s and Israel’s varied approaches to forced regime change in Iran.

Kent also offered some conspiratorial views on Charlie Kirk’s assassination, suggesting that Israel could have been involved in the political operative’s death since Kirk was a vocal opponent of U.S. involvement in Iran.

It’s worth noting that Kent is a known extremist with neo-Nazi ties. He has had to disavow a past interview with Nazi sympathizer Greyson Arnold and interactions with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Even his resignation letter included “ugly antisemitic tropes” and “really nasty rhetoric,” Emily Horne, a former National Security Council official under Joe Biden, told The New Republic earlier this week.

So far, 13 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. More than 1,400 Iranian civilians have been killed, including dozens of children at a girls’ school in the country’s south. Some 3.2 million people have been displaced, as the U.S.-Israeli strikes have damaged more than 42,000 civilian sites—such as homes, hospitals, and schools—across Iran, according to Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani.

The Trump administration is requesting more than $200 billion to fund the war with Iran, and Democrats are outraged.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that the Department of Defense had asked the White House for the hefty sum. Reactions were swift and negative. On X, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego pointed out the Iraq War of the early 2000s was less expensive.

“At the height of combat the Iraq War cost around $140 Billion per year,” Gallego posted. “If the Pentagon is asking for $200 billion they are asking for a long war. The answer is a simple no.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen was more blunt.

“This should be an absolute nonstarter,” Van Hollen wrote. “The best way to end this war, protect our troops, save civilian lives, and rein in a lawless administration is to cut off funding. I’m a hell no.”

The request would come on top of President Trump’s request to Congress in January, before the war, to boost the defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, a record high.* And the first six days of the Iran war cost taxpayers more than $11.3 billion. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth defended the additional $200 billion to reporters Thursday, saying that it “takes money to kill bad guys.”

“So we’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition—everything’s refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond,” Hegseth said.

This budget request is not going to sail through Congress, especially if the administration deploys ground troops. Since most Democrats in the Senate oppose the additional funding, Republicans would have to use the budget reconciliation process to pass it. We’ll see if any vulnerable Republicans balk.

* This story has been updated with the correct defense budget request.

Multiple House Democrats walked out of a closed-door briefing Wednesday with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, calling it a “fake hearing” and accusing her of a “cover-up.”

The briefing was regarding Bondi’s and the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files, and comes just days after Bondi was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee to testify over her “possible mismanagement.”

“It’s outrageous, it’s infuriating and it continues this White House cover-up of the Epstein files,” Democratic Representative Robert Garcia said. “We’re not going to take that anymore.”

Democrats noted that Bondi was not under oath, gave no opening statement, and did not commit to honoring her subpoena. Representative Yassamin Ansari called it “insane bullshit” and said she’d “fucking had it.”

House Oversight Chair James Comer called the Democratic response a “premeditated” stunt. And one exchange between Representative Summer Lee and Comer became particularly tense, according to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

Here’s what happened with Rep. Summer Lee and Chairman James Comer behind closed doors during the briefing with Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, I’m told:

Lee: “Mr. Chairman, there are no cameras here. You don’t have to perform. We were told this was a briefing.”

Comer: “It’s a briefing!”

Lee: “But she hasn’t offered any information.... This is a hearing. This is a hearing without the cameras. This is a hearing without C-SPAN. And it’s a hearing without the public. So, what I’m asking is ...”

Comer: “You want me to scoot some chairs around and make a circle. Would that make it feel more like a briefing?”

Lee: “I would like C-SPAN. I would like you to bring the transcribers. I would like you to go through with the decorum and with the rules ...”

Comer: “Are you trying to find information, or trying to embarrass the attorney general?”

Lee: “Absolutely not. I think the attorney general is a woman who is completely able to defend herself, and I’m not attacking her. I’m questioning you. You run this place. What I’m asking you is ... will you commit to going as far as ...”

Comer: “I’ve already issued the subpoena ...”

Lee: “And this is not the deposition ...”

Comer: “You’ve wasted three minutes of everyone’s time just kind of, bitching ...”

Lee: “Really? Wow! Bitching?”

Comer later responded on X.

“FACT CHECK: True. I said Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time because Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time,” he wrote.

“Fact check: You said a woman was ‘bitching’ because you’re too basic to answer simple questions without throwing a temper tantrum,” Lee responded. “And you’re too weak to keep Bondi from disrespecting YOU and your [subpoena]. Twice a failure.”

Americans everywhere want Bondi and the people in power to go under oath, on camera, and answer a few questions as to why there are so many delays and discrepancies within the files in what is supposed to be the most “transparent” administration ever.