The White House has denied its plans to replace FBI Director Kash Patel, despite insiders who maintain that President Donald Trump says Patel's days are numbered.
Journalist Ken Dilanian told MS NOW's Ana Cabrera that he and his colleagues Carol Leonnig and Laura Barrón-López are hearing that "President Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the bad press that Kash Patel has been getting about his use of taxpayer resources, including the FBI jet to fly around his girlfriend and provision of a security detail for his girlfriend, the country singer Alexis Wilkins, and also for some of his premature tweeting on some key investigations."
The "unflattering headlines" about Patel have reportedly prompted Trump to confide in his allies about his concerns over the embarrassing stories.
"But we're in this bizarre situation where the White House and White House spokespeople in the DOJ and the FBI are all denouncing the story and saying that it's absolutely false where behind the scenes we're being told that it's accurate and that despite what Donald Trump is saying, there still are plans eventually to replace Kash Patel with Andrew Bailey, who is serving as right now deputy FBI director," Dilanian said.
Bailey is the former Missouri attorney general. It's unclear when Patel could potentially get booted from his post.
"Now, when that will happen and whether the reporting of these concerns has changed the dynamic at all, that remains to be seen. But the concerns are real. And Kash Patel really has drawn the ire of a lot of people inside the Trump administration for the way he has been conducting himself and running the FBI," Dilanian added.