Newly released FBI records show that when an anonymous X account mocked Director Kash Patel with a slur, his response was to order the bureau's press shop to fire back with the FBI's "record year" stats, an idea his own top spokesman flatly refused as something that would only make the boss look worse.
The exchange surfaced in the FBI's own document release tied to its review of the Jeffrey Epstein files, in a Feb. 5 text conversation between Patel and Ben Williamson, the bureau's assistant director for public affairs.
The offending post came from an account named after a slur for people with intellectual disabilities, which had shared Patel's official portrait and mock-congratulated him for hitting "all-time highs" on its insult of choice. Williamson described it to Patel as "an 'Epstein didn't kill himself' bot account."
But Patel wasn't deterred. He insisted the "277k responses are not bots" and pressed his spokesman on a standing order.
"What i asked you and your team to do is find them, and post our record year results back at them all, continuously," Patel wrote, before asking whether staff had actually been doing it.
They hadn't. Williamson first knocked down the premise, noting the 277,000 was views, not replies, and that the post had drawn only about 400 responses. Then he made clear the team had been declining to carry out the order.
"We're not responding to 'ifindr------s.' That would look bad on you," Williamson wrote.
Patel wouldn't let go. "Its not about them," he replied, "it is about the number of views, because people see it and need to be seeing our stats."
The exchange drew mockery online, with writer Josh Billinson writing that he had assumed, before seeing the screenshot, that Patel "was gonna be explaining that to like a junior comms staffer or something" — rather than issuing the order himself.
Democratic strategist Jesse Lee was in disbelief.
"Not sure how anybody could read this text exchange from [Patel] and not think he should immediately resign," he wrote. "Dude, go catch some terrorists, maybe even lift a finger about the crime wave happening in the executive branch under your nose!"
The reactions land as Patel faces continued scrutiny over his handling of the Epstein files and the contested claims he has made about them.