Under pressure from the White House and from the MAGA base, a furious Kash Patel lashed out at his aides on Thursday over the slow pace of the Charlie Kirk murder investigation during a tense meeting at FBI headquarters, the New York Times is reporting.
With scrutiny increasing on an investigation that appears to be spinning its wheels and has been hamstrung by blunders, the FBI director and his deputy Dan Bongino, are both pointing the finger at their subordinates, with Patel calling what has transpired a “Mickey Mouse operation” when he was not swearing at them.
According to the Times’ Glenn Thrush, Devlin Barrett and Adam Goldman, Patel and Bongino “... made it clear they were under intense pressure to catch the killer of Mr. Kirk. They expressed themselves with such fierce urgency that, in the view of some participants, it hinted at another motive: to prove they were up to the task.”
Patel is already being second-guessed after taking to X and boasting about suspects in the murder of the far-right activist who have been taken into custody, only to have to swiftly walk those back sometimes within an hour.
Noting that Patel and Bongino hopped on a plane and flew to the scene of the crime on Thursday, with Patel appearing at a delayed press conference, the Times is reporting that Patel was particularly incensed “that agents in Salt Lake City waited nearly 12 hours to show him a photo of the suspected killer, according to three people familiar on the exchange.”
“Whether Mr. Patel can overcome his embarrassing early stumble in posts online about the Kirk investigation remains to be seen,” the Times is reporting before adding, “It was highly unusual for the director of the F.B.I., known for its button-down messaging and a longstanding reluctance to compromise investigations by freely sharing information with the public.”
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