All posts tagged "kash patel"

This appalling Trump coverup cannot last forever — and may end sooner than he thinks

When Emmett Till’s mother lifted the veil from her son’s mutilated body in 1955, she forced America to face itself. She knew that if the nation could see what had been done to her child, it could no longer pretend innocence. That open casket was a moral explosion: it turned private grief into a public reckoning.

The same courage is needed now.

Amy Wallace, the co-writer of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl, has said she knows the names of the men who raped and trafficked children with Jeffrey Epstein.

She says the FBI — and, presumably, Director Kash Patel — knows the names of those men.

She says the Department of Justice — and, presumably, AG Pam Bondi (who turned a blind eye to Epstein’s crimes during the eight years she was Florida’s Attorney General while he was raping children under her nose) — knows the names of those men.

The only ones kept in the dark are the American people.

Wallace’s words should set the country on fire:

“Yes, I know who the names are. Virginia knows who the names are. So does the FBI and the DOJ.”

Yet the files remain sealed, and the truth sits buried under bullshit excuses about “ongoing investigations” and “legal process” that are obviously designed to protect one person: Donald Trump. Was he also raping children? Was the Miss Teen USA Pageant he owned back then also part of Epstein’s network, feeding teenage girls to predators?

Is that what House Speaker Mike Johnson is working so hard to cover up? Are they haunted by the Newsweek headline: “Epstein Victim Was Contestant in Donald Trump’s Teen Beauty Pageant”? Is that why Johnson is refusing to swear Adelita Grijalva into office?

Most recently we’ve been treated to the naked lies Patel and Bondi are apparently telling (or shrouding with legalese) about not having “Epstein’s list” at all, something both of them previously claimed existed. Did it simply vanish? Did they destroy it, after Bondi told the press that it was “sitting on my desk right now” back in February?

Virginia Giuffre fought to expose Epstein’s network of predators who were, and still are, protected both by their great wealth and the status that can confer and, now, by the Republican Party itself. Her courage cost her her life, and her death leaves behind both a tragedy and a moral demand.

Her story is not gossip. It’s unambiguous testimony about how men in power like Donald Trump shield themselves from justice. It’s the record of an old boy system that would rather bury the victims than confront the abusers.

Every institution involved in this cover-up is rotting from within. The Republican-controlled House and Senate. Trump’s Department of Justice. His toady-controlled FBI.

We’ve seen this sickness before.

The Catholic Church protected pedophile priests for decades. George W. Bush’s administration lied about torture and murder.

Corporations selling tobacco, asbestos, fossil fuels, and opioids hid reports on their deadly products and hired corrupt “scientists” and paid off mostly-Republican politicians to help them continue killing Americans and our planet for billions in profits. Trump’s administration even tried to bring back asbestos.

There’s not a family in America that wasn’t touched by this criminality and these men’s lies: the asbestos industry’s executives’ coverups killed my father, and the tobacco industry’s executives’ coverups killed my younger brother Stanley.

The formula never changes. When uncomfortable truths threaten people who hold great wealth and power, they use that power to hide the truth. The result is always the same: a deep moral infection that spreads — and often kills — until the public rises up to clean it out.

The Epstein case is not about one man. It’s about a culture of privilege that believes laws are for the poor and justice is for the powerless.

If a large group of men are named in the files as abusers of children, and if the FBI and DOJ know who they are as Virginia Giuffre alleges, then every day of silence is a crime against humanity.

Every Trump administration official who stays quiet is an accomplice. Every Republican representative or senator who hides behind “procedure” and cowers in fear of Trump joins the conspiracy.

America cannot heal by hiding its wounds. Just as Emmett Till’s mother forced the nation to look at the face of violent racism, we must now look at the faces of those men Trump and Epstein traveled with who used children as sex objects and hid behind the power their great wealth conferred.

It may be painful to see, but the truth is always painful before it’s redemptive. The cover-up must end. The files must be released. The names must be spoken.

Those who raped and trafficked children with Epstein — including Trump, if the evidence points in that direction — must face public exposure and legal punishment. They should not hold office, sit on boards, or enjoy the comforts of respectability. They should face justice.

And those who know and remain silent must be held to account as well. We can’t have one standard for the powerful and another for everyone else. A democracy that protects predators because they’re rich or politically powerful is no democracy at all.

The FBI, the Department of Justice, Republicans in Congress, and every public servant with knowledge of these crimes must decide which side of history they stand on. If they choose secrecy, they stand with the abusers. If they choose truth, they stand with the victims and with the conscience of the nation. There is no middle ground.

This is not about revenge. It’s about cleansing the moral fabric of our country. Evil thrives in silence. It feeds on secrecy. When sunlight hits corruption, it dies. The moment those names are made public, the reckoning begins. That’s how justice starts.

Let the people see what’s been done. Let them see who did it. Let them see the truth that Trump and those around him have tried so hard to bury.

Emmett Till’s mother showed us what courage looks like. Now that same courage is needed again. Until the truth is out, until the names are spoken, until justice is real, the stain will remain on us all.

'Dragnet': Ex-DOJ lawyer sounds FBI alarm as Bondi and Patel hail new 'antifa' indictment

A former senior Department of Justice anti-terrorism lawyer who served in three presidential administrations said he was troubled by federal prosecutors calling “antifa” a “militant enterprise,” in a recent indictment against two individuals accused of attacking a Texas ICE facility.

The indictment unveiled on Thursday charges Zachary Evetts and Cameron Arnold with providing material support to terrorists and three counts each of attempted murder of federal officers and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, in connection with a July 4 attack on the ICE Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.

The government alleges the two were part of an “antifa cell,” while defining “antifa” — commonly understood as a decentralized movement of people opposed to fascism — as an “enterprise made up of networks and small groups ascribing to a revolutionary anarchism or autonomous Marxist ideology.”

The indictment goes on to say that since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, “antifa adherents have increasingly targeted agents and facilities related to DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in opposition to ICE’s deportation actions and the U.S. government’s policy on the removal of illegal aliens.”

“The choice of the term ‘enterprise’ is illuminating in that they suggest they are investigating antifa as an enterprise,” Thomas E. Brzozowski, who formerly served as counsel for domestic terrorism at the Department of Justice, told Raw Story.

“It gives them the authority to look at a lot of stuff — membership, recruiting, funding….”

“It gives the FBI the wherewithal to examine the funding of anybody that would in their view fall under this bucket, which is pretty broad, even if you are not involved in perpetrating violence in the furtherance of this ideology.”

Brzozowski, who served under Joe Biden and Barack Obama as well under Trump’s first administration, added: “When you’ve got this amorphous definition that encompasses such a wide array of ideologies, that is a broad spectrum of people that are otherwise unconnected. That’s a problem, in my view.”

The indictment echoed language in Trump’s Sept. 22 executive order naming “antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization,” while describing it as “a militaristic, anarchist enterprise.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi cited Trump in an X post on the indictment Thursday, declaring, “Antifa is a left-wing terrorist organization. They will be prosecuted as such.”

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote: “Under President Trump’s new authorities we’ve made 20+ arrests. No one gets to harm law enforcement. Not on my watch.”

‘Protest and shoot fireworks’

The indictment only says one member of the so-called “antifa cell” — described only as “Coconspirator-1” — fired at law enforcement at the ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas on July 4.

The indictment describes “Coconspirator-1” as opening fire on Alvarado police officers responding to a 911 call from ICE, striking one of the officers in the neck area.

The U.S. Department of Justice has identified the shooter as Benjamin Hanil Song.

Song is separately charged with three counts of attempted murder of federal agents, but is not named as a defendant in the indictment defining “antifa” as a “militant enterprise.”

That indictment alleges that “Coconspirator-1” (Song) trained members of the “antifa cell” in firearms and close-quarters combat, and that when police responded to the ICE facility on July 4, Song yelled, “Get to the rifles.”

Patrick McLain, Evetts’ lawyer, previously told Raw Story his client believed he would be participating in a protest, and did not fire a gun.

“They were going to the ICE detention facility,” McLain said. “Mr. Evetts was going to protest and shoot fireworks on the night of the 4th of July. Clearly, someone fired.”

The recent indictment states that the police officer, who was reportedly discharged from an area hospital following the attack, returned fire.

“I know my guy was not a shooter,” McLain said. “I know my guy was not carrying a firearm.”

‘Who's antifascists? Everybody’

The material support charge against Evetts and Arnold utilizes a statute known as § 2339A, which was expanded to cover federal crimes of terrorism under President George W. Bush.

The statute, which carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years, was used by the government to prosecute three members of the Front, a neo-Nazi accelerationist group that plotted an attack on the power grid in 2020.

Brzozowski said he didn’t question the application of the charge to Evetts and Arnold, based on their alleged conduct.

But he did question how the administration was attempting to connect individuals in an alleged “antifa” enterprise, beyond ideology.

“I don’t see anything in the indictment that they self-identified as antifa,” Brzozowski said.

“Who’s antifascists? Everybody. Unless you’re a member of Atomwaffen or you’re a neo-Nazi. The vast majority of us are antifascist, I would hope.”

The reference to “anarchist or Marxist ideology” as a “connective tissue” for the alleged “enterprise” raises the prospect that people could be criminalized for political beliefs, regardless of whether they perpetrate violence, Brzozowski said.

“If you envision a situation like 200 people showing up outside an ICE facility and two or three are dressed in black, and they start tussling with the police and engaging in violence, what about the other 197 people?” Brzozowski asked.

“Are they now in an FBI database? That’s the most pernicious thing about this. You never know if you’re going to be swept up in a dragnet.

“The vagueness is the kicker,” he added. “It’s backwards. Typically, the FBI’s targets are going to be driven by a whole apparatus. They build up an intelligence picture of the most potent threats. That’s going to dictate how they allocate their scarce resources.

“Here, it appears the sequencing is jacked up. The administration is directing them to pursue a chimera, instead of an actual target based on intelligence.”

Kash Patel's 'transparency' brag brutally fact-checked on social media

FBI Director Kash Patel claimed in a social media post on X Monday that under his leadership, his agency was delivering “the transparency I promised,” but the platform’s user-generated fact-checking system flagged the statement as being misleading, particularly on Patel’s failed promises to pursue potential co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein.

“The transparency I promised is being delivered by this FBI,” Patel wrote Monday in a post that as of Wednesday had amassed more than 5.5 million views. The following day on Tuesday, however, a “Community Note” appeared under Patel’s post, and one that labeled his comments as inaccurate.

“The Trump campaign promised to release the full Epstein files, which it still has not done,” the Community Note reads, which only appears on posts after receiving a set number of positive ratings from users. The note also includes links to several reports detailing Patel’s past promises to pursue potential co-conspirators of Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Patel was among many top Trump administration officials who, before joining the administration, aggressively promoted theories about Epstein, theories that suggested the FBI and other federal agencies under the Biden administration were involved in an active cover-up to protect Epstein’s wealthy and powerful associates.

While testifying before a House committee last month, Patel was put on the spot when Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) played a video of Patel alleging that Epstein’s supposed “Black Book” of contacts was “under direct control of the director of the FBI,” and suggested that it was being hidden to protect Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators.

Now director of the FBI himself, Patel has failed to release much of the evidence and documents related to Epstein currently held by the FBI, a sizable share of it acquired when law enforcement raided Epstein’s home in 2019 and seized hundreds of lewd photos and other evidence, including CDs with hand-written labels bearing phrases like “Young [Name] + [Name].”

The transparency I promised is being delivered by this FBI.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 7, 2025

This utter Trump toady hasn't reached the depth of his most notorious predecessor — yet

By Douglas M. Charles, Professor of History, Penn State.

Three converging events in the 1970s — the Watergate scandal, the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam War and revelations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had abused his power to persecute people and organizations he viewed as political enemies — destroyed what formerly had been near-automatic trust in the presidency and the FBI.

In response, Congress enacted reforms designed to ensure that legal actions by the Department of Justice and the FBI, the department’s main investigative arm, would be insulated from politics. These included stronger congressional oversight, a 10-year term limit for FBI directors and investigative guidelines issued by the attorney general.

Some of these measures, however, were tenuous. For example, Justice Department leaders could alter FBI investigative guidelines at any time.

Donald Trump’s first presidential term seriously tested DOJ and FBI independence, notably, when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. Trump claimed Comey mishandled a 2016 probe into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server, but Comey also refused to pledge loyalty to the president.

Now, in Trump’s second term, prior guardrails have vanished. The president has installed loyalists at the DOJ and FBI who are dedicated to implementing his political interests.

As a historian of the FBI, I recognize the FBI has had only one other overtly political director in the past 50 years: L. Patrick Gray, who served for a year under President Richard Nixon. Gray was held accountable after he tried to help Nixon end the FBI’s Watergate investigation. Whether Trump’s current director, Kash Patel, has more staying power is unclear.

After Hoover

Ever since Hoover’s death in 1972, presidents have typically nominated independent candidates with bipartisan support and law enforcement roots to run the FBI. Most nominees have been judges, senior prosecutors or former FBI or Justice Department officials.

While Hoover publicly proclaimed his FBI independent of politics, he sometimes did the bidding of presidents, including Nixon. Still, Nixon felt that Hoover had not been compliant enough, so in 1972 he selected Gray, a longtime friend and assistant attorney general, to be Hoover’s successor.

Gray took steps to move the bureau out of Hoover’s shadow. He relaxed strict dress codes for agents, recruited female agents and pointedly hired people from outside the agency — who were not indoctrinated in the Hoover culture — for administrative posts.

Gray asserted his authority with blunt force. FBI agents at field offices and at headquarters who resisted Gray’s power were censured, fired or transferred. Other senior officials opted to leave, including the bureau’s top fraud expert, cryptanalyst and skyjacking expert, and the head of its Crime Information Center.

Agents regarded these moves as a purge, and press reports claimed that bureau morale was at an all-time low, charges that Gray denied. According to FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, who became Gray’s second in command, 10 of 16 top FBI officials chose to retire, most of them notable Hoover men.

Gray surrounded himself with what journalist Jack Anderson called “sharp, but inexperienced, modish, young aides.” FBI insiders called these new hires the “Mod Squad,” a reference to the counterculture TV police series.

Gray helps Nixon

In contrast to Hoover, who had rarely left FBI headquarters and publicly avoided politics, Gray openly stumped for Nixon in the 1972 campaign. He was so rarely spotted at FBI headquarters that bureau insiders dubbed him “Two-Day Gray.” At the request of Nixon aide John Ehrlichman, Gray told field offices to help Nixon campaign surrogates by providing local crime information.

Gray cooperated with Nixon to stymie the FBI’s investigation of the 1972 Watergate break-in and the ensuing cover-up. He provided raw FBI investigative documents to the White House and burned documents from Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt’s White House safe.

When Nixon had CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters ask Gray, in the name of national security, to halt the FBI’s investigation, Felt and other agency insiders demanded that Gray get this order in writing. The White House backed down, but Nixon’s directive had been recorded. That tape became the so-called “smoking gun” evidence of a Watergate cover-up.

Felt, in classic Hoover fashion, then leaked information to discredit Gray, hoping to replace him. Gray resigned in disgrace.

While Felt never got the top job, he is now remembered as the prized anonymous source “Deep Throat,” who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate investigation. But it was internal FBI resistance, from Felt and agents at lower levels, that led to Gray’s departure.

Political from the start

Campaigning in 2024, Donald Trump vowed to “root out” his political opponents from government. Realizing he was a target because of his investigation of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, FBI director Christopher Wray, whom Trump nominated in 2017, resigned in December 2024 before Trump could fire him.

In Wray’s place Trump nominated loyalist Kash Patel, a lawyer who worked as a low-level federal prosecutor from 2013 to 2016 and then as a deputy national security appointee during Trump’s first term.

Patel publicly supported Trump’s vow to purge enemies and claimed the FBI was part of a “deep state” that was resistant to Trump. Patel promised to help dismantle this disloyal core and to “rebuild public trust” in the FBI.

Even before Patel was confirmed on Feb. 20, 2025, in an historically close 51-49 vote, the Justice Department began transferring thousands of agents away from national security matters to immigration duty, which was not a traditional FBI focus.

Hours after taking office, Patel shifted 1,500 agents and staff from FBI headquarters to field offices, claiming that he was streamlining operations.

Patel installed outsider Dan Bongino as deputy director. Bongino, another Trump loyalist, was a former New York City policeman and Secret Service agent who had become a full-time political commentator. He embraced a conspiracy theory positing the FBI was “irredeemably corrupt” and advocated “an absolute housecleaning.”

In February, New York City Special Agent in Charge James Dennehy told FBI staff “to dig in” and oppose expected and unprecedented political intrusions. He was forced out by March.

Patel then used lie-detector tests and carried out a string of high-profile firings of agents who had investigated either Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Some agents who were fired had been photographed kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington, D.C. — an action they said they took to defuse tensions with protesters.

In response, three fired agents are suing Patel for what they call a political retribution campaign. Ex-NFL football player Charles Tillman, who became an FBI agent in 2017, resigned in September 2025 in protest of Trump policies. Once again, there are assertions of a purge.

Will Patel be held accountable?

Patel’s actions as director so far illustrate that he is willing to use his position to implement the president’s political designs. When Gray tried to do this in the 1970s, accountability still held force, and Gray left office in disgrace. Gray participated in a cover-up of illegal behavior that became the subject of an impeachment proceeding. What Patel has done to date, at least what we know about, is not the equivalent — so far.

Today, Patel’s tenure rests solely upon pleasing the president. If formal accountability — a key element of a democracy — is to survive, it will have to come from Congress, whose Republican majority has so far not exercised its power to hold Trump or his administration accountable. Short of that, perhaps internal resistance within the administration or pressure from the public and the media might serve the oversight function that Congress, over the past eight months, has abrogated.

'Juvenile': Onlookers confront Kash Patel over 'erroneous claim' in vulgar MSNBC rant

FBI Director Kash Patel is under fire on Saturday after being fact-checked for a profane rant he made against MSNBC in connection with a report on the arrest of former FBI Director James Comey.

Patel over the weekend took to social media to complain about MSNBC. Specifically, he was responding to MSNBC legal analyst Barb McQuade, who said that "DOJ policy prohibits 'perp walks,' in which arrestees are paraded before the cameras" after reports of an agent being let go for refusing to give Comey a perp walk.

"BREAKING: MSNBC still an a-- clown factory of disinformation," Patel said. "Same circus animals that slobbered all over perp walks of Stone, Navarro, Bannon…"

He added, "MSNBC has no facts and no audience. In this FBI, follow the chain of command or get relieved."

House Dem aide Aaron Fritschner responded, saying, "A lot of juvenile insults and weird language about MSNBC and the media here but no rebuttal of McQuade’s point that Kash Patel fired this agent for refusing to violate policy."

Hedge fund founder Spencer Hakimian chimed in, "Kash Patel has just called MSNBC an a-- clown factory."

"Is this appropriate to you?" he then asked.

Legal analyst Anna Bower asked, "What’s the legal basis for arresting Comey? DOJ requested a summons—*not* an arrest warrant—under Rule 9 of the FRCrP. Is DOJ going back to the magistrate to ask for a warrant, even though Comey hasn’t failed to appear?"

She further inquired, "If not, what’s the exigency for a warrantless arrest?"

Hugo Lowell , The Guardian's White House correspondent, said, "Kash Patel erroneously claims there were perp walks for Bannon (who self surrendered), Navarro (who was arrested trying to catch a flight) and Stone (whose raid was caught by a CNN stakeout camera)."

"Also — US Attny Lindsey Halligan didn’t request an arrest warrant for Comey," the reporter then added.

'Action figure budget is too high': Kash Patel dismantled for 'tacky' new FBI coin

FBI Director Kash Patel had a challenge coin made displaying his name, personal logo and using the Marvel "Punisher" insignia as the main shape of the coin.

Historically, the military would hand out small medallions, which went by several names like a military coin or "commander's coin," explained Joint Base Charleston in a 2018 explainer. Those coins have made their way outside the military to be adopted by other federal agencies for commemoration of significant events.

In his first administration, Trump issued a "summit coin" for his meeting with Kim Jong Un that drew so much mockery online that it crashed the White House gift shop website, reported MSNBC and USA Today in 2018.

It appears Patel has used his, however, to highlight his own leadership at the FBI.

Last month, Patel issued a coin that appeared more traditional. Circular in shape, the coin displayed his name with a dollar sign, "Ka$h Patel," and featured a U.S. flag fading into a Gadsden flag, photos showed.

The new shape is very different, with the "Punisher" skull made up of guns, spiders and featuring a kind of name logo for Patel's "K$H."

"J. Edgar was tacky but this guy tops him," said Joe Conason, editor-in-chief of National Memo, in a post on X.

America Magazine chief correspondent Kevin Clarke said it was, "From the Valhalla collection."

It's a reference to Norse mythology where the god Odin presided. White nationalists have adopted aspects of Viking-themed mythology, and Patel has previously referred to Valhalla, according to research fellow Ashton Kingdon, who wrote about the topic at the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN).

"Your taxpayer dollars at work," remarked former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance. She added, "The Obama administration prohibited spending on these items."

Pat Dennis, the president of the liberal group American Bridge, mocked, "People can't get health care because the action figure budget is too high."

Retired soldier Brad Duplessis wrote on Bluesky, "My guidance as a squadron commander. Nothing on the coin will relate to me. The crest and campaigns, shared history, is what matters. Simpler the better. Also, only pics of me and the CSM allowed on social media are ones where we’re recognizing soldiers. People know who we are. Show them the unit."

"The description of the ka$h challenge coin in the Driscoll lawsuit really did not prepare me for this," said legal analyst Quinta Jurecic.

Others couldn't help but point out the realities of the creator of "The Punisher," a vigilante crimefighter, becoming more anti-police over the past several years.

"Writer Gerry Conway opposes the appropriation of the symbol by police officers, some of whom have been seen wearing it at demonstrations protesting the killing of George Floyd," Artnet reported in 2020.

“I’m looking for young comic book artists of color who’d like to participate in a small fundraising project for #BLM to reclaim the Punisher skull as a symbol of justice rather than lawless police oppression,” wrote Conway on Twitter in 2020.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, pointed out that Conway specifically addressed challenge coins in 2019, saying, "If an officer of the law ... shares challenge coins honoring a criminal, he or she is making a very ill-advised statement about their understanding of the law."

— (@)

'That's false': Kash Patel stuns observers by correcting Trump on 'outlandish' FBI claim

FBI Director Kash Patel shocked observers over the weekend when he issued a correction to a false statement made by Donald Trump.

It all started when President Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to make a claim about the FBI.

"It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed, against all Rules, Regulations, Protocols, and Standards, 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax," Trump wrote. "This is different from what Director Christopher Wray stated, over and over again! That’s right, as it now turns out, FBI Agents were at, and in, the January 6th Protest, probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as 'Law Enforcement Officials.' I want to know who each and every one of these so-called 'Agents' are, and what they were up to on that now 'Historic' Day."

That led to Patel placing a story with Fox News in which the FBI leader contradicts the part about agents and insurrectionists.

The popular OSINTdefender account explained what happened:

"FBI Director Kash Patel has issued a correction to a post earlier today on Truth Social from President Donald J. Trump, in which he claimed that FBI Agents were in the crowd prior to, and during the January 6th Capitol Riot in 2021, claiming that they acted as agitators and insurrections, and not as 'Law Enforcement Officials,' with the president calling for the agents to be exposed for their role on January 6," the account wrote. "Patel has now said in a statement to Fox News that President Trump is incorrect, stating that 274 FBI Agents were not in the crowd prior to the start of the riot, and only entered to carry out crowd control once the violence began and demonstrators attempted to force their way into the Capitol Building."

CNN political reporter Aaron Blake also noticed the correction this weekend, writing, "Trump earlier today spread false info about Jan. 6. He said new info shows 'the FBI had secretly placed … 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax.' Now his own FBI director is making clear that’s not true."

Blake then quotes Patel as saying, "Agents were sent into a crowd control mission after the riot was declared."

CNN analyst Brian Stelter chimed in, too. He wrote, "Patel has placed a story with Fox News to correct Trump's outlandish Truth Social post claiming the FBI 'secretly' had '274 FBI agents' in the crowd 'prior to, and during,' the January 6 attack."

"Patel says that's false (without directly saying Trump is wrong)," Stelter wrote.

Trump and his lickspittles will say anything — which makes them dangerous as hell

I want to pick up on a point I made yesterday, about how the president and his co-conspirators, inside and outside the regime, do not mean what they say. They do not care about the truth behind their words, only whether those words can achieve a desired outcome.

In his inaugural speech, in January, Donald Trump said that “after years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.”

Last week, however, he said unfavorable news coverage is “really illegal.” He told the White House press corps that “I’m a very strong person for free speech. The newscasts are against me. They’ll take a great story and they’ll make it bad. See, I think that’s really illegal.”

Trump suggested as much again after the return of ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who is not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99 percent positive Democratic GARBAGE,” Trump said.

“He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major illegal campaign contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 million. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers. Let Jimmy Kimmel Rot in his bad ratings.”

Trump didn’t mean a word he said about freedom, unless he meant freedom for him and his friends, not for perceived enemies. (By the way, there were 14 million YouTube views of Kimmel’s show, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That’s close to a record. Also: Jimmy Kimmel is an entertainer, not a Democratic operative, nor is his show a “major illegal campaign contribution.”)

All Trump cared about was whether his words would lead to an outcome that he wants, in this case, violating the freedoms of a comedian who pokes fun at him.

Remember the context in which this all started. The regime and its media allies cynically exploited the death of a demagogue. They coordinated a nearly instantaneous assault on “the left,” long before any material evidence was available, accusing Trump’s critics of abusing their freedoms to create conditions of hatred and fear that ultimately inspired 22-year-old Tyler Robinson to kill Charlie Kirk.

“It is a vast domestic terror movement,” Stephen Miller said of the “radical left.”

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”

But state and federal investigators have not found a link between Robinson and “the left.”

“There is no evidence connecting the suspect with any left-wing groups,” one source in the investigation told NBC News. “Every indication so far is that this was one guy who did one really bad thing because he found Kirk’s ideology personally offensive.”

Moreover, Robinson’s crime might not rise to the level of federal terrorism charges, undermining the suggestion that he is part of “a vast domestic terror movement." A second source told NBC News that “it may be difficult to charge Robinson at the federal level,” citing the fact that he didn’t cross state lines, Kirk wasn’t a federal officer or elected official, and he was killed “during an open campus debate.”

(I had suggested that Robinson was associated with the groypers, a group of online trolls who are racist to the core, openly and without reservation. They believed Kirk was too liberal. In hindsight, that suggestion was premature. Though Robinson came from a MAGA family, evidence so far, including a relationship with his trans roommate, indicates that he was truly disturbed by Kirk’s hate-mongering. Still, his reasons remain unclear, which is often a feature of shooters.)

That nothing so far connects Kirk’s killer to “the left” will not stop the regime from continuing to portray political speech as political violence — from equating the president’s critics to terrorists. It will simply move on, as it did on Wednesday, when a lone gunman killed a person, and seriously wounded two more, at an ICE facility in Dallas. All three victims were detainees. No ICE agents were injured. The shooter killed himself.

Like after Kirk’s murder, before any material evidence came to light, the regime immediately suggested “the left” was to blame.

Vice President JD Vance said “this obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop.”

US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said “while we don’t know [the] motive yet, we know that our ICE law enforcement is facing unprecedented violence against them.”

Then, as if frustrated by the fact that no one has yet found evidence of a “vast domestic terror movement” on the “radical left,” the evidence … suddenly appeared! Kash Patel, who was a conspiracist and podcaster before he became director of the FBI, posted on Twitter a photograph of five bullets. On one of them was written the words “anti-ICE.”

I don’t know if the shooter was anti-ICE. I presume an investigation will bear that out. What I do know is the victims were immigrants, not ICE agents. I know the regime is looking for a reason, any reason, to crack down on liberty. And I know something else: that the regime is clear about its goal. In a followup, Noem suggested the attack was a warning to the president’s critics: do not criticize the president.

“Their rhetoric about ICE has consequences,” she said. “Comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the secret police and slave patrols has consequences. … The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop.”

I’ll end with what I hope is a running theme – that the regime does not care about the truth behind its words, only whether those words can achieve a desired outcome. Noem said ICE agents are “simply enforcing the law” without saying they are also simply breaking it.

This week, for instance, ICE agents held a 5-year-old girl hostage in pursuit of her dad, who has been in the country peacefully for 20 years. On Monday, DHS announced that ICE will deliberately break California’s new law forbidding feds from wearing masks, a statute designed to protect individual liberty and ensure accountability.

Why? Because assaults on ICE are up by “1,000 percent.”

We will break the laws of a sovereign state to protect ourselves, but your complaints about us breaking those laws must stop. Indeed, such complaints might be something that the government should “identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy” in order to “make America safe again.”

They do not mean a word they say.

'Who?' Pam Bondi and Kash Patel fail to name a single terrorist group they plan to target

FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday failed to name one terrorist organization they plan to investigate during a news conference at the Oval Office with President Donald Trump.

Trump signed a memorandum on the implementation of the death penalty in Washington, D.C, then a series of press questions followed after claims that "this is a very safe city right now, we don't play games."

"Who do you specifically want to target?" a reporter asked.

The three leaders were unable to respond to the questions, saying that they would "follow the money" and investigate "any organized group."

But they still didn't specifically name anything or anyone.

When pressed again, he responded, "antifa Soros... Well, [billionaire Democratic donor George] Soros is a name certainly that I keep hearing... I hear a lot of different names. I hear names of some pretty rich people that are radical left people, Maybe I hear about a guy named Reid Hoffman."

Trump reportedly demanded that Soros, a longtime villain to conservatives, be thrown in prison, and the senior DOJ official's directive lists possible charges – from arson to material support of terrorism – that prosecutors could file, according to a copy of the document viewed by The New York Times, which noted the memo suggests department officials are targeting individuals on the president's orders.

"I don't know, maybe, and maybe could be him, could be a lot of people," Trump said.

Trump indicated that he wants to stop these unnamed groups or individuals from "performing acts of violence."

"We're looking at the funders of a lot of these groups. You know, when you see the signs, and they're all beautiful signs, made professionally. These aren't your protesters that make the sign in their basement late in the evening because they really believe it," Trump claimed.

"These are anarchists and agitators — professional anarchists and agitators — and they get hired by wealthy people, some of whom I know, I guess, you know, probably know 'em. And you wouldn't know it. You're at dinner with them, everything's nice and then you find out that they funded millions of dollars to these lunatics."

Trump also invited his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, to say a few words.

"This is a very historic and significant day," Miller said. "This is the first time in American history that there is an all-government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism, to dismantle antifa, to dismantle violence and terrorism."

Last week, Trump designated antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization." The loose-knit group does not have a leader and is comprised of people who generally describe themselves as anarchists, socialists, communists, and don't generally share their identities to avoid retaliation from right-wing conservatives.

Miller argued that the government was looking at Black Lives Matter, Charlie Kirk's killing, and attacks on ICE agents as "not lone, isolated events, this is part of an organized campaign of radical left terrorism... there is really no parallel like this..."

He claimed that a feeder organization was isolating public officials, doxxing government officials and attempting political assassinations.

"It is terrorism on our soil. Because of this executive order, Kash and Pam are going to have the tools they need working with Scott to take these organizations apart piece by piece, and the central hub of that effort is going to be the Joint Terrorism Task Force, or JTTF, which sits inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Miller said.

Miller added that the investigation of terrorists, although it's unclear who they are, would have the full support of the U.S. government.

"But for those at home who are worried about terrorism, understand because of President Trump's strength, because of his vision, because of his leadership, we are now going to use the entire force of the federal government to uproot these organizations root and branch," Miller said.

'Mischievous bogeyman': Ex-FBI agent reportedly tormenting Kash Patel

A former FBI agent and now conservative podcaster is apparently driving FBI Director Kash Patel nuts.

Kyle Seraphin has been a constant critic of Patel in his social media posts, questioning his leadership of the agency, calling out his social media behavior as “really thirsty and desperate" and questioning the promotion of agent Steven Jensen to lead the Washington field office, according to a report from The Bulwark on Thursday. Jensen was reportedly involved in the agency's January 6th investigations.

"It apparently irritated Patel to no end," The Bulwark reports. "According to Jensen, Patel suggested that Jensen sue Seraphin for defamation and even recommended some lawyers."

Patel apparently told Jensen that a defamation lawsuit could take some heat off of Patel, but Jensen declined to pursue legal action. He says he is “unconcerned with the viewpoints of online personalities.”

This isn't the first time Patel has faced off against Seraphin, who is also apparently mentioned in the lawsuit filed by three fired FBI agents earlier this month.

In August, Patel's girlfriend and country singer Alexis Wilkins sued the former agent who had claimed whistleblower protections after he alleged she was a spy and part of a "honeypot" operation.

In the suit, she claims that Seraphin "has maliciously lied" about her by “falsely asserting that she—an American-born country singer—is an agent of a foreign government, assigned to manipulate and compromise the Director of the FBI."

Seraphin, who actually had a friendly standing with the FBI director and benefited from his nonprofit “Kash Foundation” in 2022, received $10,000 when he was "essentially homeless" after leaving the FBI.

Most recently, The New York Times reports that Patel last week allegedly fired another agent after "Seraphin falsely claimed that agent was central to the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid."

"The incidents offer a glimpse into the outsized power wielded by Seraphin at a moment of intense chaos and uncertainty inside the FBI," according to The Bulwark. "In a matter of months, Seraphin has become a mischievous bogeyman for Patel’s operation, using his experience, sources within the agency, and pugnacious online persona to constantly goad the director."