FBI Director Kash Patel has alarmed some members of the bureau by taking what they say is an overly casual approach to the role.
President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s domestic intelligence and security service is a former prosecutor and political adviser who had little if any law enforcement experience when the president nominated him to head the bureau.
But instead of throwing himself into the job and trying to gain credibility with the officials he’s been tasked with leading, a dozen current and former officials at the FBI and Department of Justice said they worried he wasn’t taking the position seriously enough, NBC News reported.
ADVERTISEMENT
For decades, the FBI chief has received an 8:30 a.m. daily “director’s brief” with the most important information gathered from thousands of agents and analysts. Patel reportedly had trouble making the morning briefing, so it was dropped from five days a week to two.
“Even that has been a struggle,” an unnamed official told NBC.
Two current FBI officials said Patel sometimes seems uninterested in the materials, forcing them to try to create briefs that will hold his attention.
Patel also ended a long-standing practice of holding secure weekly video conferences with field office leaders across the country, according to NBC. The meetings were considered a crucial way to share information and priorities across the bureau.
Bureau spokesman Ben Williamson denied to NBC that Patel had been late to morning director’s briefs and said the director still attends three other, smaller morning meetings each week. The FBI did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment on NBC’s report.
FBI officials told also NBC that Patel stopped holding the meetings because of “attempted leaks,” and Williamson said he still regularly speaks to the field office leaders.
During his first week on the job, Patel told officials from the regional field offices that he didn’t like meetings. Videoconferencing with the field office leadership for the very first time, Patel said he might hold the calls just once a month instead of once a week, The Wall Street Journal reported in February.
There’s a “growing sense among the ranks that there’s a leadership void, and that the highest echelons of the bureau are more concerned about currying favor with the president, retribution and leaks than the actual work,” Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who co-founded Justice Connection, a group dedicated to supporting current and former DOJ employees, told NBC.
Patel has recently bragged about arresting a state judge presiding over an immigration case and was dressed down by a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing for failing to put together a budget request.
Some agents are also annoyed with Patel’s photo ops, the outlet reported. Despite being deeply critical of the FBI before he took over as its director, the MAGA loyalist has dressed up in FBI gear and joined field agents for training exercises and even some operations, with the photos later appearing on social media.
Some agents weren’t happy that Patel was pictured wearing an FBI field agent’s badge despite not having gone through the rigorous training required to earn the it, according to NBC.
His work ethic was further called into question after he took on a second role as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, only to be quietly replaced earlier this month for ghosting the job.
Patel had not been seen inside an ATF facility for weeks when he was replaced by the U.S. Army secretary. The FBI chief did, however, make time to travel regularly and attend professional sporting events.
In less than three months on the job, Patel, 44, has flown three times to Nashville, where his 26-year-old girlfriend lives; twice to Las Vegas, where he owns a home; and once to New York, where he attended a pro hockey game.
He has attended at least two other professional hockey games and two UFC matches—one with Trump and one with the actor Mel Gibson—since taking office, and has trained at the UFC headquarters near Las Vegas, NBC reported.
“Director Patel is working day and night to lead the Bureau and protect the homeland,” Wiliamson told NBC. “The results so far speak for themselves—and we are just getting started.”
