Running the FBI? Kash Patel believes his job is getting attention

If there was one word to describe preponderance of FBI Director Kash Patel s general appearances since Charlie Kirk s tragic assassination on Sept it would be giddy Despite claiming the deceased right-wing influencer as a friend Patel s affect has been that of a reality TV challenge show host excitedly hyping this week s big reveal The screwdriver that was determined on top of the roof And the towel on which the firearm was detected The ravine that I walked myself along with the rooftop I mentioned we cannot waste a second on this DNA analysis Patel breathlessly declared Monday night on Sean Hannity s Fox News show And we announce in contemporary times on Fox that the DNA was a positive match for the suspect in question One almost expected him to pull back a curtain to display a surprise guest The hype was pointless Tyler Robinson the -year-old suspected of killing Kirk was arrested on Sept after reportedly admitting to the crime While DNA may be helpful supporting evidence in court it s hardly earth-shattering news as presented by Patel The main purpose of his gimmick was not to commend the hard work of FBI agents and Utah State Police officers It was to draw attention to Patel himself Carnival barker that s how the FBI director appears to see his job After all the former far-right podcaster was appointed by President Donald Trump not because of his threadbare crime-fighting experience but seemingly to appease the conspiracy theorist constituency of the president s MAGA base Carnival barker that s how the FBI director appears to see his job After all the former far-right podcaster was appointed by President Donald Trump not because of his threadbare crime-fighting experience but seemingly to appease the conspiracy theorist constituency of the president s MAGA base Patel s Fox appearance would be tasteless camera-hogging for a top law enforcement official at any time But it was especially disturbing given the FBI director s alleged friendship with Kirk and the level of seriousness with which Patel claimed the bureau led the manhunt for Kirk s assassin From the moment Kirk died Patel s approach to the scenario has been characterized more by his boundless need for attention than by concerns about getting justice for Kirk The director s rush to post on X about the affair led him to falsely declare that the subject had been arrested on the day of the shooting just before Patel dashed off to dinner at a fancy Manhattan restaurant Ninety minutes later he sheepishly retracted the declaration And even though Robinson was only caught because his father turned him in Patel nevertheless took credit on Fox News for the suspect s capture I made the executive decision to release photos of the suspect before the arrest he declared as if that s not common FBI practice But the weirdest moment may be how the director decided to punctuate what was supposed to be a sober-minded press conference on Sept revealing the details of Robinson s arrest Lastly to my friend Charlie Kirk rest now brother Patel disclosed We have the watch and I ll see you in Valhalla Related War or peace GOP divided on the path forward after Kirk s killing When Patel appeared before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday Sen Chris Coons D-Del made sure to raise the issue I m seeing an FBI leadership more focused on social media clout and on political revenge than on fighting crime he declared to Patel Coons cited the aggressive sacking of seasoned professionals at the FBI over the past limited months which included the head of the Salt Lake City field office being pushed out Her only transgression appears to be her identity as a female Pakistani-American Coons also noted that Patel has decimated the FBI s efforts to fight domestic terrorism which has long been a far-right pipe dream The changes also seem to have hobbled the bureau s efforts to find Kirk s assassin When he s in the safe space of right-wing media Patel conducts himself with a brash overconfidence But during Tuesday s hearing which focused heavily on his various failures during his brief tenure at the FBI he was radiating an almost frenetic anxiety Patel s opening announcement was punctuated by a series of snorts so loud that it seemed he might soon eject a noodle from his sinus cavity During the opening remarks of Sen Dick Durbin the committee s ranking member the director was especially uncomfortable pretending to read papers rather than hear the Illinois Democrat call out his erratic behavior Mr Patel was so anxious to take credit for finding Mr Kirk s assassin that he violated one of the basics of effective law enforcement Durbin explained as Patel squirmed At critical stages of an inspection shut up and let the professionals do their job Patel repeatedly defended his behavior as transparency but legal experts pointed out that his rush to get likes and retweets made prosecutors jobs much harder Patel has given a master class in how NOT to lead an review Barbara McQuade a former U S attorney posted on X Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics Sign up for her free newsletter Standing Room Only now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts Former senior FBI agent Stephen Laycock agreed telling NPR You take your time collect the evidence whatever facts you have conduct interviews then see where it will lead You don t rush out and say the person of interest is the person who did the shooting Rebecca Roiphe a law professor at New York University recounted Newsweek that Patel s reckless behavior created the possibility of a tainted trial MSNBC legal analyst and former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks tweeted Patel violated DOJ rules risks occurrence against Kirk s killer being thrown out for violations of his due process rights But don t expect Kirk s other purported friend Donald Trump to care that his FBI director is making justice for the activist s death harder to achieve Only two days after Kirk s killing it seemed the president would rather talk about the construction of his White House ballroom than his departed comrade Over the past week it s become seemingly clear that Kirk s fellow MAGA leaders are less interested in putting his suspected killer in prison than they are in leveraging this moment for political gain In a move that was dystopian even by MAGA standards Vice President JD Vance and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller took over Kirk s podcast on Monday completing the process of turning his assassination into content The nature of that content was chilling Vance and Miller promised that they d use the death of Kirk who billed himself as a champion of free speech as an opportunity to destroy that very right In fact as others have described the activist was very much not a freedom of speech defender Vance encouraged listeners to call their employer and rat out colleagues who express objectionable comments about Kirk s killing Having the vice president declare that a condition of your employment should be feigning grief might skirt being an outright violation of the First Amendment but it s certainly a chilling violation of its basic spirit We need your help to stay independent Subscribe nowadays to backing Amanda Marcotte s journalism Miller was even more frightening He declared that progressive organizers should live in exile and that Trump will find you and take away your money take away your power and if you ve broken the law to take away your freedom The if caveat isn t as safe as it seems As we ve seen with Trump s charges of mortgage fraud against Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook the administration doesn t feel there requirements to be evidence before accusing perceived opponents of crimes Patel s attention-seeking isn t just clownish it s dangerous and not just because he s undermining the FBI s ability to fight crime One of MAGA s toxic innovations is the way it has weaponized narcissism for propaganda purposes This of subject flows from Trump whose uncanny levels of conceit have empowered him to say and do whatever he feels serves his political interests with full contempt for both morality and shame But the behavior is functioning throughout the MAGA-sphere and it s led by people like Patel Their ravenous need for attention makes them perfect propagandists in the social media era Americans with normal levels of basic decency let their consciences prevent them from exploiting the death of a purported friend before he s even buried But Patel s all-consuming drive to be on camera appears to trump whatever private grief he may be feeling and that s why the White House hired him As with multiple other top administration executives Patel s value is primarily as a propagandist even at the expense of his actual job Read more about this topic Take away your freedom MAGA plots to use Charlie Kirk s death to go after the left This is who we are America s -year history of political violence Death of a beliefs warrior The right s comeback win is Charlie Kirk s legacy 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