What, you want me to delete my post when I’ve said something stupid? I don’t think so, buster.
FBI & US Attorney Purge | Patel FBI - Dan Bongino picked as Deputy Director
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Bigs23
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Exactly what I expected.
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That was Kristi Noem, our new U.S. secretary of Homeland Security. Boy do I feel safe!
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With Arrival of Bongino, Trump Loyalists Take Command of the F.B.I.
From his wildly popular podcast to the No. 2 post at the F.B.I., Dan Bongino joins Kash Patel, President Trump’s former election surrogate, to lead the agency at a turning point.
With Arrival of Bongino, Trump Loyalists Take Command of the F.B.I.
From his wildly popular podcast to the No. 2 post at the F.B.I., Dan Bongino joins Kash Patel, President Trump’s former election surrogate, to lead the agency at a turning point.
“
In the closing minutes of his podcast, the right-wing provocateur Dan Bongino made a promise. Joining the F.B.I. as its deputy director, he acknowledged, would require a stark change in approach after years of making his name as a pugilistic pundit.
“I have to stay out of the political space because it’s the right thing to do and it’s the rules,” he said during his last episode on Friday. He added, “I’m not going there to be some partisan.”
His arrival on Monday as the F.B.I.’s second in command will test that promise, cementing a major shift at the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, where he will join its director, Kash Patel, in overseeing a bureau of about 38,000 people.
It puts two staunch Trump loyalists in charge of an agency long known for its tradition of independence. Collectively, they have the least leadership experience of any pair overseeing the F.B.I. since its founding more than a century ago. …
… Mr. Bongino will replace Robert C. Kissane, who had more than two decades of experience as an agent and had been serving as acting deputy director. Mr. Kissane is expected to return to New York.
Hours after Mr. Patel was sworn in last month, he signaled his intent to sharply restructure the bureau, ordering the relocation of 1,500 agents and personnel in the Washington region to field offices around the country.
Internal documents show that he told several hundred agents on temporary duty to return to their home offices by the end of June, a potentially significant shift in ascending the ranks of the agency. Those temporary assignments to headquarters are critical to getting promoted, providing agents with deep insights into the bureau’s abilities and reach.
But Mr. Patel will be hard-pressed to attain his larger goal because of steep relocation costs.
Last week, Mr. Patel also altered the hierarchy of the F.B.I., which could, in effect, insulate top agents in the field from Mr. Bongino because they will no longer answer to the deputy director. Some former agents saw that as a positive development. …”
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Meanwhile, Patel seems to be developing a reputation as a joke inside the FBI:
“… Mr. Patel’s unconventional approach has left former agents and analysts to wonder if he is up to the job. In a videoconference with senior agents, he said that he would like the F.B.I. to partner with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the popular mixed martial arts company, and that he was not big on meetings or wearing suits.
He has liberally used social media to promote the F.B.I. in what he has cast as an effort at transparency and highlighted the bureau’s role in immigration arrests. Former and current agents have joked privately that since Mr. Patel took over on Feb. 21., the agency has stopped being corrupt.
… On March 7, Mr. Patel attended the graduation of a new F.B.I. agent class in Quantico, Va., and dressed in camouflage to observe the bureau’s elite tactical team. He then flew to a U.F.C. fight in Las Vegas, where Mr. Patel has said he plans to divide his time. (The plan stands at odds with the administration’s policy of requiring all federal employees to be in the office five days a week.)
In a picture of the Las Vegas fight posted on social media, Mr. Patel is spotted ringside, next to Dana White, the U.F.C. president, and a manager, Ali Abdelaziz. Mr. Abdelaziz, a former informant for the New York Police Department and F.B.I., eventually fell under suspicion for lying. After traveling to Egypt in 2008, he failed a polygraph and the F.B.I. in New York severed its ties with him, according to Police Department documents. Mr. Abdelaziz proudly proclaims his relationship with Mr. Patel on social media, sharing Mr. Patel’s messages and posting a picture of himself at Mr. Patel’s confirmation hearing.
… Mr. Patel has also drawn some praise elsewhere. … In years past, Mr. Patel has repeatedly denounced the F.B.I.’s scrutiny of Mr. Trump.
Yet as director, he set the record straight about one F.B.I. operation that involved the use of a female undercover agent who a whistle-blower said had targeted Mr. Trump. The right-wing news media seized on the detail, casting it as a so-called honey pot operation.
Mr. Patel quickly rebutted the claim on social media: “A female agent was falsely referenced in the media this week as part of an alleged whistleblower disclosure- she was NOT a honeypot.”
One right-wing news outlet called Mr. Patel’s pushback “rare and extraordinary.” …”
“… Mr. Patel’s unconventional approach has left former agents and analysts to wonder if he is up to the job. In a videoconference with senior agents, he said that he would like the F.B.I. to partner with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the popular mixed martial arts company, and that he was not big on meetings or wearing suits.
He has liberally used social media to promote the F.B.I. in what he has cast as an effort at transparency and highlighted the bureau’s role in immigration arrests. Former and current agents have joked privately that since Mr. Patel took over on Feb. 21., the agency has stopped being corrupt.
… On March 7, Mr. Patel attended the graduation of a new F.B.I. agent class in Quantico, Va., and dressed in camouflage to observe the bureau’s elite tactical team. He then flew to a U.F.C. fight in Las Vegas, where Mr. Patel has said he plans to divide his time. (The plan stands at odds with the administration’s policy of requiring all federal employees to be in the office five days a week.)
In a picture of the Las Vegas fight posted on social media, Mr. Patel is spotted ringside, next to Dana White, the U.F.C. president, and a manager, Ali Abdelaziz. Mr. Abdelaziz, a former informant for the New York Police Department and F.B.I., eventually fell under suspicion for lying. After traveling to Egypt in 2008, he failed a polygraph and the F.B.I. in New York severed its ties with him, according to Police Department documents. Mr. Abdelaziz proudly proclaims his relationship with Mr. Patel on social media, sharing Mr. Patel’s messages and posting a picture of himself at Mr. Patel’s confirmation hearing.
… Mr. Patel has also drawn some praise elsewhere. … In years past, Mr. Patel has repeatedly denounced the F.B.I.’s scrutiny of Mr. Trump.
Yet as director, he set the record straight about one F.B.I. operation that involved the use of a female undercover agent who a whistle-blower said had targeted Mr. Trump. The right-wing news media seized on the detail, casting it as a so-called honey pot operation.
Mr. Patel quickly rebutted the claim on social media: “A female agent was falsely referenced in the media this week as part of an alleged whistleblower disclosure- she was NOT a honeypot.”
One right-wing news outlet called Mr. Patel’s pushback “rare and extraordinary.” …”