CNN
–
FBI Director Kash Patel walked to his new office on the seventh floor of the department’s headquarters last week and immediately ordered it. He called the new carpet and window covering “Dingy.”
Patel’s plans to rebuild the FBI have surpassed renovations. He wants to overhaul the Bureau in a fundamental way that allows it to dramatically reorganize its workforce and its mission. But like almost all renovation projects, not everything went as planned.
Even before Patel arrived at J. Edgar Hooverville in downtown Washington last Thursday as a newly confirmed director, there was tension between Trump’s appointees and departmental career staff.
More than 100 mid-level and senior employees exploded into a week-long standoff between Trump’s proxy Assistant Attorney General Brian Driscoll and Robert Kissan’s proxy leader Brian Driscoll and Robert Kissan, according to those who were described on the issue.
Bove’s request for a list of over 5,000 employees, mainly on January 6, 2021, employees related to the case prompted a series of events that were blown back to Patel, making the first week of work already difficult.
A few former agents who were early supporters of Patel have already been separated from the advisory committee designed to build his credibility within the FBI, people who described the issue said. Some advisory members quickly rebelled, presenting a list of moderate and upper-level employees, mainly over the relationship between January 6th and the Trump investigation.
“We immediately said ‘no way’,” the former agent said after receiving the list. “They were shocked by our reaction.”
The rebellion prompted President Donald Trump to appoint loyal podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director, and abolished Patel’s intention to continue the tradition of choosing a vice-agent, people explained the plan.
The upheaval raised concerns between current and former agents and civil servants that the FBI was distracted by internal discord while terrorist groups, such as China, Russia and Iran, or major enemies, were exploiting the vulnerability.
“Neither person has time to learn work”: Former Deputy Director for Trump’s FBI appointment
“They’ll miss something and instead of doing their job, they can see that some agents were busy filling out the survey,” a former FBI official said, referring to an order that FBI employees fill out a survey detailing work related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The Department of Justice’s ongoing review of its work and the prospects for mass shootings continues to loom on 38,000 members of the FBI workforce.
As the first FBI director to win confirmation without bipartisan support, Patel was already facing a difficult battle in running the branch, which is widely seen as part of the most established federal law enforcement agency.
Now, when he tries to move past criticism that he is nothing more than Trump’s loyalty, Patel must restructure vast organizations and at the same time build credibility among ranks and files. Interviews with multiple current and former FBI employees suggest that the current turbulent Patel continues and supportive of Stoke makes the job difficult.
Some of Patel’s moves in his first week of office have increased anxiety, but highlights how he is a departure for a hidden branch ruled by tradition.
Patel, the first non-white FBI director, was sworn in while taking oaths to Bhagavad Gita Hindu texts. A nod to the bureau’s tradition, he stopped by the FBI’s honorary wall. This is a memorial to the agents killed in duties before convening the first full briefing.
On his first inauguration day on Friday, Patel convened a meeting with senior leaders and announced plans to move up to 1,500 agents and staff from the FBI headquarters and the DC area. The plan is to send more agents and staff to campus to 55 field offices nationwide and the FBI in Huntsville, Alabama. With his confirmation, Patel has returned his previous claims to close the FBI headquarters on the first day and turn it into a museum.
At one of his early meetings, Patel gave a deadline of February 28th and began moving people out of the DC area. According to sources familiar with the issue, employees have not received responses. According to current and former employees, moving FBI employees takes about 100 days.
On the first weekend of work, Patel had to step in to advise employees not to respond to government-wide emails asking them to list five of the last week. The email appears to be part of Elon Musk’s government’s efficiency productivity efforts.
Among the ideas that are said to be floating by the rest of Patel’s advisors is the director, who is traditionally one political appointee, according to those who have been described on the issue.
Shortly after Trump announced Patel as his choice to lead the FBI on December 1, transition officials began reaching out to a group of former FBI agents who have been disillusioned with the directions of the bureau in recent years, generally deeming recent FBI leaders politicized.
Planning: Building a small group that will serve as a “director’s advisory team” to prepare the path to Patel’s arrival, and building a list of recommended changes to give more power and more power to the field offices through the headquarters and operations of the FBI in the DC region.
It’s an idea that has received widespread support among agents outside of Washington.
“The bigger, bigger, more troublesome, the more dissatisfied for agents,” said Chris O’Leary, a former terrorist officer at the FBI’s New York Field office, who also worked at the FBI headquarters.
But O’Leary says many agents don’t understand the importance of working at the headquarters. “I spent my time at HQ, so I got to know the beast. Someone has to adjust the case and that doesn’t happen on the scene.”
When Trump’s transition officer called, they found a ready audience with a group of conservative writing agents who already believed the station needed an overhaul.
Among them is former FBI agent and Congressional aide Tom Ferguson, who is an aide to stubborn FBI critic, Rep. Jim Jordan. In a social media post, Ferguson opposes socialism, “waking up” ideology, and what he says is a political overreach from left-wing politicians and activists. In one of these posts, a bullet points list entitled “I Remember Oms…”, Ferguson wrote that the FBI once “had never forgot its pledge to remain a respected nation’s treasure and apolitical.”
“The FBI has serious problems and needs change,” says a former counterterrorism agent who was scheduled to be part of Patel’s advisory team, who has since decided.
By late January, Bove had shared a list of acting FBI leaders and some advisory members with more than 100 FBI mid- and top-level employees related to the January 6th and Trump investigation.
According to one of the members, members of the advisory team were asked to receive the list and provide input. Many of them hit the list, according to people familiar with the issue. As a result, at least three former agents have retreated from their association with the advisory team, people who described the issue said.
Those familiar with Patel’s ideas say they didn’t play a role in what happened before Patel was confirmed. He said he is responsible for the actions he has overseen since taking over last week.
The former counterterrorism agent told CNN that he left the group because he saw retaliation against the agents on January 6th, deemed it no different to the weaponization that occurred during the Biden administration.
Another former agent involved with the group said he never planned to become part of the long-term advisory team and decided to limit his activities to the preparation of a series of written recommendations he shared with Patel.
“I could see what was going on and I knew it wasn’t happening because of that,” said a former agent who served on the bureau for decades. “I love the bureau, but she is my ex-wife and I hope she is the best.”
Ferguson and others remain with the FBI as advisors.
Patel says part of the goal of sending more agents to the field office is to better protect not only Washington, but the Americans they live in.
Former counterterrorism agents involved with the Patel Group have been widely dissatisfied with the way the station is run in recent years, saying that agents can accept the efforts.
“The FBI needs to go back to working cases in this field, and the people at headquarters can’t be the only people who risk their lives at headquarters,” the former terrorism agent said.
However, the recent and chaotic weeks within the FBI have raised concerns among current and previous agents that distractions could pose terrorist conspiracy and other threats.
Some agents say they are unsure about pursuing cases related to Russian anti-intellectuality or Russia-related criminal cases, as they fear that their work will clash with the White House’s efforts to be friendly with Moscow.
And given the threat of punishing agents in politically sensitive cases, some current and former agents say they hope that more agents will hesitate to open public corruption investigations.
“The agents are working more tentatively,” the former counterterrorism agent said.
