Former FBI agents have shredded Donald Trump’s bureau chief for his inept handling of the increased terrorist threat amid the president’s new war in the Middle East.
Trump launched his ongoing conflict with Iran in the early morning hours of Saturday, Feb. 28. That same day, FBI Director Kash Patel, nicknamed “Keystone Kash” for his bungled oversight of multiple high-profile investigations, stated that he had placed his intelligence and counterintelligence teams on “high alert” to monitor for prospective attacks on American soil in response to the president’s campaign.
Authorities have responded to at least four suspected terrorist incidents in the two weeks since. On Monday, a former bureau agent told Miranda Devine—a conservative pundit at Trump’s favorite newspaper, the New York Post, who has hosted the president on her Pod Force One podcast—that those attacks should have immediately prompted the FBI to review its monitoring efforts urgently.
The bureau desperately needs to look at “what flagging systems were in place and active,” the agent said, as well as “what kinds of potential, investigative, watch-listing, screening, and threat monitoring activities were required.”
“The FBI should be directly questioned on these matters on their prior knowledge and applicable actions,” they added. “If not, then this violence will continue to happen and intensify.”
A second FBI veteran further questioned whether agents “were actually aware and engaged on any level, even in the current elevated threat environment,” regarding the recent spate of attacks. A third former bureau official was even blunter, pointing the finger directly at Patel for having prioritized issues like immigration and reviewing the Epstein files over the past year.
“It is a zero-sum situation,” they said. “When people are being redirected away from their primary national security duties, some things are bound to be missed.”
Devine was similarly withering in her assessment of Patel’s stewardship at the FBI. “Demoralized agents quit or took early retirement in those years,” the MAGA pundit wrote of the bureau’s performance under Barack Obama and Joe Biden. “But there are those who stayed on in hope of positive reform under the Trump administration who now express disappointment in what they regard as Patel’s unfocused leadership, preoccupation with his own image, and mercurial purges.”
Patel’s comms team has since hit back at the columnist. “This banger of an article blames Kash Patel for a convicted terrorist who was released from prison under the previous administration,” FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson posted on X.
“No it doesn’t,” Devine shot back. “Yes it does,” Williamson replied, adding: “You also attacked Patel for firing people who targeted the president and his staff—which is way worse.”
Dan Bongino, who quit as Patel’s Deputy Chief at the bureau earlier this year to return to his career as a podcaster, also called out the columnist.
“Another ridiculous snippet from Miranda Devine’s latest deranged attack on our reforms and personnel changes,” he wrote on X. “The only ‘culture of fear’ that exists in this FBI is among Miranda’s deep state buddies who are afraid they’ll be exposed and/or investigated for abuses of power. I’ll address that and the rest of the nonsense in this piece later this week on the show.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the FBI for further comment on this story.
