A new leaked report based on 24 confidential sources within the FBI describes FBI Director Kash Patel as, quote, "in over his head and the FBI as paralyzed [00:00:15] by fear and with low morale." We have more, including a very embarrassing anecdote about Patel's behavior the day after Charlie Kirk died. - But Cenk, first your two cents here. - Yeah. I think that this story is important because of the lesson that it tells. [00:00:33] Because when you start political witch hunts, what are the consequences that flow from that? Well, we're gonna find that out in this story, and you're gonna find out that it could be a massive problem for the American people because it grinds law enforcement to a halt. [00:00:48] Let's find out why. Now, the leak of an assessment report which was prepared for the House and Senate Judiciary Committees gives us a clearer picture of the mess that Patel has created within the FBI. Again, [00:01:03] this pulls from the personal accounts of 24 people within the bureau and they accuse Patel of lacking the experience to lead the FBI and that managers will not take initiative without explicit direction for fear of being fired. [00:01:20] Patel's first six months have produced a troubling picture of an organization described by insiders as a rudderless ship with two sources independently characterizing the director as being in over his head. One stated Patel lacks the requisite knowledge or deep understanding [00:01:38] of all the FBI's unique and complex investigative and intelligence programs. Now concern began to grow within the bureau after his nomination due to his comments about the deep state's attacks on Trump during his [00:01:54] first term and over January 6th. Both Patel and his deputy director, Dan Bongino, are very active on social media which also creates a headache for staff. FBI employees reported hearing more about the bureau's mission from [00:02:11] leadership's social media posts than through official internal channels. Now Patel is also described as being paranoid and distrustful. In one incident, Patel became upset after learning that FBI personnel [00:02:27] at Quantico had discussed his request to be issued an FBI firearm. When details leaked, he ordered polygraph examinations to everyone involved to identify who had criticized him. One respected FBI leader in the assessment called the order needlessly punitive. [00:02:47] But perhaps the funniest portion about Patel's behavior was the day after Charlie Kirk died. On 11 September, the day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination, Patel arrived in Provo, Utah but refused to leave the FBI jet [00:03:05] without an appropriate raid jacket. A described highly respected source in the report explained that agents working the Kirk investigation had to stop their work to find a medium-sized jacket for Patel. [00:03:21] When a female agent's jacket was delivered, Patel complained about missing Velcro patches on the sleeves and refused to disembark until SWAT team members ref- removed patches from their own uniforms and attached them to the borrowed jacket. [00:03:38] The same source confirmed media reports that Patel yelled at the special agent in charge and directed an expletive-laden, laden tirade over perceived blunders in the case. Now that part is confusing. [00:03:54] If you remember the reports about Patel's behavior in those hours and days after Charlie Kirk's death he was widely criticized for posting unverified updates to his Twitter account while having a nice dinner on at Rao's [00:04:11] on the Upper East Side in New York the day and the evening that Charlie Kirk died. Cenk, what do you think? I think this is a confusing story and I'll tell you why. So look, if we're just doing a story about how Kash Patel's a clown, uh, okay that's easy enough and that's evident enough, right? [00:04:29] And at this point a lot of the right wing think he's a clown, most of the voters think that, right? And by the way, uh, one of the agents, uh, a lot of the agents also talk smack about Dan Bongino who was deputy there and one of them called him something of a clown. That's a direct quote, okay? [00:04:44] Uh, so they have no respect for Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. Okay, so then where's the confusion? Well, uh, so number one, um, a lot of the people who are cited in this report are actually right-wingers. So remember these are former and current FBI officials, okay? [00:05:02] And so they say well they liked how he went after DEI and how they tr- helped to close the border and sent in tougher prosecutors by their estimation an- and some of them even said in the report complained [00:05:18] that Kash Patel has not gone after political enemies enough. They're like we, you know, we should have gone deeper and harder at the people who politicized the FBI during the Biden administration. I don't think anybody politicized it during the Biden administration. Those are Trump voters and does, is the FBI filled with Trump voters? [00:05:37] Yes, right? Is that a bad thing? No, it's normal. Uh, they vote for Trump, they vote for Clinton, they vote for Biden, that's their business not our business, okay? So number one it's important to know these are not like some disgruntled liberals that are taking potshots at Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, but number two that's [00:05:57] partly why I'm kind of surprised by it. Um, it might be a very, very simple explanation which isYeah, we want him to be right wing, but we don't want him to be a right-wing clown, right? We don't want him to be worried about which Velcro patch he's gonna put on his FBI jacket, et cetera, et cetera, uh, and, and do the hard work [00:06:17] of the FBI while being right wing. Sure, that's the most likely. Then, uh, I'm gonna come back to that in a second. Uh, and then I saw this, uh, pa- part of it in The Guardian. It draw- drew my attention. I was also a little bit perplexed by it. Uh, they said, quote, "The report also notes concerns from [00:06:32] countries closely partnered, partnered with the United States. A source in the report indicated that law enforcement and intelligence agencies from allied countries fear the Trump Administration, " quote, "may cause long-term damage to international cooperation." [00:06:50] Huh, that's weird. So the Japanese or the Canadians or the Mexicans are complaining that Kash Patel's such a clown that they won't work with us anymore? And that doesn't seem likely. Uh, but maybe. Okay, but to me... [00:07:05] So okay, you've got the interesting part of the story where it's the interesting sources that are attacking Kash Patel and Don Bongino in a way that I wouldn't expect, and number two... And maybe that just, all it does is it gives him more credibility, and maybe that's the simple explanation there. [00:07:21] The second part of it is the most important part, which is when you do political witch hunts, it freezes everyone in their tracks, because now the most important part of the story is all the agents going, "Well, we don't know what to do, because if we take any wrong step, he's [00:07:39] gonna fire us." Oh, you pursued a case. It was about... Now fill in details. They didn't say this part. Oh, it was about white-collar criminals, and they were, you were investigating fraud on Wall Street. Oh, those guys donated to Donald Trump. You're fired! Right? Uh, I don't know. I'm... [00:07:55] If... By the way, Trump just pardoned one of the worst drug traffickers in history, just like re- like a couple days ago. So if you go after drug criminals, are you gonna get in trouble and be fired at the FBI? [00:08:11] I don't know. If you go after this guy and he's guilty, but he was a Republican or he was an ally of Trump, or you did it but you did it at the wrong... I mean, they're firing everybody for so many insane, ludicrous reasons that all the agents are just... Apparently not all of them, but a lot of them are sitting there going, [00:08:26] "I'm not gonna do anything until I am specifically told by Kash Patel to do it, 'cause if I go and do law enforcement and it turns out agai- it's against Trump's interests, I'm gonna get fired. So I'm not gonna do anything." That's a huge problem. [00:08:43] Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, I, I think, reflective of what we've seen now over the past couple weeks. We've talked about different, uh, uh, US attorneys or different heads of agencies that are just embarrassing. [00:08:59] It's, it's a national disgrace that they are, they are in these positions, the way Pam Bondi has handled things like the Epstein files, the way that Nikki Haley has used her position for just like, you know, trips, the way Kash Patel uses his jet to fly to see his girlfriend [00:09:14] or provide SWAT team protection. All of these people are there because they love Trump and they support Trump and they are loyal to him. And now we're not even a full year into this, and this is what it looks like. It's only going to get worse if they can withstand another negative news cycle. [00:09:33] I mean, we saw last week there were rumors that they were thinking of ousting Patel. Caroline Leavitt said this is fake news. They were actually meeting in the White House at the same time. Here's a picture of them smiling. But I don't know. It really looks like Patel could be out. This is just another embarrassing story for Patel and the FBI. [00:09:53] And if the discontent is from within the bureau, morale is that low, it's a rudderless ship, he's in over his head, seems like just cause, and then Trump gets another loyalist to replace him in Dan Bongino. Yeah, and just to remind you of how unqualified all these guys are, [00:10:09] uh, Kash Patel has almost no experience that's related... That's, that's why he doesn't know what he's doing in the investigations. He doesn't know what he should do first, what he should do to, as a follow-up. He doesn't know that you're supposed to verify before you start blabbing on social media about whether you got the guy or not. [00:10:24] And so remember, his main qualification was that he wrote a children's book about a plot against Donald Trump and how mean all those people against President Trump were, and all their children should know President Trump's the king. [00:10:40] It was a plot against the king. So that's the clown that they got to run the FBI. So the least surprising part of this story is everybody in the FBI building screaming to anyone who will listen, "He's a clown!" Well, you, uh, you bring a circus into town, not [00:10:59] surprising that the clowns come in next. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets a Swinks. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.