Director Patel is taking fire from an ex-FBI podcaster

 Kash Patel's tenure has not been a smooth one.  Now this.

Steven Jensen and other agents filed [a lawsuit] against [Director Kash] Patel and the FBI this month alleging wrongful termination.

[...]

In April, [Patel] promoted [Jensen] to head the prestigious Washington field office. Almost immediately, Patel and his deputy director, Dan Bongino, began to get heat from Trump supporters online over the decision. In social media posts tagging Patel and Bongino, critics let the image-conscious pair know that Jensen had been involved in the FBI’s January 6th investigations

No voice on the right was louder than an ex-FBI agent turned conservative podcaster named Kyle Seraphin. In a steady stream of social media posts, Seraphin dogged Patel’s management of the bureau, including over Jensen’s promotion.

It apparently irritated Patel to no end. According to Jensen, Patel suggested that Jensen sue Seraphin for defamation and even recommended some lawyers.

[...]

In a matter of months, Seraphin has become a mischievous bogeyman for Patel’s operation, using his experience, sources within the agency, and pugnacious online persona to constantly goad the director.

[...]

In Jensen’s telling, Patel said a defamation lawsuit would get some pressure off of Patel. Jensen ultimately declined to go after Seraphin. He told Patel that he was “unconcerned with the viewpoints of online personalities.”

[...]

Elsewhere in the suit are other data points. For example, the head of the Las Vegas field office was told to stop posting on social media and ultimately fired after being criticized by Seraphin.

[...]

Beyond the lawsuit, there are even more examples [of Patel's problems]. The New York Times reported last week that Patel fired another agent at the bureau after Seraphin falsely claimed that agent was central to the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid.

“Are you really listening to this guy?” former FBI acting director Brian Driscoll asked Patel about Seraphin at one point, according to the Times report. Driscoll is another of the three fired personnel in the lawsuit against Patel.

[...]

The FBI declined a request for comment. But Seraphin seems to be reveling in the idea that he’s got Patel spooked. He told me he was happy to point out Patel’s “incompetent, bumbling actions” for the whole world to see, and agreed that he seems to live in Patel’s head.

“It very much appears that he understands that he’s way out of his depth,” Seraphin said.

  The Bulwark

Evidenced in his Senate hearing.

[Seraphin] was suspended in 2022 in a dispute over the bureau’s COVID rules. He then rose to prominence as a right-wing whistleblower after complaining to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) about the FBI’s treatment of parents at school-board meetings.

I missed that story.

Seraphin was actually once on friendly terms with Patel. He says he received $10,000 from Patel’s “Kash Foundation” nonprofit in 2022 when he was “essentially homeless” after leaving the FBI. And he said he met Patel in person a handful of times, in addition to also appearing on Bongino’s podcast.

If he has a primary grievance with Patel, he insisted, it is that Patel hasn’t shaken up the bureau enough.

[...]

Patel himself hasn’t sued Seraphin, but someone else in his circle eventually did: Last month, Patel’s girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, sued the podcaster for suggesting that she’s a Mossad agent “honeypot” out to control Patel and cover up the Jeffrey Epstein case. Wilkins is being represented by Jesse Binnall, Patel’s personal lawyer and a member of his nonprofit’s board.

For his part, Seraphin said he meant Wilkins was a “honeypot” in a positive way.

“It’s kind of a compliment, actually,” he said.

[...]

In addition to tangling with Patel, he has also tweaked another prominent right-wing figure. In July, he was deposed in undercover right-wing video operative James O’Keefe’s legal battle with O’Keefe’s former Project Veritas nonprofit, after Seraphin posted leaked lewd messages between O’Keefe and his girlfriend, a star of the Netflix reality show Selling the OC.

The deposition video, which O’Keefe posted online, shows Seraphin gleefully taunting O’Keefe and his lawyer, describing O’Keefe as being of “low moral character.” At one point, O’Keefe’s lawyer asked Seraphin what he meant when he posted that O’Keefe should “FOAD.”

“It’s commonly understood to mean ‘F Off and Die,’” Seraphin responded.

What world are we living in?

Never forget the Epstein files

DOJ was supposed to turn over the Epstein Files to the House Oversight Committee [yesterday, August 20], but instead announced that they would be providing selected documents incrementally over time. Ranking member Robert Garcia (D-CA): “Releasing the Epstein files in batches just continues this WH cover up. The American people will not accept anything short of the full, unredacted Epstein files. In a bipartisan vote, the Committee demanded complete compliance with our subpoena. Handpicked, partial productions are wholly insufficient and potentially misleading.”

Right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk on Trump’s former AG Bill Barr’s deposition yesterday: “Former AG Bill Barr told House investigators that he never saw anything that could tie President Trump to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. According to Oversight Chair James Comer: ‘He said that he had never seen anything that would implicate Trump in any of this.’”

  Meidas Touch

Possibly true, but so what?

Garcia said Comer is lying about Barr’s testimony: “Yesterday, during his deposition with our Committee, AG Barr could NOT clear President Trump of wrongdoing. Chairman Comer should release the entire unedited transcript of his interview to the public.”

Trump is fond of claiming he's been totally exonerated any time he hasn't been sufficiently convicted.

Meanwhile, psycho MO AG Dan Bailey was named as the co-Deputy FBI Director with Dan Bongino. Rachel Maddow: “Fox is reporting tonight is that Dan Bongino is effectively out. He's had somebody else given his job same job title, after he reportedly clashed with the White House and AG Pam Bondi over the administration's efforts to suppress the material about Epstein that it holds in its own files."

Hoo boy

 

Or, third possibility, Dan is about to be fired.

If Dan means he's going to follow the evidence, he's going to be on his own.  The Director - Kash Patel - is going to do whatever Trump tells him to do.

Jeffrey Epstein suspicions will not die soon

 

UPDATE 07/12/2025:

Well, this should put it to rest...

LOL

UPDATE 07/13/2025:

Conditions apply

 

Which is why Trump pardoned all of the January 6 capitol rioters.  Bride of Chuckie is such a twat.

Do not question your father.

Yeah, I was just reading about a similar flood in the same area last century, 1987, that killed 10 campers at another Christian summer camp.  And others in Kerr County in 1936, 1959, 1978, and 2002.  Time flies.

UPDATE 07/11/2025:

And, suddenly...

 

In fact, a bunch of them went on camera holding up thick folders teasing the eventual release of the list.

MAGA was clamoring for "the truth" to come out, thinking there'd be dirt on Democrats.  Now they will turn on a dime and you won't hear about it any more.  Or not.

UPDATE 04:36 pm:

UPDATE 07/11/2025:

UPDATE 07/11/2025:

This is not going to go away.

UPDATE 07/12/2025:

Trump 2.0 - Victims

 

Did someone force him to take a job in the administration?

Waste, fraud, and abuse

 Found it.

Trump 2.0 - Serious overreach

Current and former FBI officials expressed shock and dismay Monday over the news that President Donald Trump had selected a right-wing podcaster and ardent FBI critic to be the bureau’s deputy director, even as the man picked for the job said he was ready to put partisanship aside.

[...]

Bongino worked for two years for the New York Police Department before joining the Secret Service in 1999, where he served for 12 years. He ran unsuccessfully three times as a Republican candidate for office before striking out to build what has become a media empire, including one of the most popular podcasts in the U.S.

On Monday, Bongino sought to strike an inspiring tone.

“We’re going to re-establish faith in this institution, the good people there, doing their job, hitting the streets, developing sources,” he said. “We’ll have your back. … The FBI belongs to the American people. Doesn’t belong to me, doesn’t belong to anyone else but the American people. But this is the honor of a lifetime, and it’s a serious mission. I plan on implementing that vision.”

[...]

On his podcast, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino — who once called the FBI “irredeemably corrupt”— thanked the president for the appointment and suggested that he was prepared to step out of his role as a MAGA warrior. But even as he did so, he repeated the baseless charge that the Justice Department had been “weaponized,” a claim he has frequently brandished to criticize the agency he will now help lead.

[...]

Neither FBI Director Kash Patel nor Bongino have ever worked at the FBI.

In fact, the FBI Agents Association said in a memo to the workforce that Patel had privately committed to installing an agent as his second in command.

[...]

Some FBI officials consider the deputy director job more important than the director’s role, because the deputy oversees operations, supervises the heads of field offices and handles some of the most sensitive intelligence in the federal government.

[...]

"We now have two conspiracy theorists and election deniers running our premier law enforcement and intelligence agency.”

Some current FBI employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to reporters, were even more blunt. They said they feared Bongino's appointment spelled the end of an independent FBI and put the bureau’s fearsome investigative and intelligence capabilities in the hands of political actors with radical agendas.

“I didn’t sleep and I want to pack my desk today,” one said.

Another FBI official said he viewed the hiring of Bongino as akin to bringing on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones or Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes.

[...]

“Will the deputy director get a security clearance? FBI background checks? Does it matter that he supported the Oath Keepers?" one retired FBI agent said, referring to the far-right group that Rhodes founded. "I doubt it because the director supported Jan. 6th."

[...]

[Bongino] once argued that every FBI agent and supervisor who had anything to do with the 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound — which was conducted pursuant to a lawful search warrant — be fired. And he recently claimed without evidence that the FBI knows who placed pipe bombs outside the RNC and DNC the day before the Jan. 6 attack, even though the FBI says it has not identified any suspects and recently asked the public for help.

  NBC

Only the best.

Better late than never?

Cumulus Media, the radio broadcasting company is reportedly telling hosts they will be fired if they continue to spread baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election.

Cumulus company boasts a number of right-wing radio hosts in its stable, including Mark Levin and Dan Bongino, who have amplified Trump’s evidence-free claims that the election was stolen from him through mass fraud. Those false claims were what incited an insurrectionist mob to storm the U.S. Capitol last week.

Washington Post reports that in the aftermath of the chaos, Cumulus Executive Vice President Brian Philips sent out a memo ordering the company’s on-air personalities to drop all claims the election was stolen. Failure to comply, Philips said, will result in termination.

[...]

"If you transgress this policy, you can expect to separate from the company immediately.”

[...]

So far it seems Levin isn’t backing down from his Trump-boosting. On his Fox News show Sunday night, he went after the media for exploiting the violence, and claimed “the president did not incite an insurrection.”

Update: Ben Shapiro’s executive producer Jeremy Boreing tweeted Monday that Cumulus Media is “not Ben’s employer and hasn’t told Ben jack shit about what he can or cannot say on air.”

Mark Levin also told The Right Scoop that he has received no order from Cumulus regarding coverage of the 2020 election.

  Mediaite

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Look who he's retweeting now

In case you have been spared, Bongino is a right-wing radio host, who, as you can see, puts out a bunch of shit.

But I don't know what the hell is wrong with this guy:



In San Francisco, non-citizens with certain qualifications are allowed to vote in school board elections.  That's it.

And while I'm on the asshat's tweets, because I don't want to do another post today about them, check this one out: does he assume his base don't know what the word "apprehend" means? 



Also, the wall is not being built.  And why do we need it if the Border Patrol has the situation in hand?  Tweets like this are going to be evidence in court in cases challenging his "emergency" declaration.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.