The FBI has devolved into chaos amid Director Kash Patel’s ongoing efforts to rid the agency of staff disloyal to the Trump administration.
Patel is now subjecting senior executives to polygraphs at a “rapid rate,” The New York Times reports, as part of a wider effort to stamp out embarrassing news leaks from within the agency.
One senior official told the Times in its exposé that he was forced out last month after being subjected to a lie detector test. He believes he was targeted because he hadn’t told Patel about his wife taking a knee during the 2020 protests against police brutality in Washington, D.C.
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Others accuse the FBI chief of using the threat of polygraphs to intimidate agents and staff out of criticising or discussing his policies and staffing decisions.
President Donald Trump appointed Patel earlier this year with a mandate to end what the GOP has characterised as the agency’s “weaponization” under the administration of former President Joe Biden given the FBI’s past investigations into the Russiagate scandal and the Republican president’s mishandling of classified documents.
Within weeks of his appointment, Patel had already reportedly inquired about setting up a direct phone line between his office and the White House, raising significant concerns over the possibility of political pressure being applied to the agency from the Oval Office.
Critics have also been alarmed by Patel’s apparent desire to retain a private security detail, rather than one provided by the FBI.
Patel has presided over an unprecedented purge of staff from the investigative body. Many senior executives and agents have found themselves forced out of the organization, demoted, or placed on leave without formal reason, per the Times’ report.
Other moves have included disbanding an elite investigations squad at the Washington, D.C., office that had previously probed Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Internal critics say the firings, forced retirements, unfair reassignments, and unit shutdowns have not only “obliterated decades of experience in national security” from the agency but also signal that the agency will not brook dissent over the actions of Trump as well as as Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the latter two who were caught up in a leak scandal involving commercial messaging app Signal.
