Leaders at the FBI and the Department of Justice are engaging in a war of words with the New York Times on X over the newspaper’s recent feature on the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, which highlighted alleged tensions between the agencies. 

Citing interviews with seven current and former administration officials, the feature, “Part Enabler, Part Buffer: The Bind of the Justice Dept.’s No. 2,” claims Mr. Blanche and Attorney General Pamela Bondi have bonded over their “mutual disdain” for the FBI director, Kash Patel, “whom they view as a lightweight more interested in social media than doing his job.”

On Monday, Mr. Patel responded to the article on X, calling the newspaper “NYTrash – the journalistic equivalent of crash test dummies.”

The Times also reported that both Mr. Blanche and Ms. Bondi sometimes have trouble getting Mr. Patel “on the same page with them,” particularly when dealing with the fallout from the justice department’s decision to close its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. 

In July, the justice department and the FBI released a brief memo concluding they had no evidence the financier and convicted sex offender did not commit suicide or that he possessed a “client list” that he used to blackmail powerful people with whom he socialized. 

Mr. Blanche reportedly tried to “quell rumors of internal divisions” over the announcement by drafting a social media post for top justice department and FBI officials to repost. Mr. Patel, who was expected to repost it, ultimately did not do so on his X account. 

Monday afternoon on X, Mr. Blanche called the Times “dummies” and said “virtually every part of their ‘reporting’ is exaggerated or fabricated, per usual.”

“Hey @FBIDirectorKash – the failing New York Times says we don’t like each other. Guess we’ll have to stop hanging out after work?” Mr. Blanche said.

In response, the New York Times, through its communications account on X, said it was “confident in our reporting,“ and emphasized that the article was based on interviews with “seven current and former administration officials with direct knowledge of the working relationships inside the Justice Department.”

At the time of the memo’s release, the FBI co-deputy director, Dan Bongino, was rumored to be leaving his role following the intense blowback from the MAGA community over the Epstein memo’s release. There were also reports that he and Ms. Bondi got into a heated discussion during a White House meeting after the attorney general accused him of being a confidential source for a NewsNation article that criticized the justice department’s handling of the Epstein investigation. Mr. Bongino ultimately returned to his job. 

On Tuesday, Mr. Bongino responded to the Times on X, writing: “I have DIRECT knowledge and can state, with certainty, that your story is trash.”

An FBI spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from the Sun.