FBI Under Kash Patel and Dan Bongino Is ‘Rudderless,’ According to New Report Which Could Signal Growing Discontent Among Conservatives

On September 11, FBI Director Kash Patel had just landed at the Provo Airport in Utah, around the same time agents were deep in their investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Mr. Patel — who, just one day earlier, had prematurely and incorrectly announced on X that a person of interest in the case had been arrested, a claim he later retracted — refused to disembark the plane. His reason, according to a harsh new report from the National Alliance of Retired and Active-Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts, was that he did not have an FBI raid jacket to wear. He requested that special agents find him a medium-sized one. Agents who were “busy working the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk” were pulled from their duties to search for a jacket that would fit the 45-year-old director. They eventually located a medium-sized jacket that belonged to a female special agent, but Mr. Patel, upon inspection, noticed it was missing Velcro patches on a sleeve. He once again refused to leave the plane until Velcro patches were placed on the jacket, according to the report, “Source Reporting And Analysis Of The Federal Bureau Of Investigation Under The Leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel: A Pulse Check Of The First Six (6) Months.”“Members of an FBI SWAT Team took patches off their uniforms and ran those patches over to FBI Director Kash Patel at the airport,” according to the report. Once attached to the loaner jacket, Mr. Patel finally left the plane, an episode the report calls one of many indications the director “may be insecure” and “lacks the requisite experience” to lead the FBI. The result, the report says, is a leader who is “in over his head” and leading an FBI that those internally have described as a “rudderless ship” that is “f’ed up.”Kash Patel and his girlfriend Alexis Wilkins at a wrestling match where she performed the National Anthem. Instagram“Things change constantly…and upper leadership at the FBI has no spine to help FBI Director Kash Patel or FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino understand the FBI,” according to the report, which was addressed to Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, and both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.A spokesperson for the FBI did not respond to a request for comment from The Sun. The report was featured in the New York Post, in a column by the conservative columnist Miranda DeVine, a strong Trump supporter “who doesn’t typically break hard from this administration,” the political journalist Mark Halperin noted on Monday morning. Some speculated that the Post’s decision to highlight the report could be “a signal to the president” from senior figures in the Trump Administration who would like to be rid of Mr. Patel.In a statement on X, FBI spokesman Ben Williamson defended Messrs. Patel and Bongino, saying the men assumed control of the bureau “as disrupters and are choosing to do things differently.”FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino visits the bureau’s New York Field Office last Friday. Shown from L-R are Christopher Raia, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner and Mr. Bongino. FBI“What’s more surprising here is to see the New York Post elevating a dossier of anonymous complaints from current and ex-FBI personnel as some form of gospel,” Mr. Williamson wrote. Citing 24 trusted anonymous FBI sources throughout the country, the report described Mr. Bongino — a former NYPD cop and Secret Service agent turned successful MAGA podcaster — as “something of a clown.” Mr. Bongino’s complete lack of prior FBI experience when assuming the role of Deputy Director has come at the bureau’s expense.“It was a mistake not to appoint a career FBI Special Agent to the position of FBI Deputy Director,” one source said in the report. In one incident, Mr. Bongino, during a visit to an “FBI Field Office in the Western United States,” allegedly told agents, “The Truth is for chumps.”FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi appear as President Trump speaks in the Oval Office on September 25, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesThe context in which Mr. Bongino was referring was unclear, according to the report, although the incident was corroborated by other FBI employees. The report follows speculation that the Trump administration is seriously considering firing Mr. Patel and replacing him with his new co-deputy director, Andrew Bailey. In response, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called the report by MS NOW “completely made up” and included a new picture of Messrs. Trump and Patel posing together in the Oval Office while giving “thumbs up” signs. Mr. Patel has come under fire for assigning members of the FBI Nashville field office’s SWAT team to protect his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, after she received death threats over social media. The New York Times reported that he went ballistic when he learned Ms. Wilkins’s FBI detail had left one of her events early when they determined it was secure.The report highlighted Mr. Patel’s seemingly fragile composure when facing criticism. It pointed to Mr. Patel’s combative appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, during which he called Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat of California, a “political buffoon at best.” That interaction, the report says, reflected Mr. Patel’s “lack of self-confidence.”President Trump poses with the FBI director, Kash Patel as he denied a report that he’s thinking of firing the embattled FBI director. The White HouseIn another incident, Mr. Patel became upset upon learning of a group discussion among a “few dozen FBI personnel” at the FBI Academy in Quantico about Mr. Patel’s request for an FBI-issued firearm. In response, Mr. Patel ordered all those involved to undergo polygraph examinations to “determine their involvement… and any actions they may have taken after the discussion took place,” according to one source, described as a “high-ranking official at the Divisional level” who recently retired from the bureau after serving for over two decades.Both Messrs. Bongino and Patel’s “unfortunate obsession with social media” was a sign that the two men were “too often concerned with building (their own) personal resumes,” according to the report. Mr. Patel has been criticized over his frequent and mandated use of a private government plane for personal trips that include a wrestling event in Pennsylvania, where Ms. Wilkins performed the National Anthem, and a stay at a luxury hunting resort in Texas. In August, Mr. Patel flew to Inverness, Scotland, where he spent a week at the Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle with a group of friends. The trip required around-the-clock FBI security and “extensive and expensive” planning, the New York Times reported.Although Mr. Patel is mandated by Congress to fly on planes equipped with secure communications technology and must reimburse the government for the cost of a commercial ticket if he uses the jet for personal travel, the trips to Pennsylvania and Texas — both during the government shutdown — reportedly triggered criticism from within the Trump administration, including Ms. Bondi, which she has since denied.Kash Patel appears on ‘Special Report’ on the Fox News Channel. Fox News MediaMr. Patel fired the FBI official in charge of the aviation unit after the media published reports about his jet use.The report also highlighted that “Trump Derangement Syndrome” was “much more widespread” in today’s FBI, with one source expressing concern that some FBI employees have “lost their ability to think critically about an issue and distinguish fact from fiction.” Another source complained that left-leaning news channels CNN and MS NOW were commonly on FBI TVs inside one FBI field office, while Fox News “was nowhere to be found.”Overall morale in the FBI continues to plummet under Messrs. Bongino and Patel, with some FBI agents reporting that they are counting down the days until they are eligible for retirement. The report adds that morale during the tenures of former FBI Directors James B. Comey and Christopher Wray was also low, as both men “began to draw the FBI into the political arena and engage in several questionable actions that contributed to negative perceptions of the FBI.”(L-R) Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro laugh during a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House August 11, 2025. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesSeveral agents reported feeling “negatively-to-very-negatively” about being pulled off regular work duties to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement on immigration raids.“FBI Special Agents are told to meet up with ICE agents three (3) days a week in parking lots and drive around looking for illegal aliens,” one source said in the report. Diverting “uniquely qualified” agents away from the FBI’s counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations will lead to “cascading National Security threats,” one source warned. But another source disagreed with the criticism about the FBI’s participation in ICE raids, saying it has been “overwhelmingly successful” in rounding up “criminal and dangerous” individuals.Sources also applauded Mr. Patel’s removal of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives from the FBI’s DNA, which allowed the bureau to “do your f’ing job” instead of focusing on counter-productive tasks like “sensitivity training,” which had been a preoccupation of the previous three FBI directors, who were highly credentialed members of the elite legal establishment.“If true, and despite being mostly anecdotal as it appears to be, it describes the culture you would expect to develop when the leader of the free world destroys an agency, first with his words, and then with his actions,” a retired FBI agent and president of the FBI Integrity Project, James Davidson, tells The Sun.

FBI Under Kash Patel and Dan Bongino Is ‘Rudderless,’ According to New Report Which Could Signal Growing Discontent Among Conservatives

More from the New York Sun

Conor McGregor’s UFC Return at Las Vegas Offers a Master Class in Marketing

Prince Harry Plays Pickleball as Meghan Markle Is MIA — and a Clandestine Conclave With Charles Appears Doubtful

Florida Republican House Candidate Under Fire for Saying It Is ‘Impossible’ for People To Be Born Gay

More from the New York Sun

Conor McGregor’s UFC Return at Las Vegas Offers a Master Class in Marketing

Prince Harry Plays Pickleball as Meghan Markle Is MIA — and a Clandestine Conclave With Charles Appears Doubtful

Florida Republican House Candidate Under Fire for Saying It Is ‘Impossible’ for People To Be Born Gay

How The Beatles’ ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ Appearance Gave America a New Soundtrack

NATO Leaders Deal Awkwardly With Working Guns Gifted by Erdogan at Summit

Film Forum Finds Itself in Another Fine Mess

Kash Patel Advocate Chuck Grassley Requests FBI Director Provide Receipts of FBI Jet Travel

Democrats Rage at Fetterman for Setting Up Joint Fundraising Operation with GOP Senator