Michael Feinberg on Reports the W.H. Is Frustrated with FBI’s Kash Patel: They’re Unhappy with the General Image He’s Portraying

RUSH EXCERPT:
FEINBERG: "I think we could pretty readily dispense with the White House’s claims simply because the FBI director transports himself around the country with an FBI owned jet that allows him to stay in communication with whomever he needs to in Washington, D.C. and if he was visiting a field office, there would obviously be secure communications between an FBI field office and any relevant department or agency in Washington, D.C.. and that sort of leaves us the other two reasons he might have been called to the White House. The first was they’re just unhappy with the general image he is portraying. And in the FBI, day one at the academy, you get told that the number one rule is don’t embarrass the bureau. And in one of its only similarities with FBI, the Trump Administration is not very different. We’ve seen what happens when agency leaders trip over themselves, whether it’s Pam Bondi at DoJ or Kristi Noem at DHS, or a murderer’s row of people who failed upwards into the Trump Administration and then were later forced out during his first term. So it’s probably not a field office visit, generally, because field offices are staffed with a skeleton roster over the weekends. If you’re going to visit a field office, you would go during the working week when it would actually be filled with agents, analysts and executives. And it’s also worth noting that this is not an opportune time for him to visit the Chicago field office. Less than two wks ago, he forced out its deeply loved special agent in charge, like so many others, for apparently the sole reason that he occasionally asked questions of Kash Patel about orders. And because he was originally a Chris Wray appointee, I do not think Kash Patel would have exactly gotten a hero’s welcome were he to step foot in the Chicago field office at this time."