So, if you think Pam Bondi is a grifter - wait until you hear this crazy story about Kash Patel Let me start with the most absurd part: Patel is currently running the FBI like its his personal travel agency. Since taking over in February, hes been jet-setting around the country on taxpayer-funded FBI planes to hockey games, UFC fights and Nashville, where his girlfriend lives. While FBI agents are being reassigned from counterterrorism to immigration raids, their boss is sitting in luxury boxes watching hockey games.
But the travel abuse is just the appetizer to this corruption buffet.
Ive written about this before, but lets do a quick refresher on how Patel spent the last four years writing childrens books where he casts himself as a wizard helping King Donald fight Hillary Queenton. Im not making this up. Patel literally wrote fairy tales for toddlers where Trump is the hero and hes the magical sidekick.
The books arent just cringe - theyre QAnon propaganda repackaged for preschoolers. In 2022, Patel signed copies with WWG1WGA - the QAnon slogan Where We Go One, We Go All. When caught, he claimed it was just something from an old movie that resonated with him. Sure, Jan.
QAnon nuts have been obsessed with Patel since 2018 when one of their cryptic Q drops mentioned him as a name to remember. Now theyre convinced his appointment signals the storm - their fantasized mass arrests of the deep state cabal. The FBI director is literally a folk hero to people who believe Democrats are Satan-worshipping pedophiles.
This is not something he accidentally got caught up in. Patel has made over 50 appearances on QAnon-adjacent podcasts, telling hosts like the X22 Report that his championing cause is getting people to listen to conspiracy shows instead of mainstream media. Hes promoted detox pills for COVID vaccines and pushed every debunked election conspiracy theory in the book.
Then theres his business empire built on grievance grifting.
After Trump left office, Patel founded The Kash Foundation supposedly to help whistleblowers and families in need. In 2023, it raised $1.3 million but spent only $212,000 on its actual mission. It spent $332,000 on advertising and promotion - including $275,000 paid to a company founded by the foundation’s vice president - and held nearly $850,000 in reserve. Its a charity designed to enrich Patel and his friends while selling K$H branded merchandise.
He parlayed Trump connections into consulting contracts worth millions. His client list reads like a whos who of ethical nightmares: the Chinese fast-fashion company Shein, a Czech arms manufacturer criticized for being too cozy with U.S. adversaries, and yes - Qatar again. Patel banked cash from the same foreign government that just gave Trump a $400 million plane.
The man now investigating foreign influence campaigns was a paid consultant to a foreign government himself.
But wait - theres more!Patel sat on the board of Trump Media & Technology Group until he became FBI director, and the company paid his consulting firm about $220,000 from 2022 to 2024. As FBI director, he now oversees potential investigations into the very company that used to pay him. When asked about conflicts of interest during confirmation hearings, he basically shrugged.
His net worth somehow ballooned to as much as $15 million after leaving government service, according to an Associated Press analysis. Not bad for a guy who started as a public defender making maybe $50,000 a year.
Now lets talk about his spectacular lack of qualifications.
Every previous FBI director came from senior law enforcement, Justice Department leadership or the federal bench. Robert Mueller ran the criminal division. James Comey was deputy attorney general. Christopher Wray was head of DOJs criminal division.
Patels resume? Public defender, low-level DOJ prosecutor for a few years, then congressional staffer who wrote the infamous Nunes memo - that conspiracy theory document claiming the FBI was biased against Trump.
Hes never run a major law enforcement agency. Hes never led anything approaching the FBIs 38,000 employees and $10 billion budget.
Even Trumps own people think hes unqualified. Former Attorney General Bill Barr said putting Patel in senior FBI leadership would happen over my dead body. He called the idea a shocking detachment from reality and said Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the worlds preeminent law enforcement agency.
Former CIA Director Gina Haspel threatened to resign when Trump tried to make Patel deputy CIA director. Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote that his team suspected Patel made up a claim that a hostage rescue flight had been cleared to enter Nigeria’s airspace - with SEAL Team Six already in the air. Patel denies it.
Trumps own national security team thought Patel was dangerous and incompetent. Now hes running the FBI.
The damage hes already done is INSANE.
In his first 100 days, Patel’s FBI shut down a Washington public corruption squad - the unit that helped Jack Smith investigate Trump. And the Justice Department had already slashed its Public Integrity Section.
Meanwhile, the 25 biggest FBI field offices were ordered to put 45% of their agents on immigration enforcement full time - some of them seven days a week. Counterterrorism, counterintelligence, white-collar crime - all taking a backseat to Trumps deportation obsession.
Hes pushed out senior FBI leadership, gutting decades of institutional knowledge and expertise. The people who actually know how to run complex investigations are being replaced by political loyalists who know how to kiss Trumps ring.
And according to NBC News, he only sits for the FBI’s morning director’s brief two days a week - it used to be five. Current officials say he seems uninterested in the material and briefers struggle to capture his attention. Apparently saving American lives is less compelling than watching UFC fights.
This is what happens when you put a conspiracy theorist in charge of law enforcement.
Patel has published what critics call an enemies list of 60 people he calls members of the executive branch deep state - everyone from Bill Barr to Chris Wray to career civil servants who had the audacity to investigate Trump. Hes vowed to come after journalists and government officials who crossed Trump.
Hes promised to shut down FBI headquarters and turn it into a museum of the deep state. Hes claimed the FBI planned January 6th - essentially saying the bureau orchestrated an attack on itself.
The most terrifying part is how predictable this disaster was. Anyone who looked at Patels record could see he was a carnival barker selling conspiracy theories and Trump worship to the highest bidder.
But Republicans confirmed him anyway, prioritizing loyalty to Trump over national security. They handed Americas most powerful law enforcement agency to a man whose qualifications consist of writing childrens books about election fraud and appearing on QAnon podcasts.
So while Patel jets around the country on taxpayer dime attending sporting events, foreign spies and domestic terrorists are probably celebrating. This info might be news to you, but it cant be surprising
Correction, October 7th, 2026: This essay first said Patel sits on Trump Media’s board and was paid over $465,000 to consult for it - he left the board when he became FBI director, and the company’s filings show it paid his consulting firm about $220,000. It also called him a foreign agent - that’s a legal status he never registered for; he was a paid consultant to Qatar’s embassy. It said Mark Esper accused Patel of lying about Nigeria approving a hostage rescue and putting lives at risk - Esper wrote that his team suspected Patel made up the approval, and Patel denies it. It said the rest of the Kash Foundation’s money went to advertising - it spent $332,000 on advertising and held nearly $850,000 in reserve. And it quoted an unnamed former official saying the FBI is the only federal agency handling public corruption, and said Patel had never managed more than a handful of people - both lines are gone, since the FBI still has other corruption units and Patel was chief of staff to the acting defense secretary.
Update, October 7th, 2026: A few lines now say who says so and add detail - NBC News on his briefings, the corruption squad and the shift of agents to immigration, the Associated Press on his net worth, and critics on his enemies list - and others now say his Nashville flights went where his girlfriend lives and that some past FBI directors came from the federal bench.