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Epstein Files

Kash Patel Gutted the Team That Tracks Iran - Then Iran-Linked Hackers Leaked His Email

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Three FBI-linked breaches came to light in March, one pattern of catastrophic leadership

You might have read that the head of the FBI got his personal Gmail hacked by an Iranian state-linked group last week, and the photos they published - from before he took the job - tell you everything you need to know about the man now running the FBI.

There are photos of him posing in front of a mirror, holding a bottle of rum. There he is with a cigar. There he is next to an antique sports car. It’s not the content of a man running the world’s premier law enforcement agency. It’s the content of a LinkedIn influencer who went to one too many networking events.

But the Gmail thing isn’t even the main story. It’s the third breach tied to the FBI to come to light in March alone.

The first one hit on February 17, when FBI analysts noticed something wrong in the log data for the Digital Collection System Network - the internal platform the bureau uses to manage wiretaps and FISA warrants. The system that holds surveillance data on active FBI targets, the names and phone numbers of people under investigation, the metadata that tells foreign adversaries exactly who the U.S. government is watching.

Suspected Chinese government hackers got in through a supply-chain exploit, bypassing FBI defenses entirely by going through a commercial ISP the bureau used as a vendor. The White House, NSA, and DHS all joined the investigation. That’s not the guest list for a minor incident.

The second breach came to light March 11, when Reuters revealed a foreign hacker had accessed Jeffrey Epstein investigation files on an FBI server back in 2023. The bureau had suppressed that detail for three years.

Three breaches. One month. One director.

Just days before the United States launched its military operation in Iran, Patel fired a dozen agents and staff from CI-12, a counterintelligence unit that CNN’s sources say was tasked with monitoring threats from Iran. Not because the FBI showed they did anything wrong. Because, CNN reported, they’d worked on the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Patel kneecapped the team assigned to track Iranian operatives right before we went to war with Iran, and then, about a month later, Iran-linked hackers put his personal email online. Handala said, explicitly, that the Patel hack was retaliation for the FBI seizing their domains after the Stryker attack.

The counterintelligence unit with the Iran expertise? Gutted.

MS NOW found that in four separate instances, Patel’s decision to fire FBI agents came within hours or days of unflattering press coverage about him personally. He’s been accused of taking a government jet to Scotland to play golf. He took a government jet to the Winter Olympics in Italy - his spokesperson called it a business trip - and he was caught on video drinking beer and chanting with the hockey team.

When the jet-to-the-Olympics story broke, he fired more people. MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian said the purge was “without precedent in the modern history of the bureau,” and the FBI Agents Association said Patel had “disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution.”

Three former FBI agents filed a class-action lawsuit this week on behalf of all agents fired since January 2025, alleging politically motivated retaliation. The plaintiffs include agents who worked on the investigation into January 6 and Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. They were fired, per the suit, not for misconduct, but for doing their jobs.

The FBI’s own response to the personal email hack was a masterclass in institutional spin. “The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information,” the bureau said in a statement. Which is technically true and completely beside the point.

The director of the FBI is getting hacked by groups the FBI is actively trying to prosecute, while the FBI’s Iran-savvy counterintelligence squad has been gutted, while the wiretap infrastructure is compromised, while experienced agents are being fired in batches for working legal cases.

The FBI put Patel’s name on the building. The hackers put his name on their list. Same week.

Sources

Correction, September 27th, 2026: This essay first said all three FBI breaches happened in March - that’s when they came to light, and the third hit Patel’s personal Gmail, not an FBI system. It said Iran-linked hackers got his email two weeks after he fired the counterintelligence agents - it was about a month. It said Patel called his Olympics trip a business trip - that was his spokesperson. And it said the FBI Agents Association called the purges “without precedent” - that was MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian. And its title said Patel got hacked by Iran after the firings - Iran-linked hackers leaked his emails about a month later, but when they got in isn’t known.

Update, September 27th, 2026: A few lines now say who says so - CNN on the fired unit’s Iran work and why the agents were fired, and two House Democrats on the Scotland golf trip - and that the hacked photos are from before he ran the FBI.