Yesterday, three former high-ranking FBI officers sued the company’s director Kash Patel for wrongful termination and retaliation. Brian Driscoll, Jr., Steven Jensen, and Spencer Evans allege a revenge marketing campaign by the White Home towards Trump’s enemies on the FBI that violated due course of and the First Modification and finally led to their dismissal. Their criticism describes stunning corruption of what’s imagined to be an apolitical legislation enforcement company.
It’s additionally freakin’ hilarious.
Kash Patel, serial litigant and the illustrious recipient of an “order on ineptitude” from a federal choose, is an incompetent hack? Say it ain’t so!
The story begins the week earlier than Trump’s second inauguration. Patel referred to as Driscoll, a embellished agent known to his pals as “Drizz,” who was then main the FBI’s Newark Area Workplace and requested him to come back to DC to work at FBI headquarters. The job would require “vetting” by the White Home, however Patel assured Driscoll that he’d be positive so long as he “was not prolific on social media, didn’t donate to the Democratic Celebration, and didn’t vote for Kamala Harris within the 2024 election.”
He was not positive.
On January 17, the Trump transition staff dispatched Paul Ingrassia, a rightwing blogger who represented accused intercourse trafficker Andrew Tate in 2023, regardless of not being admitted to the bar till 2024. Ingrassia’s nomination as Particular Counsel stalled in July after his lengthy, public affiliation with Nazis was dropped at the eye of the Senate. However again in January he was using excessive as White Home liaison to the DOJ, demanding to know: who Driscoll voted for; if he agreed that the brokers who “stormed” Mar-a-Lago to retrieve all of the categorized docs Trump was storing in the bathroom must be fired; his ideas on DEI; when he began supporting Trump; and whether or not he’d voted for a Democrat within the final 5 elections.
Later that evening, Trump’s private lawyer Emil Bove referred to as to say that Driscoll acquired a thumbs down as a result of Ingrassia mentioned he was not “primarily based out” sufficient. (OMG, these dorks!) To not fear, although, as a result of Bove overrode Ingrassia and informed Crew Trump that Driscoll was BASED AS HELL, BRO. Bove persuaded Driscoll to come back to DC and function interim deputy director, along with his longtime colleague Robert Kissane because the appearing company head. However after they confirmed up, the paperwork mentioned that Kissane was within the quantity two spot.
In accordance with the criticism, “Bove informed Kissane that it was a clerical error however that the White Home was unwilling to repair it.” And that’s how Driscoll grew to become appearing director of the FBI!
Driscoll and Kissane spent the following three weeks heading off Bove, who was by then Deputy Assistant AG. Bove was underneath strain from the White Home to fireplace anybody concerned within the January 6 circumstances, and he demanded a listing of everybody on the FBI who was concerned within the investigations. Driscoll countered that this would come with 1000’s of brokers, together with himself. He additionally identified that they loved civil service protections that meant they couldn’t be summarily dismissed. However Bove insisted that he had the unilateral energy to take away anybody if he felt a “lack of confidence of their means to hold out the President’s agenda,” and so he fired dozens of skilled brokers.
Unsurprisingly, this purge did not endear him to the rank and file, prompting an enormous tantrum from the longer term federal choose:
Bove’s efforts did, nonetheless, create a groundswell of help inside the FBI for Driscoll’s and Kissane’s management. Rank-and-file brokers appeared to understand that the 2 males had been the explanations the nation had not been catapulted right into a nationwide safety emergency introduced on by suspected mass firings on the FBI. Bove informed Driscoll that he was offended that, in parody movies apparently created by FBI staff, Bove was portrayed because the Batman villain “Bane,” whereas Driscoll was portrayed as “Batman.” Driscoll responded that he didn’t make the video, nor may he management unknown people’ emotions or expressions of mentioned emotions.
Bove responded that Driscoll may have informed the FBI’s workforce that Driscoll trusted him. Bove then acknowledged that he and now-confirmed Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi had been going to have an in-person assembly with Patel later that afternoon to debate “what they had been going to do with Kissane and Driscoll.”
Issues didn’t get higher when Patel and deputy director Dan Bongino confirmed up. Each males left authorities service to change into MAGA influencers, with Patel hawking every thing from drug supplements to his personal model of wine. In workplace, he centered on swag, together with a “problem coin” branded along with his signature “Ka$h” emblem. For his half, Bongino continued his fixation with the conspiracy theories that stuffed his podcast. Plaintiff Steven Jensen, whom they recruited from South Carolina to be Assistant Director in Cost of the Washington Area Workplace, “commonly up to date Bongino on investigations that Bongino thought of priorities, together with into the January 6 pipe bomber, the leak of the Supreme Courtroom’s determination in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group, and the invention of cocaine on the White Home throughout the Biden Administration, which had been three circumstances that Bongino ceaselessly mentioned in media interviews and on his social media feed.”
Patel and Bongino had been obsessive about social media, urging their subordinates to publish consistently, to the extent that Jensen frightened “it may danger outweighing extra deliberate analyses of investigations.” And ultimately, it was rightwing social media posters who acquired Jensen and Evans fired. Jensen was axed for his participation within the January 6 investigations, and Evans was compelled out due to MAGA outrage over his enforcement of COVID protocols in 2021.
Earlier than firing Jensen, Patel recommended that he sue a few of his on-line critics: “Doing so, Patel defined, would assist take the political strain off of him for his determination to advertise Jensen.” That is extraordinarily on model for Patel, who filed many, many trollsuits, together with towards the New York Times, CNN, Politico, the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department and former FBI Director Chris Wray. None of those got here to something, though Patel did handle to get a default judgment towards a podcaster who failed to indicate up in court docket.
Patel is currently suing MSNBC commentator Frank Figliuzzi for suggesting that he spends extra time partying than working. And Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, is suing Kyle Seraphin, a rightwing podcaster and self-styled FBI whistleblower, who referred to as her “a former Mossad agent” and expressed doubt that she is genuinely into “a cross-eyed, you already know, form of thickish constructed, tremendous cool bro who’s nearly 50 years previous who’s Indian in America.” It’s most likely not a coincidence that the Driscoll criticism cites a tweet by Seraphin with screenshotted texts from Patel promising to fireplace Evans.
Jensen rebuffed his boss’s recommendations to sue. However it seems to have occurred to Patel that he was prone to wind up on the sharp finish of at the very least one lawsuit. Driscoll says that he informed Patel a number of instances that illegally terminating numerous FBI staff with out regard for course of would lead to litigation towards the FBI.
Again and again the criticism alleges that “Patel mentioned that he understood that and he knew the character of the abstract firings had been probably unlawful and that he might be sued and later deposed.” And now he may!
Every of the plaintiffs acquired a one-page letter purporting to terminate them for trigger. However in accordance with the criticism, Patel and Bongino couldn’t even handle to try this accurately:
As of the date of this submitting, Driscoll has not been supplied with an SF-50. The SF50 is a authorities kind titled “Notification of Personnel Motion” which is offered to former staff upon termination. The “Nature of Motion” on an SF-50 would usually signify the removing of an worker and is accomplished by the employer. That part has a corresponding part, “Authorized Authority” which can be supposed to be accomplished by the employer. As of the date of this submitting, people inside FBI’s HRD are reportedly not sure what to enter underneath “Authorized Authority” and have thus not but accomplished the shape or issued it to Driscoll.
Driscoll, Jensen, and Evans sued Patel, AG Bondi, and the FBI alleging that they had been retaliated towards for his or her perceived political affiliation in violation of the First Modification and that their terminations with out due course of violated the Fifth Modification. They demand reinstatement with backpay, plus a declaratory judgment that their termination was unlawful. A phalanx of heavy hitters signed the criticism, together with: Chris Mattei, who represented the Sandy Hook mother and father towards Alex Jones; Mark Zaid and Brad Moss, who’ve represented everybody from Alexander Vindman to Mickey Dolenz; and the ever-present Abbe Lowell.
In the meantime, Patel introduced that the FBI arrested the shooter within the Charlie Kirk case, solely to must walk it back.
Good factor they removed Driscoll, Jensen, Evans, with their collective 70 years of expertise, together with celebrity agent Mehtab Syed, the now-former head of the FBI’s Salt Lake Metropolis Area Workplace. MAGA!
