When FBI Director Kash Patel arrived at his new office on the seventh floor of the bureau's headquarters last week, he immediately ordered new window coverings and carpets because he thought the space was "dingy."
Redecorating is just one aspect of Patel's proposals to restructure the FBI. He wants to make significant changes to the bureau that might significantly reorganize its personnel and mission. However, everything hasn't gone exactly as anticipated, much like almost every renovation project.
Tension between Trump appointees and career officers at the FBI existed even before Patel, the newly appointed director, arrived at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in central Washington last Thursday.
According to those briefed on the situation, a plan to swiftly fire over 100 mid-level and senior workers descended into a week-long confrontation between Emil Bove, Trump's acting deputy attorney general, and the FBI's interim heads, Brian Driscoll and Robert Kissane, whom Bove had appointed.
Patel's first week on the job has been made even more challenging by the series of events that followed Bove's demands for a list of over 5,000 employees, primarily those connected to the January 6, 2021, instances.
According to those knowledgeable on the situation, a few former agents who were among the first to back Patel have already left an advisory council intended to increase his reputation within the FBI. Some advisory members swiftly protested when Bove presented them with his list of mid- and upper-level employees to fire, primarily due to their involvement in the January 6 and Trump investigations.
After getting the list, a former agent remarked, "We said 'No way,' right away." "They were taken aback by our response."
According to those briefed on the arrangements, Patel had earlier declared his intention to carry on the custom of selecting a career agent as his deputy, but that mutiny ultimately led President Donald Trump to name a loyalist podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director.
Current and former agents and officials are worried that while the FBI is preoccupied with internal strife, terrorist organizations or powerful enemies like China, Russia, and Iran would take advantage of weaknesses.
In reference to Bove's directive that FBI staff complete a questionnaire outlining their work related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, one former FBI official stated, "They are going to miss something, and we'll find out that instead of doing their work, some agent was busy filling out a questionnaire." The 38,000 employees of the FBI are still under threat from the Justice Department's ongoing evaluation of that work and the possibility of mass layoffs.
Patel already had a difficult time leading the FBI, which is regarded as the most established branch of American law enforcement, as the first director to be confirmed without bipartisan backing.
Patel must now restructure a large company while also gaining the trust of the rank-and-file as he attempts to overcome accusations that he is nothing more than a Trump supporter. According to several current and former FBI personnel interviewed, Patel's job has become more difficult as a result of the present turmoil he is both inheriting and contributing to.
Defying convention
Some of Patel's actions during his first week in office have increased the level of fear, but they also highlight how different he is from a bureau that is enmeshed in tradition.
Taking the oath on the Hindu text of the Bhagavad Gita, Patel became the first non-white director of the FBI. Before holding his first comprehensive briefing, he paid homage to the FBI's Honor Wall, which honors agents who have been slain while performing their duties, in keeping with bureau tradition.
Patel held meetings with senior leaders on Friday, his first full day in office, and outlined plans to relocate up to 1,500 agents and employees from FBI headquarters and the Washington, DC, area. More agents and employees will be dispatched to the FBI's Huntsville, Alabama, facility as well as to 55 field offices across the nation. Patel retracted his earlier assertion that he would close FBI headquarters on Day One and convert it into a museum upon receiving his confirmation.
During one of his first meetings, Patel ordered supervisors until February 28 to start evacuating the DC region, a directive that officials informed him was not feasible. According to people acquainted with the situation, one of the topics that workers have not been given answers to is whether the government will cover the expenses incurred by workers who terminate apartment contracts in order to relocate swiftly. According to current and former employees, the process of moving FBI employees might take up to 100 days.
Patel had to step in during his first weekend on the job to tell staff members not to reply to an email sent out to the entire government asking them to identify five things they done the previous week. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump created to have access to only unclassified information, seems to be working on the email as part of a productivity initiative.
According to those briefed on the subject, one of the suggestions put out by Patel's remaining advisors is adding more political appointees to the bureau, which now only has the director as its political appointee.
Putting together his team
Transition officials started contacting a group of former FBI agents who were unhappy with the agency's recent course and generally thought that the agency's recent leaders were politicized shortly after Trump nominated Patel as his choice to lead the FBI on December 1.
The idea was to form a small group to act as a "director's advisory team" in order to prepare for Patel's arrival and to provide a list of proposed changes that would give field offices more authority and the FBI's headquarters and operations in the Washington, DC, area less authority.
The proposal is widely supported by agents outside of Washington.
Chris O'Leary, a former counterterrorism chief of the FBI's New York field office who also spent time at FBI headquarters, believes that agents are becoming increasingly frustrated with the bureau's growing size and complexity.
However, according to O'Leary, a lot of agents are unaware of the significance of the work done at headquarters, including collaborating with intelligence organizations to provide information to agents in the field. I got to know the beast throughout my time at headquarters. Case coordination must be done by someone; it cannot be done in the field.
A conservative group of agents who already felt the agency needed a makeover provided Trump transition officials with a receptive audience when they called.
Tom Ferguson, a former FBI agent and legislative aide to ardent FBI critic Rep. Jim Jordan, is one of them. Ferguson has blasted socialism, "woke" philosophy, and what he claims is political overreach by leftist politicians and activists in social media posts. Ferguson stated that the FBI was once "an esteemed national treasure and hadn't forgotten their oath to remain apolitical" in one of those tweets, which was a list of bullet points headlined "I Remember When."
One former counterterrorism agent who was supposed to be on Patel's advisory committee but has since changed his mind said, "The FBI is in serious trouble and it needs change."
By the end of January, Bove presented a list of over 100 FBI mid- and upper-level workers who were to be fired, primarily related to the January 6 and Trump investigations, with acting FBI leaders and a few advisory members.
According to one member, the advisory team members were given the list and asked for their opinions. According to those with knowledge of the situation, many of them objected to the list. According to those briefed on the situation, at least three former agents withdrew from their affiliation with the advisory team as a result.
According to someone who knows Patel's thoughts, Patel had nothing to do with anything that transpired before to his confirmation. According to the source, he is accountable for the activities he has supervised since assuming control last week.
He left the group because he saw retaliation against officers over January 6 cases as no different from what he perceived as weaponization that took place during the Biden administration, the former counterterrorism agent told CNN.
Another ex-agent who was a member of the group stated that he had no intention of joining a long-term advisory team and had instead chosen to focus on writing a series of suggestions, which he then gave to Patel.
The former agent, who worked with the bureau for decades, stated, "I could see what was going on and I knew I wasn't up for that." "I wish her the best, but she's my ex-wife, and I love the bureau."
Ferguson and others are still advisers at the FBI.
Threats are present, and according to Patel, one of the objectives of increasing the number of agents deployed to field offices is to better protect Americans outside of Washington, where they reside.
Widespread discontent with the bureau's recent operations, according to the former counterterrorism agent who was a part of the Patel group, means that agents can support that endeavor.
According to the former counterterrorism agent, "the FBI needs to return to working cases in the field, and people at headquarters can't just be people who spend their lives at headquarters."
However, present and former agents are worried that distractions could allow a terror plot or other threat to escape unnoticed, as a result of the hectic recent weeks within the FBI.
According to some agents, there is reluctance to pursue investigations involving Russian counterintelligence or criminal problems pertaining to Russia, partly due to concerns that their work would be perceived as conflicting with the White House's attempts to be more accommodating to Moscow.
Additionally, several current and former agents predict that more agents will be reluctant to launch public corruption investigations in light of threats to discipline them for handling politically delicate cases.
According to the former counterterrorism agent, "agents are working more tentatively."
