Embattled FBI Director Kash Patel just fired at least 10 FBI employees who worked on the investigation into Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago—days after it was revealed the FBI had subpoenaed Patel’s own phone records as part of that same investigation.
Let that sink in: the guy who was investigated is now running the agency, and he’s firing the people who investigated him.
The firings, reported by CNN, came after Reuters revealed Wednesday that the FBI had subpoenaed phone records of both Patel and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles during the Biden administration. Both were close Trump allies but private citizens at the time.
Patel, now the head of the very agency that was investigating him, called it “outrageous and deeply alarming” that “the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records.”
He accused the Biden-era FBI of “using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.”
Here’s what Patel doesn’t mention: he was a key figure in the documents case. As a top Trump adviser, he testified before a federal grand jury in 2022 about the unauthorized retention of government documents. He was granted limited immunity for his statements.
Former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the investigation, has said he was confident his findings would have yielded criminal charges against Trump if the cases hadn’t been dropped after Trump won the 2024 election. Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.
Smith secured indictments in 2023 accusing Trump of illegally keeping classified documents after his first term and plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss. Both cases were dropped once Trump returned to the White House.
This isn’t Patel’s first purge. Last September, three former senior FBI officials with decades of service sued Patel for wrongful termination after they said they were fired for investigating Trump. In November, Patel fired a 27-year veteran after news reports revealed Patel had used a government plane for personal travel.
On Monday, a federal judge blocked further publication of Smith’s report detailing his investigation findings.