The FBI Is Not Yours, Kash Patel

Leading the FBI is a position of extraordinary power and responsibility. The director’s obligation is not to personal ambition, political loyalty, or convenience, but to the mission, the institution, and the American people. That is the meaning of stewardship—and the standard by which every director should be judged.

My earliest lessons about public service and respect for the rule of law date to the years when I volunteered for Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick. She was an extraordinary public servant. And she was my mentor.

Millicent was a Republican. She understood that public office was a public trust. Her loyalty was to the Constitution and to the people she represented—not to a political party or to herself. She often frustrated leaders in her own party because she believed accountability was required, even when it was politically inconvenient. It was the experience with Millicent that moved me to enter public service, specifically the FBI.

When working for the FBI overseas, I witnessed deep and destructive corruption and abuse in some of the world’s most fragile nations. I saw firsthand what happens when institutions don’t serve the public. The damage is profound, and rebuilding public trust can take generations. These lessons stayed with me.

When assigned to FBI Headquarters, among other duties, I oversaw the preparation and publication of the FBI’s Congressional Budget Justification Book, including the Bureau’s national security programs, the Dedicated Technical Program, and International Operations. Later in my career, I managed budgets of more than $250 million. I sat beside the FBI Director during congressional budget hearings with the detailed information needed to support his testimony, and I responded to questions submitted by members of Congress and their staff.

I now follow with dismay the actions of FBI Director Kash Patel, both through media reporting and bipartisan Congressional inquiries about his management of the Bureau. Republicans and Democrats, in both the House and the Senate, are asking questions of Director Patel that reflect critical concerns about stewardship of the FBI and the public trust, involving not only how taxpayer dollars are being spent, but also how operational decisions are made and whether those decisions advance the FBI’s mission.

Questionable Bonus Payments

The allegations include charges that incentive award funds, intended to recognize extraordinary employee performance, were depleted by unusually large payments to a small group of individuals. One of the letters from Congress stated: “Your office issued more than $1,000,000 in awards to Special Agents serving on your ‘Director’s Advisory Team’.” The letter continued, “We can also confirm that you have depleted the FBI reserve account for bonus payments at such a frenzied rate that some of the payments have bounced back from exhausted accounts.”

Questionable Practices for Assignments and New Offices

Other questions surround expenditures, travel, and operational focus. They include decisions involving Legal Attaché assignments and the establishment of a new FBI office in New Zealand, a process that typically requires State Department approval and many months of interagency and host country coordination. When I opened new FBI offices in North and West Africa, the process took well over a year.

Questionable Travel and Vehicle Purchases

Reporting includes accounts that Patel demoted personnel in Brussels because they failed to ensure he was “adequately entertained” while there. Reports include the purchase of BMWs when Chevy Suburbans are the standard. Recently, there have been reports about a proposed trip to Russia and questions about the operational justification for such travel at a time when Russia remains one of America’s most significant counterintelligence threats, and is attacking our ally, Ukraine, daily.

Any one of these issues might ultimately prove to have a satisfactory explanation. But this series of actions appears to reflect a disturbing pattern.

Throughout my career, whether recommending an employee for an incentive award, opening a Legal Attaché office overseas, planning a Director’s trip, or managing large budgets entrusted to me by the American people, the first question was never, “Can we do this?” The question was, “Should we?” Does it advance the FBI’s mission? Does it strengthen the institution? Is it the right action now?

Those are the standards by which every FBI Director should be judged.

The Director does not own the FBI.

The Director does not own its people.

The Director does not own its resources.

The Director serves as a steward on behalf of the American people.

That is the standard.

It needs to remain the standard to ensure accountability to all of us.

That’s why this Congressional oversight is critical. When you have bicameral and bipartisan requests for information about how the FBI Director is spending taxpayer dollars, it’s not politics. It’s congressional action functioning exactly as it is constitutionally intended. It’s one of the safeguards that helps ensure powerful institutions remain worthy of the public’s trust and that their leaders be transparent and held accountable for their actions.

It is why this moment matters.

Both Republicans and Democrats, in both chambers of Congress, are asking different questions that all point toward the same fundamental responsibility: Stewardship.

Now it’s up to us.

Democracy does not sustain itself. It depends on all of us to pay attention, to ask difficult questions, and to expect our public officials to be transparent, accountable, and faithful to the Constitution. Let’s hold them to that.

You might also like