New in SpyWeek: FBI, CIA, All Shook Up

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US intelligence veterans fear Trump’s deal with Russia to restock embassies will result in too many new spies for the FBI to keep track of in Washington, DC. (Antonio Prohías, Mad magazine, January 1961)

KASH’S KORNER: Everyone knew Kash Patel would be an unconventional FBI director, but his first week on the job revealed just how different he truly was. For starters, The Wall Street Journal reported that Director Patel plans to spend “a lot of time” in Las Vegas. (Since the end of Trump’s first term, Patel’s registered address was the Vegas home of Michael Muldoon, a GOP megadonor and timeshare mogul.) Managing the bureau remotely could work when things are relatively calm, but during a major crisis like 9/11, having a leader who's just a face on a screen isn't going to inspire confidence. He’ll also be burning up the miles on the FBI’s Gulfstream, which he once saw as emblematic of the FBI’s corruption under his predecessor. “You ground Chris Wray’s private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country,” he said in 2023 on his “Kash’s Corner” podcast.

Patel also became the first FBI director to run not one but two law enforcement agencies. He took over as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, overseeing a staff of 5,000 in addition to the FBI’s 38,000 employees. Merging the ATF’s law enforcement functions into the FBI was discussed during the Clinton administration. Is this the plan? Is there a plan? No one seems to know.

Current agents described Patel’s first weekly teleconference with the heads of the FBI’s 55 field offices on Wednesday as "surreal" and "wacky,” Reuters reported. Disregarding his briefing book and stepping away to take a call amid his video debut, Patel rattled off plans to reorganize the bureau with a regional command structure, raise fitness requirements for special agents, and arrange training help from the UFC, which is run by Trump’s pal Dana White. (Patel said on the call that his incoming deputy, conservative commentator Dan Bongino, is a huge UFC fan.)