Kash Patel’s Olympic Display Demeans the Bureau
The following is an article drafted by Mike Feinberg, who spent nearly 16 years as a special agent at the FBI focusing on counterintelligence and counterterrorism. We are publishing this article with his permission.
“Don’t embarrass the Bureau.”
New agent trainees at the FBI Academy learn that rule almost immediately; it is hardly an exaggeration to note that it is drilled into them on an almost daily basis during their time at Quantico. To an outsider, the stricture sounds self-interested, if not outright glib. But the commandment’s four words belie a deeper truth: Once an individual takes the oath of office, there is never a moment, for the rest of that person’s life, where he or she is not representing the FBI. There is never a moment where he or she is not representing the United States government. There is never a moment where he or she is not representing our country, our flag, and the best of our nation’s ideals.
Although only one of them ever served himself as a special agent, every single previous FBI director in living memory understood this sacred charge. Louis Freeh would never have taken a government plane to go watch his favorite sport at the Olympics, and argued that the timing was simply coincidental with other meetings; even the mere appearance of such impropriety would have been anathema. Robert Mueller would never have chugged half a bottle of beer before spraying the remains into the air around him. James Comey would have never pounded a table with his fist while screaming in a locker room. And Christopher Wray would not have waved around a medal that someone else earned as if it was his property.
The video seen by the world on Sunday, however, clearly demonstrates that the individual currently occupying the director’s office on the Hoover Building’s seventh floor suffers no such scruples. It is unlikely to have ever occurred to him that judgment, decorum, and comportment can be as important to the reputation of the FBI as fidelity, bravery, and integrity.
And it is not just a question of being vulgar or gauche, or refusing to even pay lip service to the flintier virtues that have traditionally marked the dignity of the director’s office. One could look past these offenses the same way one has looked past his insistence on wearing a badge he did nothing to earn, or his demand for a weapon which he was not trained to use. One could ignore these Olympic foibles the same way one has ignored that he is more likely to wear an ill-fitting camouflage polo shirt than a pressed suit, or that he refuses to button his collar when testifying before Congress. These are simply matters of dignity, and if he has no sense of it for himself, we need not scramble ourselves to force it upon him.
But at a certain point, this childish indulgence in an unchecked id and a bottomless compulsion to be the center of attention takes a toll on the FBI’s actual work; what the world saw in a locker room Sunday evening marks such an inflection point. The counterterrorism mission requires cooperation and intelligence from more religious and conservative states in the Middle East; how can they justify to their populations such liaising and sharing with an agency whose head tosses back beers like a seventeen year old with his first fake ID? Counterintelligence operations work similarly with the staider heads of services in places like the United Kingdom, France, and Germany; are those chiefs likely to entrust secrets to someone incapable of masking effusiveness with professionalism? Are our adversaries in China, Russia, or amongst the cartels living in more or less fear of the FBI now than they were prior to this past weekend?
Robert Mueller was fond of telling trainees at Quantico that an FBI badge meant that its bearer could go anywhere in the world and be respected. But he was cognizant – and made sure that his employees were, too – that respect is not an unlimited resource, and the reservoir from which it is drawn must constantly be refilled.
His most recent successor would be best served holding off from another beer, and should consider replenishing the respect his agents deserve in their leader.
Mike Feinberg is currently a Justice Connection advisory committee member and Lawfare and MSNBC contributor. Throughout his career at the FBI, Mike focused on counterintelligence and counterterrorism, leading some of the greatest successes of the first Trump Administration’s efforts against the People’s Republic of China’s intelligence services and their proxies. Before his resignation, he was the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Norfolk Field Office’s national security and intelligence programs.
