Before Kash Patel was confirmed as FBI Director, he went on Steve Bannon’s podcast and made a promise that should have ended his nomination on the spot. “We will go out and find the conspirators,” he vowed, “not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens.” Now, after months of escalating controversies surrounding his leadership, Patel suddenly wants Americans to believe none of this is happening.
This week, pressed by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., during an appearance before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, Patel denied any such targeting campaign. “I can tell you unequivocally, this FBI is targeting and investigating no journalists,” he said. “This FBI is targeting no journalists.”
Despite Patel’s theatrical denials under oath, the machinery of the state has already been deployed against the press.
Three journalists have been targeted by Patel’s FBI. Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post had her home raided before dawn, and her phone, laptops and smartwatch seized by federal agents who arrived without warning, all for the “crime” of covering federal workforce cuts. Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times was investigated for potential federal stalking charges after reporting that Patel allegedly used FBI agents to chauffeur his girlfriend, the MAGA-forward country singer Alexis Wilkins. The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick reportedly became the subject of a criminal leak probe after she reported on Patel’s alleged drinking and erratic management of the bureau.
Notice the recurring target profile: journalists whose reporting embarrassed Patel or other powerful people inside the administration. But there’s something else too: The reporters targeted are women. That detail matters in an administration where misogyny and intimidation frequently overlap.
The three cases, while different in their details, are similar in their logic. These were not national security reporters publishing operational secrets during wartime. They were not exposing covert agents or leaking military plans. Patel’s FBI targeted the women doing the hard, unglamorous work of accountability reporting: a beat reporter cultivating sources on Signal, a features writer making calls about a country singer and an investigative journalist whose meticulous sourcing helped produce a Pulitzer-prize winning package of stories.
When he is not using the badge to intimidate the press, Patel is weaponizing the federal judiciary in his personal capacity to silence his critics.
When he is not using the badge to intimidate the press, Patel is weaponizing the federal judiciary in his personal capacity to silence his critics. In June 2025, he filed a defamation lawsuit in Houston against Frank Figliuzzi after the former FBI official appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and quipped that Patel had been “visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor” of the bureau’s headquarters. On April 21, U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. tossed the suit out, noting that the statement was obvious “rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation.” (Patel filed an appeal on Thursday.) He also lodged an unrelated, staggering $250 million defamation lawsuit in D.C. federal court against The Atlantic over its reporting on his alleged alcohol abuse.
While he acts the role of the vengeful strongman at home, using federal databases to dig up dirt on reporters, Patel’s international “diplomacy” is playing out like a cringe-inducing comedy of errors. Consider his July 2025 official trip to New Zealand, where he gifted local police and intelligence chiefs 3D-printed replica pistols — items that turned out to be completely illegal to possess under the country’s strict gun laws. Or look at his February junket to the Milan Olympics, where he crashed the U.S. men’s hockey locker room to party with the athletes, later defending the taxpayer-funded excursion as a “purposely planned” operation centered around an Italian cybercrime investigation. Then there was his trip to Hawaii in August, ostensibly for official briefings, where flight tracking data showed the FBI’s Gulfstream G550 lingering on the tarmac for days so Patel could participate in an exclusive, highly restrictive “VIP snorkel” tour over the sunken wreckage of the USS Arizona, a sacred military cemetery containing the remains of over 900 American servicemen that remains strictly off-limits to the public.
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The truth is that Patel is the chief architect of a new, weaponized law enforcement apparatus that views the First Amendment as a nuisance and the federal budget as a personal slush fund. And the truly chilling part is how quickly Washington has adapted to it.
There was a time when using federal investigative powers against reporters would have been treated as a constitutional crisis by members of both parties rather than another passing scandal inside the Trump cinematic universe. And there was a time when false statements under oath by top law-enforcement officials would have triggered bipartisan outrage.
Patel’s willingness to lie under oath to Congress is matched only by his alleged willingness to cook the books back at headquarters to project a false narrative of success. Reports from within the bureau suggest that the director has been systematically manipulating the FBI’s iconic Most Wanted list, adding individuals who were already captured or on the verge of arrest to pad his numbers. It’s a manufactured veneer of hyper-competence that he can rattle off whenever he is confronted about his personal misconduct. But instead of investigating systemic corruption within the executive branch, one of his first major administrative acts was to dismantle the very team responsible for investigating internal government corruption. The result is that Patel’s FBI appears less interested in stopping crimes than in deterring scrutiny.
A former podcaster, Patel understands the modern media environment well enough to know that outrage has a short shelf life. Every controversy quickly dissolves into the next one. Every scandal competes with ten others.
To be clear, no actual prosecutions of journalists have occurred. But authoritarian systems rarely begin with mass arrests. They start with selective intimidation and raids that don’t quite lead anywhere. The process becomes a chilling effect.
Patel did not hide what he intended to do. He announced it before taking office. He told Americans he planned to go after the media. He was hired to destroy the FBI from within, and by every metric — the broken morale of his agents and the lawsuits — he is succeeding.
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by Sophia Tesfaye
