The FBI Monitored Its Next Director

There’s a reason Trump is making him the next director of the FBI. The bureau is in desperate need of reform.

A new shocking report from the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General has uncovered that the FBI monitored Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, during his tenure as a congressional staffer. Multiple sources confirmed the surveillance, shedding light on a broader investigation into the DOJ’s use of its authority to access records from members of Congress, staffers, and the media. This development has raised significant concerns about potential overreach and the ethics of such actions.

The New York Post reports that according to a nearly 100-page report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI subpoenaed the records as part of an investigation it opened to find out whether congressional staffers leaked classified information about its Trump-Russia “collusion” case to the Washington Post and other media.

Working with career prosecutors at Justice, the FBI compelled Google and Apple to turn over the sensitive private information of subjects the FBI identified “between September 2017 and March 2018,” a period when Andrew McCabe was the acting FBI director. (Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was out of the loop, the report said, having recused himself from the Russia probe.)

The court orders gagged the service providers from notifying Patel and other customers of the intrusion.

As chief counsel, Patel had no idea that the subject of his investigation — the FBI — was collecting his data and increasing the visibility of witnesses he was communicating with, including whistleblowers.

While the OIG did not find evidence of political bias or improper motivations behind these investigations, it acknowledged the actions created “at a minimum, the appearance of inappropriate interference by the executive branch.” This raised questions about whether such surveillance undermines the separation of powers and the independence of congressional oversight.

Trump has announced Kash Patel will be nominated to lead the FBI. Trump’s MAGA base turned against the security state-backed candidate Mike Rogers. Patel is a former DoJ National Security Division prosecutor who claims he will reform the “deep state.” pic.twitter.com/kG5Jwclydr

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 2, 2024

Patel has been an outspoken critic of the DOJ and FBI, accusing them of politicization and overreach. In 2023, he filed a lawsuit against several high-ranking officials, including then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, over the bureau’s 2017 subpoena for data from his personal email account. Wray, who announced his resignation this week, has faced mounting criticism over his leadership during this period. Although Patel’s spokesperson declined to comment directly on the OIG report, they noted that the findings validate Patel’s commitment to reforming the FBI.

[Read More: JD Vance Has A Special Guest At The Army-Navy Game]