Trump appointees called out for 'laughable' bid to make friends with FBI rank and file

After years of attacking the agency, President Donald Trump's appointees to head up the FBI are now trying to curry favor with the rank and file in their quest to make changes, reported The New York Times — but for some, these efforts look less than sincere.

In fact, noted the report, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino are using their own attacks on the organization as proof it needs a culture change: "the two men have pulled a kind of bait-and-switch: In recent emails to thousands of FBI employees, they have sought to use the bureau’s damaged reputation — a reputation that they themselves helped tear down — as a rationale for bringing reforms to the supposedly broken organization."

“Over the past few years, the FBI’s reputation has been damaged in the eyes of our employers, the American people,” Patel told FBI personnel in an email sent out on Wednesday. “I know each of you, serving across this great nation, are tackling cases that will further the betterment of the communities in which you live and work.”

All of this, the report noted, comes in spite of the fact that Patel, a far-right former staffer for GOP House Intelligence Committee leadership, "repeatedly distorted the facts about the bureau’s investigation of Russian meddling into President Trump’s 2016 campaign. He has also been a central purveyor of conspiracy theories, accusing federal agents of having helped instigate the attack by Mr. Trump’s supporters on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021."

Patel and Bongino's attempt at a charm offensive is not going down well for many observers.

"Luke William Hunt, a professor at the University of Alabama and a former F.B.I. agent who testified Wednesday before a congressional subcommittee examining the bureau, said Mr. Bongino’s comments were a stretch of the imagination," noted the report.

Hunt did not mince words in describing the situation: “‘Disregard everything I said. I am now a straight shooter.’ That’s laughable. It would be foolish or naïve to believe a statement like that. You’re asking an F.B.I. agent, who looks at the evidence, to believe that everything that is on print or on video is not representative of who they are.”