CBS News claimed that FBI Director Kash Patel risked national security to conduct mass revenge firings, but now his agency is pushing back.
Last week, it was announced that 10 agents who worked on the Trump investigation had been terminated.
After CBS News ran a piece claiming it had put national security at risk for what amounted to a personal vendetta, the agency hit back, calling the report “total BS.”
According to media reports, the firings were driven by two different events.
The first being the Trump investigation, with a secondary factor being that Patel had found out that his phone records had been obtained during the classified documents investigation.
It was further reported that Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, had also had her phone records pulled. So, that appears to be strike three.
Patel offered no reason and made no formal statement to the media on the matter, at least to that point. So the media ran with the narrative it wanted to run, that being the revenge-firing angle.
The report by CBS News took a much more direct approach, saying that the firings, according to its sources, had put national security at risk due to the nature of the work of those who were fired.
The report stated that most of the agents who had been terminated were working on counterintelligence, which included cases involving Iran.
The report cited the infamous unnamed “source” who had stated that it was "devastating to the FBI's Iran program."
The source continued, "You can't replicate that with new agents. These sources will go away."
Ben Williamson, FBI assistant director of public affairs, lashed out in Trump-like fashion over the report, responding, "I can play the 'sources' game too – the difference is mine know what they’re talking about.”
Williamson confirmed with FBI executives that “only” three of the staffers who were terminated were working on Iranian projects.
He further stated that the report was "total BS," adding the FBI "surges resources and personnel from all over the country to prepare for these things."
I don’t know why those agents were fired, but I do know I am not a fan of anonymously sourced stories. If you want to say something, have the courage to go on the record. If you are talking off the record, as far as I am concerned, it might as well be the office gossipers at the water cooler. That was not always the case, but these days, people with agendas appear to make up stories solely to hurt the administration.
