Kash Patel struggled to log on to an internal FBI computer system on Friday, April 10, and briefly convinced himself he had been fired by the White House. He frantically called aides and allies to say he was out, prompting two people familiar with his outreach to describe the reaction as a “freak-out.”
The false alarm spread fast enough that the White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI. The access problem turned out to be a technical error and was quickly resolved, and Patel had not been fired.
The episode landed because Patel runs an agency with roughly 38,000 people and because it came after weeks of talk inside the administration about who might replace him. Multiple current and former officials have described him as deeply worried that his job is in jeopardy, and witnesses have pointed to bouts of excessive drinking as one reason he has good cause for concern.
That unease is part of a broader turbulence around Patel’s tenure. On April 2, Attorney General Pam Bondi was ousted, and Patel was reported earlier this month to be among officials expected to be fired. Senior members of the Trump administration were already discussing possible replacements when the lockout scare unfolded, giving the episode a weight that went far beyond a routine login problem.
The FBI responded with a statement attributed to Patel saying, “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.” The White House pushed back as well. Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that under Donald Trump and Patel, “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high profile criminals have been put behind bars,” while Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “Patel has accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years. Anonymously sourced hit pieces do not constitute journalism.”
For now, the central fact is simple: Patel was not fired on April 10. But the speed with which a computer glitch turned into a Washington panic says a lot about how fragile his position looks inside the administration, and why every misstep around the FBI director now gets read as a test of how much longer he can hold the job.