Kash Patel thought he had been fired. On Friday, April 10, the FBI director struggled to log on to an internal computer system, became convinced he had been locked out and frantically called aides and allies to say the White House had cut him loose.
Two people familiar with his outreach described it as a freak-out. The White House was soon fielding calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was in charge of the FBI, a sign of how quickly a technical error at a sprawling federal law-enforcement agency can turn into a political problem.
The access issue was quickly resolved and turned out to be a technical error. Patel had not been fired. But the confusion was serious enough that one FBI official later dismissed the episode with a blunt judgment: “It was all ultimately bullshit.”
The bureau employs roughly 38,000 people, and the stakes of any leadership uncertainty are obvious. Patel’s false alarm came after Attorney General Pam Bondi was ousted on April 2, when he was among the officials expected to be next. The brief lockout scare landed on top of an atmosphere already thick with doubt about his hold on the job and his judgment under pressure.
That doubt has been building. The article says Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences, and it says more than two dozen people interviewed described him as erratic, suspicious of others and prone to jumping to conclusions before he has the facts in hand. Senior members of the Trump administration are already discussing who might replace him, a remarkable development for a director only months into the role.
Patel’s response to the reporting was defiant. Through the FBI, he issued a statement attributed to him saying, “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that “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. Director Patel remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.” Todd Blanche added that “Patel has accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years. Anonymously sourced hit pieces do not constitute journalism.”
The lockout episode now reads less like a glitch than a snapshot of a turbulent tenure. Patel did not lose access to the system because he was being fired, but the speed with which he assumed the worst — and the scramble that followed — showed how fragile confidence around him has become inside and outside the bureau.