FBI Director Kash Patel is scurrying around trying to help President Donald Trump, a new bombshell report shows, but he’s also taking direct orders from another top official: Stephen Miller.
The top law enforcement official has been taking an unusual number of calls from the White House, according to many current and former officials, The Atlantic reported.
It said Patel receives calls throughout the day requesting FBI activity and updates, and Patel has even admitted to officials that he has little independence.
Instead, he has to do the bidding of the president, Miller, who is the White House deputy chief of staff, and other Trump staffers.
One former FBI official told The Atlantic: “I’ve personally heard him say, ‘I have to do this for the White House.’”
The White House did not deny that Miller gives the FBI directions, and sent the Daily Beast the same response it gave The Atlantic that said Miller, as homeland security adviser, “interacts with all law-enforcement agencies on a regular basis.”
Meanwhile, the FBI Operations Director Joe Perez said in a statement to The Atlantic that the FBI “receives referrals from a variety of places, assesses the facts of the allegation, documents the referral, and we make the decision whether or not to proceed accordingly under an authorized purpose as we have always done.”
The Atlantic spoke with more than 40 people for its report, including current and former administration officials, FBI employees, and members of Congress and their staff.
It detailed how Patel has been desperately scrambling to help the Justice Department bring charges and create headlines that will please the president.
Officials told The Atlantic Patel has been briefed on “election integrity” probes in multiple states, including Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio, and that the requests for investigations came directly from the White House.
But despite Patel’s attempts and the prioritization by the administration, the FBI director has had few results to show for his efforts.
When asked by the Daily Beast about Patel taking orders from the president and Miller, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis responded with a statement that instead focused on voter fraud.
“The real story is—despite the media and Democrats denying it for decades—evidence of voter fraud continues to pile up,” Bis said.
Her response included a list of announcements where just over two dozen individuals faced illegal voting charges largely related to 2022 and 2024, a far cry from ample evidence to back the president’s repeated claims of widespread voter fraud or that the 2020 election was stolen.
