MAGA supporters are melting down over Kash Patel’s handling of the investigation into the deadly Ivy League shooting, blasting him for perceived delays in naming a person of interest in custody in connection with the shooting.
Dozens of far-right, pro-Trump accounts took to the comments section Sunday of the FBI director’s update on investigative efforts at Brown University in Providence.
“Why are you being so tight lipped about the identity & nationality of the shooter? Brown University has cameras everywhere,” one self-styled “America First” account posted. “Why is there so little video footage of the shooter? Why does it seem like violence is rampant right now & how are you getting out ahead of it?”
“Director Patel, tens of millions of us have supported you at the highest level but we are extremely disappointed in the results after almost a year,” another conservative account added. “We are tired of not going after the big players from the Deep State. We know who they are.”
“Name the suspect! 😡” as yet a third MAGA supporter more bluntly put it.
Dubbed “Keystone Kash” after the bumbling police troop of silent-movie fame, Patel has faced sustained criticism over his leadership of the FBI since assuming his post earlier in February.
Much of the backlash has stemmed from his perceived mishandling of several high-profile investigations, most notably the hunt for the man accused of killing far-right activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah campus event earlier in September, as well as disclosures pertaining to the crimes of late pedophile and friend of Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein.
Saturday’s shooting at Brown University claimed two lives and saw nine other people injured. An individual remains in police custody in connection with the incident but has so far been identified only as a “person of interest.”
More broadly, the FBI’s handling of initial investigative efforts appears to have attracted the ire of far-right activist Laura Loomer, who has sought to frame the shooting as an act of “Islamic terrorism” without producing any evidence to that effect.
Separately, Loomer lambasted Patel for his response to a separate shooting at a Jewish event in Australia. Details about the motive for the attack—which appears to have ended only after a man of Arabic descent subdued the gunman—have likewise not been established.
“Our FBI Director partied with Qataris in DC last week and then flew to Qatar days later where he posed for pics holding guns next to the Qatari funders of Islamic terrorism… But, he won’t say the phrase ISLAMIC TERRORISM,” Loomer wrote Sunday. “This is what happens when you take Muslim money. You sell out. Kash Patel is a disappointment.”
