Embattled FBI Director Kash Patel is being called out by furious Secret Service officials after his latest blunder on the job.
Patel, 46, has form for prematurely posting inside details of active FBI investigations on his social media accounts. Last September, he was embarrassed after rushing to post on X that the FBI had the subject who had shot and killed right-wing activist Charlie Kirk “now in custody.”
He quickly posted a follow-up message saying the “subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.”
Now Patel has been blasted for “jumping the gun” by prematurely posting details of an ongoing criminal investigation into an alleged drone attack on the White House’s UFC event on Sunday.
He posted on Tuesday that “multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold.”
Patel also shared a Fox News report that said five people were in custody and that investigators had identified 23 suspects behind a plan to use “explosive-laden drones” to attack buildings near the Freedom 250 UFC event.
However, three people familiar with the incident told MSNOW that the case had been sealed in court, with around 10 suspects who had not yet been arrested or placed in custody at the time Patel posted on X.
The sources said that Secret Service and FBI officials were surprised by Patel “jumping the gun,” with MSNOW’s Justice and Intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian adding on X they were “furious” with the FBI Director.
The sources also stated that Secret Service and FBI agents had been in discussions over unsealing the case and making a joint public announcement on Tuesday afternoon.
“We all woke up this morning to see this on Twitter,” one administration official said, speaking anonymously to MSNOW.
During a news conference on Tuesday morning, Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn discussed the early information around the case that was released, without naming Patel.
“I’ll tell you a phrase I learned early in my career in the New York field office and that’s `Don’t choke on your own smoke,’” Quinn said.
“Anyone who believes that case was worked in a bubble is naive. I’ll tell you, the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I’ll tell you that case is ongoing. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it,” he said.
In covering Quinn’s statement, Jen Psaki said on Tuesday’s The Briefing, “That’s quite the subtweet there, isn’t it?”
“The Secret Service chose not to leak the details of this criminal investigation prematurely, because that would be dangerous and stupid,” Psaki added.
“People familiar with the incident are now leaking like a sieve about Kash Patel, and how dangerous and stupid it was for him to leak those details. And that fits a larger pattern we have seen over Patel’s entire tenure as the director of the FBI.”
In a joint statement to the Daily Beast from the FBI and the Secret Service, a spokesman said they were “proud” of their strong working relationship.
“This investigation highlights that continuous partnership and could not have happened without the great work and coordination between our two agencies. This weekend’s thwarted attack should be a message to any criminal actor that if you target Americans, you will be found and brought to justice.”
The spokesman did not address questions about Patel’s social media post.
The FBI and Secret Service became aware of the drone threat on Trump’s 80th birthday event last week, after a relative of one of the suspects contacted police in the Cincinnati area, according to two people briefed on the probe.
One suspect, 19-year-old Tycen Proper of Ohio, was arrested on June 13, with the case immediately sealed to allow the FBI and Secret Service to continue their investigations.
On Tuesday afternoon, Proper and four other men were arrested for an “alleged plot to carry out an attack to kill government officials and others” attending the Sunday event, according to a DOJ press release.
As well as using the FBI jet to ferry his girlfriend around and to watch the U.S. hockey team play in Italy during the Olympics , Patel was also embarrassed in September after he posted photograph evidence of bullets with ‘Anti ICE’ written on them, taken after a shooting at an ICE detention center in Dallas.
In December last year, he also posted that authorities had “person of interest” in custody after a shooting at Brown University, before having to correct his claim when the person was released after officials realized he had no links to the crime.
