A (2:46)

Right. So while we can, you know, praise the career folks on the ground, we still need to take a look at the top and the structure.

B (2:53)

Yep.

A (2:54)

Of the FBI and what's going on and how that impacted this. Because Kash Patel's vision for the FBI was put to the test this week, as you said. Because as I'm sure, as you've heard by now, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at an event last Wednesday at the Utah Valley University. I'm not sure I would characterize it as an assassination, but he was shot and killed.

B (3:17)

Yep.

A (3:18)

So the Times reported on Thursday morning, a day after hastily suggesting the person who gunned down Charlie Kirk was in custody, Kash Patel, the FBI director, convened an online meeting with 200 agents around the country to discuss the manhunt. And it was a tense affair. Mr. Patel and his deputy, Bongino, made it clear that they were under intense pressure to catch the killer of Mr. Kirk. They expressed themselves with such fierce urgency that, in view of some of the participants, it hinted at another motive to prove that they were up to the task.

B (3:52)

The killing of Mr. Kirk on Wednesday not only poses a challenge to agents racing to find the shooter, it also represents a grave leadership test for Mr. Patel. His swift pronouncements about the inquiry have revived concerns about his lack of experience, his obsession with social media, and his purge of some of the bureau's most experienced investigators, according to current and former officials, most of whom spoke on the sensitive matter on the condition of anonymity. Whether Mr. Patel can overcome his embarrassing early stumble in posts online about the Kirk investigation remains to be seen. The FBI director's actions have already invited scorn and scrutiny from the bureau's workforce and some senior officials at the Justice Department who think his behavior has eroded public confidence in the FBI.

A (4:42)

Yeah. And I'm wondering which senior officials at the Justice Department who are left.

B (4:48)

Who's even left to have that opinion?

A (4:50)

But right now, Patel's critics have also expressed concern that a wave of firings and forced retirements, which started before Patel was confirmed but continued when he took over, could hamper the bureau's ability to manage complex investigations like the Kirk case. And, Andy, this is what you and I have been talking about over and over again for weeks. Hours before the single gunshot hit Mr. Kirk in the neck at Utah Valley University, three former top FBI officials, Brian Driscoll, Steven Jensen and Spencer Evans, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Patel, Pam Bondi, and the FBI, accusing them of illegally firing them. And, Andy, we're going to talk about that lawsuit in more detail later in the show.

B (5:28)

The departure of Mr. Driscoll, who served as interim director until Mr. Patel was confirmed, has been a particularly significant blow. Mr. Driscoll was not only one of the FBI's most experienced career agents, but he's been a morale booster and a source of organizational stability, often defending rank and file agents targeted for firings or demotions by Trump appointees. Another departure had an even more direct bearing on the Kirk investigation. Over the summer, Mr. Patel's team forced the retirement of Metab Syed, a highly regarded former counterterrorism agent appointed in February to run the Salt Lake City field office, and she was terminated for reasons that remain unclear, according to former officials.

A (6:15)

Yeah, that's just tragedy, honestly. And Mr. Kirk's shooting quote highlights the urgent need for experience, study, leadership in moments of political violence. That's Lauren C. Anderson, a former FBI agent who occupied senior leadership posts in the New York field office and supervised Ms. Syed early in her career. And she went on to say she had an unparalleled expertise in exactly these kinds of investigations. Losing her leadership at this critical moment is a serious blow to the community and the bureau.

B (6:48)

Yeah. Full disclosure, I know Lauren well and worked many counterterrorism matters with her when I was at headquarters and she was in New York. And you know what she's saying there is absolutely true. A person close to Mr. Patel said that his actions have been geared at fostering better coordination and that he is appreciative of the work of agents on the case and determined to succeed. As if to Prove that point, Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino traveled on Thursday to Utah to personally oversee the investigation. Mr. Patel appeared at an evening news conference that offered few new details.

A (7:26)

I want to ask you about that, Andy, because. Saying that Kash Patel wanted better coordination with local law enforcement and possibly flying out with Bongino to prove that point. It seems to have done the opposite because they had to postpone several press conferences in which investigators wanted to release video that they had and additional photos that they had of the suspect or the person of interest, and that postponed that by several hours, since they had to wait for them to get there, and then when they were there, they didn't say anything during the press conference at all. So I wanted to ask you how common is it or how uncommon is it for the director and deputy director to tell people to hold off on the ground on the press conferences and hold off on getting the help of the public and the investigation to fly themselves out there, to just kind of stand there or maybe, maybe to fly out at all? I don't think I've ever seen this.

B (8:31)

No, you haven't because it's totally uncommon then for a bunch of good reasons. I'm trying to think. I remember, I remember Jim Comey went to the. Went to Orlando in the aftermath of the Pulse shooting. But that was days after, many days.

A (8:48)

After Ray go to Vegas after the Vegas shooting.

B (8:52)

Maybe I don't remember that, but that, but that's entirely possible. But it's typically day. Those are disasters in which the investigation is over right at the scene of the shooting. And what you're. A big part of the next phase of both of those shootings was, you know, working with the family members of victims who were coming to claim their relatives and working, you know, trying to uphold the spirits of your investigators and of all the. All the people involved in doing that unbelievably emotional and hard work. So wait until, you know, it's the smoke has cleared a bit, a few days have passed, and then go out there to kind of show support to the troops. This is totally different. This is going out in the middle of a massive manhunt now in the Bureau that when the director shows up at a field office, it imposes a massive burden on the field office. There's all kinds of logistics that the field office has to provide, like security. For instance, there's an entire detail, usually of SWAT agents from the field office who augments the director's security detail and does things like maintains a command post in the hotel 24 hours a day while the director is in town, whether he's at the hotel or not. There's all kinds of equipment and things that need to be monitored and protected. So that's just one of many tasks. So all of that burden, this is a really rough time to impose that on a field office when it's a literally all hands on deck matter and everybody's shagging leads, what, 11,000 leads by Thursday night after the delayed press conference on Thursday night. So, yeah, that's not good. It slows things down. It also interferes. It is the job of the field office to maintain the relationships with the state and local partners. And that's who you're working the investigation with. If you don't have a good relationship, you can't make one around the campfire of a crisis. You have to have done that in advance. And when the director comes out, it's like the state and locals won't deal with their normal contacts. The head of the field office really at all. They want to see the head guy in charge. It's exciting. It's something that someone they don't get to talk to very often. So it actually creates a bit of an impediment to coordination and the function of the office now times all that by two because they didn't get just the director, they got Bongino as well, which not sure that's twice the benefit, but nevertheless, it's twice the burden because the deputy director brings with him some of the very same requirements in terms of security and transportation and lodging and communications and access to highly classified information that's not typically sent to them in Salt Lake City. You know, that sort of stuff, signing fizes has to keep happening, all that kind of thing.

A (11:55)

So, Andy, is this kind of like when. Like if a president visits a disaster area before the emergency responders have had a chance to do their job, because the president being there takes cops off the road and takes resources away from the local people who are trying to help folks on the ground. So that's kind of how I envision this.

B (12:15)

The president doesn't go to the disaster site as the disaster is happening. It doesn't even go like the next day.

A (12:21)

Well, Trump does.

B (12:23)

They usually, if it's close to a golf course, you know, you never know. They usually wait a day or two or three until conditions are stable enough. Sometimes what they do initially is they go, but they just do a flyover because that's easier, safer, requires less support on the ground. Eventually they're there on the ground talking to first responders and victims and things like that, but usually not until got a chance to kind of stabilize the situation and get some aid out to the people who really need it first, rather than pull everybody off task to shepherd the president around. So it's the same idea.

A (12:58)

Sounds more like an impediment. And also talking about impediments with him tweeting out that we have a suspect and then saying we let him go, and then we have another one and we had to let him go. Like this constant obsession, as the New York Times puts it, with social media. First of all, I think it's embarrassing to the bureau. But second of all, I think that putting out that kind of information while an ongoing investigation is happening can be detrimental to the investigation. Can you speak to that?

B (13:27)

Yeah, absolutely. It is embarrassing. It undermines your credibility. It's also indicative of a lack of experience because like every rookie, the first big crisis situation that you find yourself in, either as a leader or just somebody working at, you realize very quickly that a very high percentage of the information that you get in the first hours or first day of a crisis ends up being wrong. And that's just in every one of them. That's kind of a standard, kind of rule that you can live by. So it takes a fair amount of patience and discretion to like, you want all the information as soon as it comes in. But you have to be, you know, you have to have develop the skills to understand like what's solid and what might not be. So firing off these things, oh, we got him, he's in custody. When you really don't know what you have yet is just shows that you're not, you're not, you haven't really been to this rodeo too many times before, which does not, you know, add to the public's confidence in the bureau. You also don't get out in front of your local partners who have to maintain the relationship with the community. You know, they're going to be there dealing with this case for years after you're gone. We learned after 911 how important it was for us to have productive, cooperative relationships with our state and local partners as well as our intelligence partners and our foreign partners. And it doesn't matter so much taking credit for the manhunt, right? You want to make sure that your state and local partners get the opportunity to be in first place on that because a week later, when they find out some guy in their town is buying tons of fertilizer and doesn't have a farm, they're more willing to pick up the phone and call us and say, hey, you know, maybe you guys should come out and take a look at this thing. Like at the end of the day, it's way more important that we get that incoming than what happens with any given case on the, in front of the media.

A (15:28)

Yeah, for sure. And you know, you mentioned the importance of, you know, but the, one of the problems with going on social media or making the rookie mistakes about getting the wrong information out, you know, we, we saw that in a few ways. We had Donald Trump, the president go on TV on Wednesday night and say that this was a leftist far left, you know, whatever woke Marxist, whatever. Then we had the next morning Wall Street Journal put out something that this, the arrows on the bullet indicate that this was a, the shooter was transgender and had transgender and anti fascist ideologies. And so. And that was according to a preliminary law enforcement report. And I want to talk about that information and what we're now learning about maybe some of the things that were scrawled on some of the bullets that were found at the scene and in the gun and kind of what that says or where that points. And of course I want to caution everybody, there's a lot of speculation involved in that kind of thing. But the good, well, there's not any really good news in this whole situation. But they have him alive and so we may be able to learn more about his motives for sure in the coming days. But we're going to talk about some of that information, some of the disinformation right after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey everybody, it's ag. Do you struggle with procrasta saving? I know I did. I kept putting off switching my wireless plan to save money even though I knew I was overpaying. And that's when I saw Mint Mobile's best deal of the year, 50% off unlimited premium Wireless. So join me in thanking Mint Mobile for sponsoring unjustified and get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month at mintmobile.comunj so stop overspending with big wireless. Mint Mobile lets you cut your bill down to just $15 a month when you switch. 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Shop plans@mintmobile.com unjust that's mintmobile.com unjust upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to $15 a month limited time new customer offer for three months only speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan taxes and fees extra CMIT mobile for details all right everybody, welcome back. Andy, let's talk about some of the details that have come out about the shooting. First of all, I wanted to kind of go a little bit in depth about the President's address to the country in the middle of an investigation, before there was even a suspect and certainly before they had anybody in custody. The president's saying on national television, making assumptions that the shooter is a far left or a leftist Democrat, whatever, and that we're going to stop this. And, you know, this needs to end. And of course, Jesse Waters on Fox News ran with this and called a civil war and said, we have to. I will avenge your death, Charlie Kirk against the left wing lunatics. And. And then the next morning, the Wall Street Journal, on a single source and a purported internal law enforcement memo, said that there were things written on the bullets that indicated transgender and antifascist ideology. And they left it at that and put that out. They printed that story without telling us what was written on the bullets, without telling us what was. Who wrote the law enforcement memo. And then within an hour or two, the actual ATF pushed back in a public statement to the New York Times saying, this is not what that report said. It seems like misinformation. You know, we want to caution against these kinds of things. It doesn't, that doesn't match our summaries of the reports that we have. So, you know, basically knock it off. Yeah, but that's the kind of, of misinformation and disinformation that makes it so dangerous for anybody in the FBI, let alone the director, to go on social media and talk about, we've got somebody in custody. Well, we question them, we let him go, we've got another person in custody, et cetera. And for the President to come out and say something in the middle, it's like everybody who wanted Joe Biden to get up and say Donald Trump is an insurrectionist and a seditionist, and I hope Merrick Garland puts him in prison for a lifetime.

B (20:31)

That's right.

A (20:31)

But. But you don't. Because the investigation is still ongoing.

B (20:34)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, we talk about this and we, you and I have been talking about this on the pod here for months, about what a massive departure this administration is in these very fundamental ways. And I think to people like we talk about this in the kind of abstract sense, it's not that appealing. And what we're talking about is like, this fundamentally different philosophy about politicizing the Department of Justice, that the president should be able to tell the attorney General to open a criminal investigation on an American, that the president should demand briefings and can get briefings. And he has said that repeatedly in the media. Well, I can, I can get, you know, information from any case I want. I'm the Chief law enforcement officer of the country, which is not true. But that is such a departure from how things have been done by every other president and Attorney General from both parties for so many years, at least since Nixon. Right. In the aftermath of Nixon, Watergate, and this is now, you're seeing the practical reality of it. In the middle of an investigation, in the middle of a manhunt, the President is on television using his incredibly awesome ability to communicate the pulpit of the President. Right. It's like the most.

A (21:53)

Yeah. And when you say awesome, you mean huge.

B (21:55)

Not huge, not radical, not high quality.

A (21:59)

When I say radical, I mean awesome, not. I mean, never mind.

B (22:03)

A lot of people will listen what they hear, who knows? But yeah, he's out there like basically telling people how this went. You're prejudging it. You're getting in front of the criminal justice process. You're getting front, you're likely stepping on this person's due process rights. You are kind of, you know, you're, you're rigging the game, as it were. You're raising all these issues about, you know, the, the, the Justice Department not pursuing the facts, not pursuing the law, not indicting and charging people based upon what they did and after the results of a fair investigation, but rather just executing the President's political will. And it's, it's really dangerous. It can be damaging in any individual investigation or prosecution. But it's a bad thing for us long term because it changes the way people think about the system and erodes some of our confidence and faith in the fairness of the system.

A (23:02)

Yeah, agreed. And I have to say, on Friday, or maybe it was Thursday night, Friday morning, the days are all melting together for me because I'm also reporting on tons of other news that's happening. And we're going to get to those stories in little bit later in the show. But the stuff that is written on the bullets had been revealed and they were engraved. And I've noticed that I had to look it up. Right. I wanted to Google this. And a lot of these phrases come from a video game called Helldivers 2. So in this game, you are from super earth in the 22nd century, which is now a united planet under a system called manage democracy. A managed democracy is an authoritarian state that uses propaganda to pretend it's a democracy and convince citizens that they're in a democracy. So the game satirizes authoritarianism and nationalism. So on one of the bullets it says, hey, fascist, catch. And so when you hear that in the game, it's Irony, it's, it's self referential. The players are essentially role playing as the bad guys while engaging in dialogue that criticizes the regime that they actually serve. So it's a. I, you know, I had to look this up because I don't play this game, I don't play any of them.

B (24:33)

So it's all, it's all a bit of Greek to me.

A (24:36)

Yeah. But early on, you know, Wednesday and going into Thursday, my first thought was that this felt like it was like a. What's called a groiper or a member of the groiper army, which is a white nationalist, ultra right wing. People who follow Nick Fuentes, for example, people who think that Maga and Charlie Kirk are not right wing enough. Right. And so we don't know any of that yet. But what we do know are the things that are engraved on the bullets. There's O ciao bella Bella Chow. There's hey fascist catch. Then there's a series of arrows, right, left, right. And then three down arrows. Then the one says notices bulge. And then another one says if you're reading this, you're gay. Lmao. And what this comes from is terminally online meme culture. Andy. So Bella chow is an old, you know, very old theme anti fascist anthem. And it is used in the Helldivers 2 video game as the embed music or the bed music for montages in a ironic way. Right. Because you're actually fascists. I see in the game. So that's the first bullet. Now the second and third bullets kind of go together. Hey, fascist catch. And this series of arrows. Now apparently, and the BBC has said this, and this is what the Wall Street Journal was referring to when they said transgender ideology. Some people thought that the three arrows were somehow indicative of some transform coded trans speak. Right. It is not. It is a game controller thing. Remember, up right, up right, down left, right. You know, for Nintendo it's that. But for this video game and for.

B (26:29)

The PlayStation, it's the sequence of moves that you have to, you know, make on the controller to take a certain action.

A (26:35)

Yes. And that certain action with that sequence is that it drops a 500 kilogram bomb, an 1100 pound bomb on who? On your enemy. Okay. And so hey, fascist catch with that sequence of arrows means, hey, yeah, it's coming at you. I'm dropping a bomb on you.

B (26:52)

Yep.

A (26:53)

Now the other two things are just trolling memes. I see the notices bulge is from a trolling meme that originated in the furries community. We can talk about that in detail if you want, but it's basically a homophobic slur.

B (27:08)

Okay.

A (27:10)

Against somebody you're playing a game with or your enemy in the game as is. If you're reading this, you're gay. Lmao. And I think, and I'm speculating here that that bullet was left for Governor Cox to read on television. So that you have Governor Cox saying, if you're reading this, you're gay. Lmao. So again, just homophobic slurs to insult people. Who knows? We speculate about what it means. We can actually ask the person who's in custody now what that meant, but that's what it is. It's terminally online meme culture. And I think that it was best put. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring, I'm gonna bring this up because this quote really sort of brings home kind of the weird nuances and depths of online gaming culture that we're talking about. But somebody named Alexandra Mathew said on Blue Sky, a friend and I have been debating whether the alleged Kirk shooter was either, quote, a dirtbag, left cometown Chapo, stupid poll poster, or if he was an irony poison, terminally online neo Nazi griper, which show, you know, given, given the gun casings, which shows just how impenetrable this is going to be for our mainstream media. So now those two things make sense to me because I, I kind of speak online culture. Is this a. In other words, is this a super hard leftist or a super hard righty? And, and so we don't know a lot of this yet, but I did want to tell everybody where these phrases came from. Not necessarily so we can draw conclusions from them, but just to kind of know their origin.

B (28:55)

Right. I think it's incredibly important and it's super hard. I think that comment is correct. It's like almost impossible for people in media and I think people generally to break. To expand beyond this idea that this guy's gotta be a Democrat or this person's gotta be a Republican or whatever. I mean, let. To be clear, there is some evidence that we have here that's undeniable. The first and most important piece is that this person, this shooter whose name we are intentionally not using, he wanted Charlie Kirk dead. And Charlie Kirk is a very prominent conservative. So you kind of start with that assumption, but then you have to layer in these other things. Right. He made comments apparently to his family members about Charlie Kirk's visit, and he didn't like Charlie Kirk and he thought Charlie Kirk was a hate spreader. Okay? So that's more in the column of he's someone who is opposed to the conservative Charlie Kirk. But now you have these things that he wrote on these bullet casings that were clearly taken from this video. So that opens up a whole world of interpretation that we have to kind of think differently about. And I say we. I don't mean me like I'm too old. I'm not a part of this culture. I was reading these things when they were first announced. I was like, wow, I have no idea what any of that is. So. But young people, people who are in this video game are seen. It's a, this speaks clearly to them. And this is a guy we know was in. I mean, we know he was exchanging messages to his roommate over Discord. Discord's a channel that was basically established for gamers to communicate with each other. So there's lots of circumstantial evidence here that he is, you know, invested in that community. The important thing, I think, is to avoid drawing conclusions now until we get deeper into this investigation, they're going to be looking at everything they can find that he's ever written or said to any one that'll shed some light on this. But it's also possible, as we've seen with other shooters recently. I would point specifically to the Butler shooter last year who shot then Canada Trump. A lot of these people do not have a very clear or consistent ideological position. Yeah, again, Butler guy wanted Trump dead, tried to kill him, no question. But when you look back over the things that he did in the lead up to that, it's hard to say. It's hard to find a very consistent. There's elements of his past that look conservative, there's elements that look anti conservative, Democratic, whatever you want to say, we got to think differently about in our efforts to try to understand these people who engage in aberrant violent behavior. And that's that sometimes they don't fit perfectly into the paradigmatic, you know, yin and yang way that we tend to look at everything. Right.

A (31:42)

Because we have a two party system. So we're like, which one is it?

B (31:45)

Right. Which one did you sign up with? Which membership card do you have in your pocket?

A (31:49)

Right.

B (31:49)

It's not quite that easy.

A (31:51)

And, and I will say that we know from reporting that he did say he didn't like Charlie Kirk, but I don't, I think, you know, when you said that part, because he didn't like him because he was a bigot, I don't know that that's actually been verified.

B (32:02)

Oh, I don't. I don't think I said that or I didn't, I didn't mean to say that. I simply meant that he, he allegedly told family members that he. That he thought that Charlie Kirk was spreading hate.

A (32:15)

Oh, okay. I didn't know. I didn't know about that quote. All I knew is that he doesn't like Charlie Kirk. I don't know why. Why is it. Is it because Charlie Kirk is too right wing for him or too left wing for him? And that's where we don't know.

B (32:28)

Yeah. Not further described. Yeah.

A (32:30)

You know, there are other clues on there. A lot of people don't know about the Groipers, which I mentioned, which is Nick Fuentes's group and his Groiper army, which is represented by the Pepe the Frog meme, which I'm sure you've all seen. And there's a photo of him dressed as the Pepe the Frog meme on Halloween. So is he a groiper? Is he a Nick Fuentes follower? Because if he is, then he doesn't like Charlie Kirk because he's not right wing enough. Or does he just not like Charlie Kirk because he doesn't like people who say terrible things about, you know, people of color? But if he is in the Groiper army. And by the way, that Chow Bella song is one of the themes for people who are in the Groiper army. It's on their America first playlist. Who knows? But I think the problem is when the Wall Street Journal comes out without any information and makes that allegation, the first impression is what people tend to run with. And it's real hard to undo that first impression. And that's why it's so important not only for Kash Patel to keep his mouth shut for a minute, but also for the media to wait and see until we get more facts.

B (33:43)

Yeah, sure. Like, let's hold off on, like declaring war on the other party, like for five minutes and let's see what the investigation actually produces. There are. There's a whole category of extremist groups that the FBI thinks of as basically, they call them anti government groups, but they're like this random mixture of different groups like the Groipers or the Pepe the Frog people or the Boogaloo Boys who just hate government.

A (34:09)

And they are the Eamon Bundy people or the sovereign citizen movement, whatever kind of.

B (34:15)

They're going to oppose whatever's in. Whatever's in power, if that's the correct paradigm to look at this through and I don't know that it is. Well, the government now is conservative, so if you have people out there who are, who are kind of dedicated to just whatever, however they define resistance and opposition, that's, you know, it's just a. It's another possibility. Bottom line is like the analysts and the agents and the investigators need to work through this in a, in a way that's based on evidence. They also need the freedom to be able to talk about these things and write about them and share analytical pieces with each other internally that have theories that maybe will wash out or maybe will be substantiated. That's part of the work process. Not helpful when those work products start showing up misquoted in the Wall Street Journal or anywhere else.

A (35:08)

Right, yeah, agreed. And so we'll be looking out for those details as the investigation continues. I am just mostly concerned about leadership at the FBI stripping out the qualified people, the top folks in leadership, gutting certain program and units, reassigning the Joint Terrorism Task Force to help with ICE and the mass deportation policy that we see, and then having a third of who's left also dedicate their time to helping with the mass deportation. I think it's just dangerous. It leaves us all vulnerable. And I think the inexperience of the leadership and Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and whoever his babysitter is, the Missouri US Attorney, Dude Bailey. Bailey, Is that his name?

B (35:54)

Captain Missouri? I don't know, I can't remember.

A (35:57)

Is just. I'm afraid that not only does it lead or, you know, I guess we miss things like this from HAP from, you know, that happen like this and then also the follow up in the investigation when something terrible like this happens.

B (36:15)

Yeah, it opens up problems. It starts to expose cracks in the system. You know, the role of leadership overseeing these sorts of investigations, any investigations, really, is to maintain the standards of performance and diligence and the workflow and to hold people accountable and ask the tough questions at the table to be able to suss out not just what we know, but what we don't know. And when the people ultimately responsible for the, for the work of the organization don't know those things, then that doesn't happen. So it's a very concerning time at the bu.

A (36:57)

Yeah. And then when you take into account what we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the fact that they're lowering the standards from 18 weeks at Quantico to eight weeks, and they're going to probably be taking out all the reading exercises and then also taking away the need for the requirement of bachelor's degree. I think that that also is going to lead to bad things.

B (37:16)

Yeah, that's. That could be devastating.

A (37:18)

Yeah. All right, everybody. Speaking of purging people at the bureau, we're going to talk about the lawsuit filed by Evans Jensen and the Drizz, Saint Drizz, Brian Driscoll, and some of the interesting and frankly, frightening things that it alleges about the FBI. So we're going to do that after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back. FOREIGN.

B (37:48)

Welcome back. All right, let's shift gears and talk about some other news that flew under the radar this week. Allison, you mentioned a lawsuit earlier filed by three former FBI officials. So we're going to focus on that for a minute. CBS reports three senior FBI officials who were abruptly fired last month by Cash Patel, the FBI director, are claiming in a new lawsuit against the Trump administration that they were illegally terminated at the direction of the White House for purely political reasons. That sounds kind of familiar.

A (38:20)

Yeah. Huh. Do you know? Yeah, I don't know, Dad.

B (38:23)

I know about a lawsuit like that. The complaint filed in U.S. district Court in Washington, D.C. wednesday alleges Patel told one of the agents that his job as FBI director depended on firing agents involved in past investigations of President Trump.

A (38:41)

Ha. Patel allegedly said, quote, he had to fire the people his superiors told him to fire because his ability to keep his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the president. That's what the lawsuit says. And I just want to go on record here and say that I've seen a lot of lawsuits, I've read a lot of lawsuits. And sometimes when you see a lawsuit filed, you wonder about the credibility of the allegations being made in the lawsuit. I do not worry about that. Here. These are three top FBI officials who I, I can't imagine are known for exaggeration or stretching facts.

B (39:22)

You know, I mean, distinguished careers, zero disciplinary experiences like these guys are in a very strong position. They also have incredibly strong counsel in the form of Abby Lowell. So, yeah, I think anything that made its way into this complaint, you can put a lot of stock behind that.

A (39:41)

Yeah. And exactly when we talk about how the presumption of regularity has gone for DOJ lawyers, it still probably remains for folks like this.

B (39:51)

Yeah.

A (39:52)

Now here's a quote. Patel explained there was nothing anyone could do to stop these or any other firings because the FBI tried to put the president in jail. And he hasn't forgotten it. That's what the complaint claims. And that's a quote. According to the complaint, former FBI agent Brian Driscoll indicated he believed Patel was referring to his superiors at the White House and the Justice Department, which Patel did not deny.

B (40:19)

The three fired agents who brought the case were decorated veterans of the agency who had served in senior roles. One of them, Driscoll, had briefly been acting FBI director while Patel was going through the Senate confirmation process. Steve Jensen served as assistant director in charge of the Washington, D.C. field office. Spencer Evans had once led the Las Vegas field office, but by the time he was fired, he had been removed from that position and was being relocated to the Huntsville, Alabama, office. The three agents, as well as two others who are not part of the lawsuit, were abruptly fired in early August in a leadership purge without public comment and with little explanation. None of them had reached retirement age, depriving them of their full pensions.

A (41:05)

That's interesting. Relocating Spencer Evans to Huntsville from Vegas. That's exactly where they tried to relocate Syed from the Utah field office.

B (41:13)

I've heard that tactic used among a number of FBI people. That is considered like a harassing change of assignment to sending people to Huntsville.

A (41:26)

Why Huntsville?

B (41:27)

Want to move to Alabama.

A (41:28)

Okay.

B (41:29)

And so that's emerged in a lot of these cases where people have been kind of threatened with or subjected to a transfer to Huntsville. Huntsville is this massive base. It's the Huntsville arsenal, a huge piece of federal property. NASA is there. There's a lot of military stuff there. And the FBI has been moving a number of functions there. There's a big cyber cohort there. There's a lot of admin stuff there now. But it is obviously pretty far from the major field offices where the action takes place.

A (41:59)

Yeah. It kind of reminds me of when Mick Mulvaney said, we have this great new trick to get rid of people that we don't like. We move them out of their, you know, comfort zones in, you know, across the country. And I don't have any experience with that either. All right. This goes on to say, driscoll said of the lawsuit in a statement, quote, I hope this effort results in protecting others who did no harm and committed misconduct from wrongful consequences. The American people deserve an FBI made up of professionals who can serve righteously and confidently with no fear of inappropriately applied pressure or wrongful termination. Now, in his statement, Evan said, the public's confidence in the FBI, quote, hinges on the commitment of every FBI employee, from the newest special agent to the director, to relentlessly adhere to the rule of law without fear or favor. And another quote, Americans should demand FBI leaders who make decisions based solely on the facts of an investigation and never on the desired outcome of one.

B (43:01)

Jensen said in his statement that he joined the lawsuit to champion the values of truth and justice for those who continue to serve in the FBI. In filing the suit, Jensen said, we aim to re. Establish the highest standards of justice and ensure that every American, particularly those entrusted with the immense authority of federal law enforcement, respects and obeys the law. Abby David Lowell, who is representing them, said the Trump administration's termination of these men was illegal.

A (43:30)

Yeah, and I have to say, whenever you see a quote attributed to, like, Kash Patel or Emil Bovey by any of these men, I have to imagine that every time there was a meeting with leadership and Driscoll and Evans and. And Jensen that they took copious notes. I have a feeling that they're very good at taking contemporaneous notes about meetings that they've had.

B (44:00)

I mean, you do it every day. You do it in every interview, you do it every meeting you go to. I had dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of notebooks, of course, meticulously labeled chronological order that I unfortunately had to leave behind when I. When I left. But, yeah, I would expect most agents do that.

A (44:20)

Yeah. And the lawsuit specifically alleges that the FBI was pressured by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who wanted, quote, to see personnel action like reassignment, removals and terminations at the FBI similar to the firings and reassignments of senior attorneys at the Department of Justice that had occurred since January 20, 2025. So Stephen Miller is partly behind that.

B (44:43)

Yeah. One focus of the purge involved FBI employees who were part of the January 6 investigations, according to the complaint, the suit alleges that Emil Bovey, who at the time was a senior top Justice Department official, told Driscoll about, quote, pressure he was receiving from Stephen Miller to conduct summary firings of agents. Mr. Trump later appointed Bovey to the U. S. Court of Appeals. Driscoll said that when he raised concerns that these actions would rattle rank and file agents, Bovee's response took him by surprise. Quote, Bovee stated that the creation of panic and anxiety in the workforce was the intent the lawsuit alleges.

A (45:26)

My gosh. Yeah, that's like to say that out loud and to have somebody as credible as Driscoll saying that's what he said.

B (45:40)

Yeah. You know, it's the. The vindictive punishment is the purpose.

A (45:45)

Right. And Russ Vaught has said the trauma, we want to cause trauma.

B (45:49)

That's right. That's right.

A (45:50)

The federal agencies.

B (45:51)

Yeah.

A (45:51)

Yeah. Now, according to the lawsuit, Trump transition team members reached out to Driscoll about assuming a senior leadership role in an acting capacity. And he soon learned he was going to be the acting deputy FBI director after agreeing to be vetted for the position. According to the compl, Driscoll was questioned by a 29 year old transition aide who asked him a series of questions that seemed to seek information about his political loyalties. Among the questions recounted by Driscoll in the lawsuit. Who did you vote for? Do you agree that the FBI agents who stormed Mar A Lago to include the rank and file should be held accountable? Stormed Mar A Lago? What are your thoughts on DEI and have you voted for a Democrat in the last five elections? So to, to be a, a, a career agent with decades of experience, have a 29 year old sit across from you and ask who you voted for. And if you, if you, what do you think about the FBI agents who stormed Mar A Lago Is.

B (46:53)

Yeah.

A (46:54)

Pretty telling.

B (46:55)

Yeah. And I think as the, as the suit details Driscoll's response, or I should say non response, some of these questions was classic. I mean, he just flat out refuses to answer the questions about who he voted for and whether or not he ever voted for a Democrat on the basis of the fact that it's a Hatch act violation. There is a law that says you're not allowed to ask the people who work for you or in the workplace who they voted for when you're in government. So yeah, just crazy.

A (47:26)

Yeah, agreed. And I encourage everyone to read the lawsuit. There's a lot of gems in here. Here's a paragraph. Bovey's efforts did, however, create a groundswell of support within the FBI for Driscoll and Kassane's leadership. Kassane was the guy who was made the interim deputy director. Rank and file agents appeared to appreciate that the two men were the reasons the country had not been catapulted into a national security emergency broug by suspected mass firings at the FBI. Bovey told Driscoll that he was angry that in parody videos apparently created by FBI employees, Bovey was portrayed as the Batman villain Bane, while Driscoll was portrayed as Batman. That's an actual complaint that Emil Bovey came to Driscoll with. Driscoll responded, he didn't make the video, nor can he control unknown individuals feelings or expressions of said feelings.

B (48:22)

Siblings.

A (48:24)

I have, I've seen the Bane videos. They're pretty funny.

B (48:28)

I gotta find that.

A (48:30)

I've sent them to you. I should share them on social media. You can also search for them on social media. I'm pretty sure they're out there. I'm not sure. Anyway, so this lawsuit, it's a very long lawsuit. Abby Lowell is incredible. The reputation and believability and credibility and veracity of the claims made in this lawsuit. I mean, my lawsuits are pretty credible, but these three guys who've worked at the FBI for so many years, I can't imagine like a more credible group of people to sue the FBI. And Pam Bondi and Kash Patel for wrongful termination. And I, I'm behind them. And we're going to cover it. We'll follow it here on Unjustified.

B (49:18)

Absolutely. From start to finish.

A (49:20)

Yeah. All right, everybody, we just have a couple quick stories to go and then we're gonna take a listener question or two. But we have to take one last quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. Like I said, a couple more quick stories before we get to listener questions this week. And if you have a question, there's a link in the show notes that you can click on and fill out a form and we will get your question. This is yet another failure to return an indictment as reported by WUSA9. And this is gonna sound familiar, but it's not. It's a different one because I read it and I was like, didn't this happen already? No.

B (50:03)

Wow.

A (50:03)

Federal prosecutors moved to dismiss a case Friday after a grand jury declined earlier this week to indict a woman accused of threatening the president. So far, I'm like, yeah, we've had.

B (50:13)

Like, didn't we do this last week? This is another woman saying something about the president. Okay, good ahead.

A (50:19)

Yep. Different one, you know, and they bring it up later, you'll hear in a one page filing, U.S. attorney Janine Piro's office asked a judge to dismiss a felony Threats charged against 49 year old Natalie Rose Jones of New York. And again, I know it sounds familiar, but Jones is a different case.

B (50:36)

That's right. Jones was charged last month with allegedly making threats online against President Donald Trump. A magistrate judge initially ordered her detained, but the Chief Judge of DC's Federal Court later reversed that, saying the alleged threats appeared to be no more than, quote, rantings. I'm familiar with ranting. I do that a lot. Okay. Jones, who formerly worked as a pharmacist in Indiana, is one of at least seven instances in which a D.C. grand jury has refused to support charges brought by Piro's office since the federal surge in the city began last month. Prosecutors dismissed similar charges Thursday against another man accused of threatening the president, Edward Dana, after a grand jury declined to indict him on a felony charge.

A (51:24)

Yep. And it's different from the other woman who was accused of threatening Donald Trump, which was also dismissed. So these are all different cases. I have lost track. Last nine, last the, last, last week we were up to nine high profile cases. Yeah, I'm sure it's close to 20 by now. But they're just unable to get these indictments from grand juries. And hey, power to the jury, power to the people.

B (51:50)

There you go.

A (51:51)

And to finish this story up, Andy, D.C. district Court Chief Judge Boasberg granted Joan's release last month and said prosecutors appeared to have put more weight on her alleged threats than even the Secret Service because they visited her New York apartment. It did not arrest her.

B (52:07)

That doesn't help the case at all. Gentlemen, come on.

A (52:10)

Oh, Lord. All right. And our final story before questions. This is from NBC. The Justice Department Friday asked a federal judge overseeing the case of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to deny a request, a request from NBC News to unseal the names of two associates who received large payments from him in 2018. This isn't a court filing. The Justice Department cited privacy concerns expressed by the two individuals as the reason for not making their names public. So transparent. We're going to get all the Epstein files out there except the names of these two rich people.

B (52:42)

Apparently not keep them secret.

A (52:46)

First associate, the first one received a payment of a hundred thousand from Epstein and the second one got 250large, both in 2018, days after the Miami Herald began publishing a series of investigative stories where the victims criticized a plea deal that he received in Florida in 2008. And if you look up these reports from Julie K. Brown, who did an incredible job for the Miami Herald in reporting all of this stuff back in the day, there were four co conspirators named in the non prosecution agreement and two of them are these two people. And so NBC has said reveal the names. And the DOJ has said, no, please don't keep them private. And these are associates. These are co conspirators of Epstein and Maxwell Roger. And the judge hasn't ruled yet, but that's what the super transparent Department of Justice and Trump administration is doing with the Epstein files this week. All right, what questions do we have?

B (53:44)

All right, so we have two. The first one's actually a correction, not a question. And I thought this is so Important. I had to bring it up first. It comes to us from Mel, who said told us to live long and prosper. You see where this is going? She says, oh, please tell Dr. A.G. that I am, for the first time, so disappointed in her.

A (54:08)

Oh, no.

B (54:09)

Yeah, here you go. It's Dr. McCoy who accidentally goes back in time in City on the Edge of Forever and saves Edith Keeler, who does not make out with Jim Kirk, which was my suggestion last week. Granted, that's a very short list of female guest characters who don't make out with Jim Kirk. And then the history is messed up and Kirk and Spock then have to go back and prevent McCoy from saving her. She goes on to say the Spock quote is spot on and the punk band name is awesome.

A (54:43)

Okay, in my defense, yes, McCoy goes back. McCoy's the one who saves her and screws up all of time.

B (54:49)

Yes.

A (54:50)

Right. When Kirk goes back, Kirk falls in love with her and you see Bones on one side of the street and Kirk on the other side of the street. And she's walking in the middle of the street and they have to stop both of them from saving.

B (55:07)

Saving her.

A (55:10)

Or wait, does Kirk actually hold McCoy back?

B (55:14)

Anyway, you have gone way past my knowledge of Star Trek.

A (55:17)

Kirk is like, I have to save her.

B (55:18)

Star Trek.

A (55:19)

Or Edith Keeler must die because he's working with his bearskin and stone knives on his thing to look at history and slow it down. Anyway, I know that I'm sorry I didn't go into the full thing and I'm sorry I disappointed you with any incorrect information about the City on the Edge of Forever.

B (55:38)

I think my sense of this is Mel is going to forgive us for that misleading rendition that we gave last.

A (55:45)

Week, but I hope so.

B (55:46)

All right, let's move on to. I just have one question here. It's a bit of a long one, but I think it's really resonates with some of the stuff we've talked about in the episode. So this one comes to us from Rose. Rose says, greetings, Allison and Andy. The three key FBI officials who were fired in August have now filed a lawsuit which presents a comprehensive detail and seems ironclad with regard to the case presented against Patel. Given this, what do you think are the chances that the lawsuit succeeds and more importantly, that the three are reinstated, the other conditions of the lawsuit are met and things like that. Conversely, if the outcome is not favorable in the end, how do you foresee these three high ranking FBI officials as well as the countless others who were unlawfully Fired, making a living and establishing a second career, given the circumstances under which their careers came to an end, especially that they are now considered political enemies by this administration. Thank you for your continued insight into the FBI and my sympathies to you on how the storied organization is currently being challenged. Launched.

A (56:46)

Well, if Driscoll doesn't. Is not successful in his lawsuit and doesn't get reinstated, he's what? I would love to start a podcast with him.

B (56:56)

I could tell him how to do that with you.

A (57:01)

This is. We just talked about this. First of all, I think they're incredibly credible, and I think that they have a really good chance of being successful here. Of course, it depends on what the, the Supreme Court eventually does with an appeal and what judge they get, but I think, I think they should do fine. But you talk to speak to that bit, Andy, because they're asking for reinstatement, are they not?

B (57:21)

Yeah, they are. Okay, so this is. This is a little bit sticky. First of all, they're gonna. As long as this administration is in the White House, DOJ will fight this law, these, this lawsuit and all the other ones tooth and nail. They are not ever. They're gonna. They don't know the, the word settle or admission of anything. So they're going to have a fight on their hands. That being said, I think they've got. They got incredible facts. They've got great plaintiffs, as you said, super credible people. They got good representation. So they're up for the fight. If this drags on to the end, beyond this administration, which it very well could, and there is a, you know, change in party and administrations, they could see these cases settled very quickly after that. The first, the first inquiry that we got from the Department of Justice was a phone call when I sued, challenging my unlawful termination was a phone call that my lawyer received from the lawyer at the Department of Justice who is handling the case. And he received it about 15 minutes after Merrick Garland was sworn in. So they, There is a. You know, I think what will happen with many of these cases brought by former government officials in the FBI and in other organizations is so many of these cases are going to end up getting settled years from now when this administration is gone because the cases are strong. They didn't, you know, Merrick Garland and his Justice Department did not settle with me because they like me or we're all friends. We are not. I don't know Merrick Garland. I've never met the man, but as he testified under oath to the Senate, he settled the case because his Department of Justice lawyers told him that they would likely lose a trial. So I think you could probably say the same for many of these cases. And it will be a massive financial hit. Kind of a chicken that comes home to roost to the next doj.

A (59:29)

Yeah, Yeah, I agree with all of that, and that's why I was kind of hoping I would be able to settle my lawsuit before the administration changed hands. But, nope, not for me. Here we are. And I think, I completely agree with you on that. I think you may need to, they may need to work to wait for a considerable amount of time. But I imagine that if this happens five or six years from now and they win reinstatement or a settlement, they'll. It'll be for all the back pay. It would be like they never left, you know.

B (60:02)

Yeah, the, the challenging thing is that they haven't hit. They're pretty far from eligibility, right from retirement. But essentially, you can agree to whatever you want in a settlement as long as it's not illegal. And so, so I think reinstatement is not beyond the possible. And some sort of financial settlement that includes back pay and puts them on a course to receive the retirement annuity in the future is probably what they'd be looking for.

A (60:31)

Yeah, because I was nowhere near retirement and because the Trump administration was still in office when I first started this back in 2019, I was not seeking to keep my job. I was just seeking for damages for loss of future pay and back pay.

B (60:47)

Yep. Yeah, for sure.

A (60:49)

So that all goes down in the settlement process. But, yeah, that's a really good, that's a really good point you made. These things take years. They just take years.

B (60:58)

It does. It's terrible because you're, you know, while that's going on, you're really in limbo. Can often be financially in limbo. It's super tough on, on your family. So these folks are going to need some support. As for, you know, other employment opportunities, I actually think they'll do pretty well. They're. None of them are leaving under a cloud of wrong, you know, alleged wrongdoing. I think everyone knows that these people were political victims. Essentially what will hurt them is that the private sector, if they're seeking positions with corporations and things like that, is essentially afraid of controversy. And so some of them, you know, high profile people or people who become high profile by kind of going after President Trump, sometimes the private sector is like, hey, you know what? We just, we don't want to take a chance of bringing that person on board and losing access to government work or other clients who depend on government work, that sort of thing. So it's. That's an unfortunate aspect of it as well.

A (62:04)

Well, yeah, but. Driscoll, Evans, everybody, if you're listening, don't do what Charlie McGonagall did.

B (62:14)

That's a long list of things Charlie McGonagall did.

A (62:18)

Don't go to work for. Oh, like Derek Poska. Just don't. Just don't do it.

B (62:22)

That's one. That's one good one.

A (62:24)

I could say what not to do when you leave your job at the FBI. All right, thank you so much for. For those questions. Really appreciate it. I'm sorry I let you down. I'm going to go. I. As penance, I will go right now and rewatch the City on the Edge of Forever.

B (62:39)

Nice.

A (62:40)

And again, if you have a question you want to send to us, there's a link in the show. Notes you can click on. It was a rough week. I hope everybody got some rest this weekend. Take some time for yourself. I know I had a pretty hard time this week, mostly with just the gore of everything. Yeah. And. And so take care of yourselves and show yourself some grace. That would be my final thought. You have one.

B (63:05)

Nothing I could say would be better than that. You're absolutely right. Take. Take a breath. Get off social media and the Internet for five minutes and just give yourself a chance to wind down.

A (63:17)

Yeah. Don't get caught in a groiper rabbit hole. Research rabbit hole like I did today.

B (63:22)

Do.

A (63:23)

No, it's just not gripping for you. No gripping. All right, everybody, thanks so much. We'll see you next week. I'm Alison Gill.

B (63:29)

And I'm Andy McCabe.

A (63:31)

Unjustified is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics and just. For more information, please visit mswmedia.com.