So what do you do with a podcast bozo you placed in charge of the nation’s top law enforcement agency? FBI Director Kashyap Patel is said to be underwater in the Trump administration, admits Fox News, with former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey being sworn in as deputy FBI director along with Dan Bongino, even as officials question Patel’s competence in running the agency. All this, with the White House establishing a new position, unexplained, and leaving the FBI confused, according to Fox. Patel’s complete bungling of the Charlie Kirk assassination, ignoring input from local authorities, and coating his face with egg by announcing on X that two suspects had been arrested, but later released, only leads to questions about his firing of the Salt Lake City FBI office head, Mehtab Syed, for ambiguous reasons — Syed being a competent and well-respected leader. Mr. Patel is already facing several lawsuits for his political-related purges at the FBI.

Satirist Andy Borowitz, in his The Borowitz Report, contributed his take on Patel’s skating on thin ice: “In a setback for the embattled FBI director, Kash Patel learned on Friday that he was being replaced by a startled deer. According to White House sources, Donald J. Trump made the decision after deciding that the deer would instill more confidence during its media appearances. Informing Patel of his decision in a brief phone call, Trump reportedly said, ‘Sorry, Kash — we’re going deer.’ Though Trump’s nominee, if confirmed would become the first antlered mammal to lead the FBI, most law enforcement experts believe that the deer would represent an upgrade.”

A followup by Borowitz on Patel’s replacement reads: “Hoping to stop the bleeding after millions boycotted its products, Disney announced on Monday that it was launching a new late-night comedy show on ABC starring Kash Patel. Patel, who earlier this month was replaced as FBI director by a startled deer, received a ringing endorsement from Disney CEO Bob Iger. “We’re confident that all of Kash’s jokes will be acceptable to the president, especially since the head writer will be Stephen Miller,” Iger said. Urging viewers to ‘give Kash a chance,” Iger added, “if he’s even half as funny as he was at the Senate last week, this show is going to huge.'”

Patel’s stumble with saying a shooter was in custody, only to discover the killer was still at large, generated heat over his leadership and his candor — or lack thereof. After suspect Tyler Robinson was finally in custody, anti-DEI crusader Chris Rufo posted on X, “I’m grateful that Utah authorities have captured the suspect in the Charilie Kirk assassination, and I think it is time for Republicans to assess whether Kash Patel is the right man to run the FBI. He performed terribly in the last few days, and it’s not clear whether he has the operational expertise to investigate, infiltrate, and disrupt violent movements — of whatever ideology — that threaten the peace in the United States.” Rufo adds that many of his conservative acquaintances lack confidence in “the current structure of the FBI.”

Director Patel flew to Utah the day after the shooting, purportedly to oversee the investigation, but former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on his ‘Bannon’s War Room‘ show, said, “I don’t know why Kash flew out there, you know, thousands of miles, to give us, ‘Hey, working partnerships and our great partnership in Utah’ — OK, got that.” Bannon complained that the resulting press conference did not include more details about the shooter, the timeline of the incident, and how he was apprehended, but the FBI offered no comment on the criticism from MAGAts on their handling of the case. Utah Governor Spencer Cox disclosed that Tyler Robinson’s family had reached out to a friend who then contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, to tell them the suspect had “confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.” Bannon emphasized that it all came together because of the family and there “was not great law enforcement work.”

Smarting from his failure, the following day Patel fumed at his minions over their failure to give him timely information, including photos of the suspect, then going into a profanity-laced tirade, telling his subordinates he would not tolerate “Mickey Mouse operations,” further antagonizing right-wingers. On HuffPost, Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is quoted as saying, “It was amateur hour. He was doing a running commentary. Historically, the FBI keeps its mouth closed until it believes it’s the right time and the right message.” A New York Times report added that Director Patel’s actions “have already invited scorn and scrutiny from the bureau’s work force, and some senior officials at the Justice Department, who think his behavior has eroded public confidence in the agency.”

Kashyap Patel instituted himself into the president’s good graces once he became a fixture in MAGA media/social media following Trump’s first term. He served as an aide on the House Intelligence Committee and National Security Council, using that experience to bolster his bonafides on right-wing podcasts to accuse the government of “weaponization” against Trump. He also authored a children’s book, ‘The Plot Against the King,’ featuring a character named Hillary Queenton who spreads lies against King Donald, lies based on the Steele dossier. After Trump’s announcement of nominating Patel to lead the FBI, many reasons were raised about why this was a bad idea, most having to do with the podcaster’s record of being a hyper-partisan conspiracy theorist and sycophantic ally of The Don; but the most compelling reason should have been his lack of experience or qualifications for the job, a charge he has been battling since day one. Political scientist, Norman Ornstein, added his own brickbat: “Not merely an utter incompetent. A liar too.”

As might be expected, in covering his own butt, Trump specifically praised Attorney General Pam Bondi on ‘Fox and Friends‘ after he had announced the apprehension of suspect Robinson. “Everybody worked together. Pam Bondi is incredible, by the way. People don’t know what a star she is, she’s incredible. And it all worked out,” raved Trump. Incredible, got that? On the other hand, Rachel Cohen of NJ.com says, “The White House, Bondi, Blanche have no confidence in Kash,” according to one of her sources. The source added, “Pam in particular cannot stand him. Blanche either.” The administration shrugged off any plans to remove Patel, and both Bondi and Blanche discounted any blame for criticisms they may actually have. Reports from several sources close to Trump point to his dissatisfaction with incidents of Patel’s performance — in particular, his feuding with Bondi over the Jeffrey Epstein case, but also over “botched communications” during the Utah manhunt.

Posting as a guest writer on Cliff Schecter’s Blue Amp blog, a piece by David Shuster entitled ‘Kash Patel: The Keystone Cop Choking Our Republic, A joke who would just be a punchline if he weren’t so dangerous,’ says, “Donald Trump has long produced sycophants of such stupendous mediocrity that one marvels not merely at their survival, but at their ongoing power. Mr. Kashyap Patel, Trump’s Director of the FBI, is the latest example. It would be difficult to imagine a man less suited to run a federal agency — unless, of course, one has glimpsed at the rest of the current Trump Cabinet, which increasingly resembles a low-class variety show curated by Steve Bannon after three bourbons. To say that Patel is a bumbler is to libel honest incompetents the world over. Patel is something more extreme — a man who, when given a match, doesn’t merely drop it in the gasoline but insists it is actually lemonade, lights it anyway, and then lectures the fire chief on the virtues of deregulation.”

Shuster says the Utah assassination “demanded forensic rigor, tight-lipped professionalism, and the kind of strategic discretion that one would expect from whoever is running our nation’s top investigative body. Instead what did we get?” He describes Patel with “thumbs ablaze — though not definitively opposable — taking to X, blurting out that a suspect was in custody,” while law enforcement was finishing up at the crime scene. The writer calls it not just a failure of leadership, but a failure of basic adult thinking, as “truth inconveniently emerged with no suspect, no arrest, no idea who killed Charlie Kirk,” with Patel being forced to make his mortifying retraction. The embarrassing truth is that the FBI never ‘caught’ the killer, before he was finally turned in a day and a half later by family; then, Patel and Trump withheld the news for another nine hours to allow the president to make the announcement on ‘Fox and Friends.’

End of the self-glorification? Hardly! Patel’s desire for the limelight and self-promotion later found him on Fox News posing as a prosecutor, as he disclosed details that any half-witted defense attorney will now use to argue for a mistrial, “tainting the public record before the yellow police tape had been removed,” claims Shuster. “If justice is blind, Patel seems determined to gouge out its remaining eye — even if both of his can’t seem to focus on the problem. But we should not be surprised. Patel is the same man whose first order of business as FBI Director was to fire agents whose primary sin was doggedly investigating two things that inflame Trump World: the January 6 insurrection and Russia’s curious fondness for the 2016 GOP Presidential nominee.” Shuster adds: “in a saner era, firing career FBI agents because they pursued criminal investigations would be called obstruction of justice. Under the Trump administration, it’s called ‘cleaning house.'”

Patel personally knew Kirk, considering him a friend, which led to his emotional tribute at the end of the week: “To my friend Charlie Kirk: Rest now, brother. We have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla,” referencing the hall of slain warriors from Norse mythology. These words may end up jeopardizing the prosecution of Robinson according to a former prosecutor. Robert James, a former DA in DeKalb County in Georgia, said, “Impartiality is very important when you’re looking at facts and determining who did what, what the motivation was and that sort of thing. So you never want to put yourself in a position where lawyers get involved and then you open yourself up to cross examination in a courtroom about your perception or perspective, and it happens in high-profile homicide cases all the time.” Legal ramifications aside, Patel’s Valhalla comment resulted in some confusion online since Patel is Hindu, and Kirk, an evangelical Christian.

Shuster ends his piece with: “Mr. Patel is not an anomaly. He is the perfect mascot for a Trump administration that is fueled by narcissism, delusion, incompetence, and cruelty. The tragedy is not that Kash Patel holds power. It’s that so many Americans are content to let him keep it.” A sad observation, but undeniably, right on the money. At this reading, is he still there?