The conservative ex-fbi agents who have Kash Patel’s ear

On By Littum

Washington-when President-Elected Donald Trump announced that he wanted Kash Patel to be the next director of the FBI, was one of Patel’s first features to reach out to three conservative former special agents who have been critics of the agency and its scattered Study of January 6, 2021, Capitol Riot.

The former agents Patel spoke to refer to themselves as “the Suspendables.” They have claimed the whistleblower status, and Republicans have called two of them (along with an FBI analyst) to testify to Congress. Patel delivered through its Kash Foundation financial support to several of them during their suspension, They witnessed In 2023.

Kyle Seraphin, 43, a military veteran who is a member of the group said Patel reached out to the three “Suspendabler” that night Trump announced he would have a patel on top of the FBI; Seraphin was busy getting his children to sleep and could not participate in the discussion.

Patel’s relationship with the former agents who ran in trouble with FBI management during their tenure helps headquarters in a “Museum of the Deep State.”

They see themselves as victims of what Trump has called “weapons” for the justice system and are wholehearted supporters of Patel, whose book appointed potential goals for investigation and described the FBI himself as “the primary functional function of Deep State.”

Meanwhile, the installation of new advisers in the director’s office at FBI, including a person affiliated with Elon Musk’s company Spacex, has some former officials concerned about the potential injection of party policy at the top of an agency that has traditionally only had one politically politically appointed: self.

Patel “keeping an eye on me and the guys he has helped, and we also share information about the FBI thing,” Seraphin told NBC News.

“There is a potential for Kash Patel to be the most beloved FBI director of the FBI’s actual people; He could be the real thing Jim Comey was going on, ”he said, referring to the FBI director Trump fired in 2017.

Patel, a former federal prosecutor and federal public defender, facing a confirmation hearing for the Senate Legal Committee on Thursday, has recently been known for his service in several roles in the first Trump administration and then for conspiracy theory-affected rhetoric about the FBI and others Federal law enforcement authorities.

Steven Friend, a FBI special agent in Florida, was another of “Suspendables” Patel spoke to, Seraphin said. Friend’s security preparation was revoked and the FBI put him on unpaid leave after he refused to participate in the arrest of a 6th January defendant who had been part of a group of right-wing military members.

Friend told his supervisors that there was “no way” that he would be involved in any January 6 -Series “in any way” and that he did not believe that rebels assaulting officers on January 6 should is charged, according to a transcription of an audio recording friend that was made and published.

On a podcast after Trump’s message, he called Patel a “friend” to him and to “Suspendables as a whole,” where he said Patel’s experience as a public defender would give him a perspective needed inside the FBI.

“Kash Patel, eventually, he’s the guy- #Onlykash, #kashonly, depending on what you prefer kash appear to be the man who will take over our ex-boyfriend at FBI,” Friend said on the podcast. “That’s why I lost my voice because I was just screaming to heaven.”

Seraphin told NBC News that Patel only reached him in the fall of 2022, after He showed up On “The Dan Bongino Show” Popular right -wing program Hosted by the former Secret Service Agent.

Seraphin was still an FBI employee when he appeared at Bongino’s show but had not received a paycheck for months. He had objected to the Biden administration’s vaccination mandate from Covid-19 on religious grounds and took personal leave in 2021.

By 2022, an officer in Las Cruces, New Mexico, responded to a call from shots fired near a school and found Seraphin, engaged in target practice near Federal Land, an incident that triggered an internal FBI – examination. In 2023, the FBI Seraphin informed that his top secret security had been suspended over his violation of “several FBI rules and regulations”, including gun security policies; His “routine use of derogatory, racist, sexist and/or homophobic languages”; and his unauthorized release of “sensitive government information.”

Seraphin told NBC News that no one has “produced anyone there/racist/sexist ‘and/or’ homophobic language, ‘and he noted that” no one made such claims before my warning activity. “

After his Bongino -Segment race, Seraphin said, Patel extended to offer financial aid through his foundation. Seraphin’s family had sold their homes and they stayed with his parents, but they were not “poor”, so he said his first reaction was pointing Patel to others.

Patel’s foundation, Seraphin said, gave him $ 10,000 and they have since developed a friendship. Seraphin said that he, friend and another “suspended”, Garret O’Boyle, ran into the patel on the premiere of the movie “Police State” at Mar-A-Lago, Trump’s property in Florida, and that Patel gave them A VIP tour, to take them to areas that were not open to the public. Seraphin published photos of the trio, all of which say they received money from the Kash Foundation, at Mar-A-Lago with Patel.

Several of “Suspendables” say the FBI did them wrong by using the safety preparation process as gearing against them – to put them on unpaid leave after suspending security preparations but also forbid them from going out of work because they were still technical employees in The Ministry of Justice.

Ministry of Justice Inspector Michael Horowitz said last year There was a risk that recalls of security preparation and the indefinite unpaid suspensions that come with them could be “abused as part of an inappropriate effort to encourage an employee to resign.”

Now Patel could join an administration seeking its own ways of encouraging employees to resign.

Steve Baker, a writer for Blaze, pleaded guilty to offense of January 6, January 6, and had been established to be convicted in March before Trump pardoned him and all the other January 6th defendant. He told NBC News that there is a limit to Patel’s engagement with conspiracy theories when he said he learned during a discussion with Patel around December 2023, when Baker explained his theory that elements in the Ministry of Defense were involved in the establishment of 6. January.

“When I had this preservation and put it conspiracy, we call it, conspiracy theory on Kash’s desk, he completely shot me down,” Baker said. “Literally he wiped me out, told me that it wasn’t even possible that what I think happened that day happened.”

Baker and other Patel supporters say they believe Patel would lead to major changes in the FBI if he is confirmed.

“I think Kash Patel, a friend, will do what needs to be done on the FBI,” said Julie Kelly, a conservative commentator with strong ties to the Trump administration, “which is not only disassembled this agency from Top headquarters down to 56 FBI field offices, but also responsible for the agents who have used their useless power to weapon the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country against the political enemies in the regime. “

Baker said, “To the extent that everyone pulls out their hair and said he wants to be a disembler of the FBI, guess what? That’s what the people who voted for Trump want him to do. “