A ‘broken’ trust: FBI agents fired by Kash Patel speak out
Chris Meyer, a field agent assigned to fly the F.B.I. director Kash Patel’s plane until last month, knew he was in trouble over the summer when a pro-Trump influencer claimed, without a wisp of proof, that he was “THE” main agent in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation.
Mr. Meyer said he was never assigned to that case. Moreover, he added, he was on a lakeside vacation with his family in Virginia when the F.B.I. conducted its first significant move in the inquiry: the search of Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence and resort in August 2022.
“It was inflammatory,” Mr. Meyer, 43, said in an interview last week. “It was false.”
No matter. Last month, Mr. Patel summarily fired Mr. Meyer and another top agent in the Washington, D.C., field office who had been targeted by the right, Walter Giardina. Mr. Patel did so after being told that the terminations were unlawful and that pushing out Mr. Giardina, who was caring for his dying wife, would be “inexcusably cruel,” according to a lawsuit filed by three F.B.I. supervisors also dismissed by Mr. Patel.
The allegations by Mr. Meyer and Mr. Giardina, reported for the first time in their own words, offer an unusual glimpse into the nation’s top law enforcement agency at a moment of upheaval and intense political pressure. They also raise fundamental questions about Mr. Patel’s treatment of the bureau’s career work force — and why he personally fired two respected midlevel agents he accused of weaponizing the F.B.I. against Mr. Trump without a formal internal investigation.
“We were always told that we would be taken care of and there would not be any retaliation for our assigned work,” Mr. Giardina, 48, told his supervisors the day he was fired, he recalled. “This circle of trust had been broken.”
The claims add to the scrutiny of Mr. Patel’s actions in the aftermath of the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. They spotlight the concerns of many in the F.B.I. who believe Mr. Patel has prioritized his own interests over protecting his rank and file, and feel increasingly emboldened to speak out to protect an institution that they believe to be gravely endangered. Their accounts come at a time when others at the bureau have described Mr. Patel as a middleman all too willing to execute the directives of a White House. [Continue reading…]