There's some fake news about FBI Director Kash Patel and President Donald Trump. We’re in the era where everyone who wants, or thinks, they’re ‘in the know’ is mouthing off to the press. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Patel wants a direct line to the Oval Office, which deviates from department policy. It’s seen as a move to circumvent Attorney General Pam Bondi (via WSJ):
Among Kash Patel’s first questions as FBI director was one that underscored who was now in charge.
What was the best way to call the Oval Office on a secure line from both his office at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and from home, Patel asked officials, according to people familiar with his inquiry.
While every FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover has taken pains to keep the White House at arms length, the new Trump administration has taken the opposite tack, working to bring the traditionally independent ethos of the FBI and Justice Department firmly within the president’s grasp.
Patel’s determination to keep in close contact with President Trump himself is an arrangement outside the traditional chain of command in which the FBI director reports to the deputy attorney general, and the president usually talks only to the attorney general.
It is but one example of how on matters big and small administration officials including Patel and senior officials at the Justice Department have deferred to Trump and his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller since taking office, the people said. Miller has regularly talked to top officials at the Justice Department, including about the FBI, the people said.
And this entire ‘secure line’ nonsense was shot down by the FBI’s Assistant Director for Public Affairs, Ben Williamson:
Per me, this is BS https://t.co/fFRcqsYxCI
— Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 11, 2025
But let’s return to the panic embedded in this piece. There are too many qualified people at the Justice Department who will do their job and enforce the laws—is that the main gripe? Complete institutional control is yet to be accomplished, as we saw with the botched rollout of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which proved to be a massive pile of retreads from already public documents.
Give this new crew some time.