FBI Director Kash Patel pledged to investigate agents who caught Russians trying to frame Democrats before 2020, a new report reveals.
According to national security writer Marcy Wheeler, an unsigned, undated letter attributed to Patel is the “centerpiece” of a propaganda push, and she flagged in a Wednesday post on her legal blog emptywheel that it was notably not written on FBI stationery.
In the letter, Patel says he “immediately disbanded” the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force upon taking over as director, and that his team is now probing whether the unit improperly zeroed in on informants tied to the Bidens.
“We remain concerned that defensive briefings to Congress may have been overly focused on just Biden and Ukraine rather than the balanced picture of all foreign threats,” the letter reads.
Patel added that although “these alleged activities occurred during a different era within the Bureau,” his team is “firmly committed to identifying, investigating, and holding accountable all abuses.”
The task force is the same unit that flagged efforts by John Solomon and Rudy Giuliani to launder foreign influence operations targeting Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 vote, according to Wheeler. The letter’s premise, she wrote, rests on a spreadsheet from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that was released by Bill Pulte. It also revives claims from discredited informants, including Alexander Smirnov.
The influence campaign lands as Patel prepares for a reported trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg on October 14-15 and just weeks before the midterms.
Wheeler mentioned that a Russian outlet with a history of airing material from the FSB, the Russian security service, published a piece that openly speculated this week about Patel receiving kompromat on Democrats and serving as a backchannel to Vladimir Putin.
“They’re just promising to do Russia’s bidding in plain sight,” Wheeler wrote.
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