The President’s Clown Cops |
“For the very concerned media — yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys,” FBI director Kash Patel posted on X on Sunday night. He was referring to viral footage of himself — apparently drunk or well on his way to becoming so — partaking in booze-soaked festivities in Milan following the men’s Olympic hockey final, which the U.S. won against Canada 2-1. Even on a less eventful weekend, the sight of America’s most powerful domestic-law-enforcement official chugging from a bottle of beer, screaming at the top of his lungs, and showering players with the remainder of his foamy beverage might raise doubts about the state of public safety. But a lot was happening this weekend that deserved the FBI director’s attention. A few hours earlier, Patel had been photographed inside the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, where, while watching the game, he had announced on X that the bureau was “dedicating all necessary resources” to investigating a shooting that morning at Mar-a-Lago. President Trump was not at his Florida residence at the time of the apparent attack but at the White House, where his administration has been plotting military strikes against Iran that could provoke retaliatory incursions on U.S. soil — a prospect the FBI will be largely responsible for preventing. Watching the 45-year-old Patel jump up and down like a drunken frat boy while these crises unfolded did not inspire much confidence that they will be quickly and competently resolved.
Normally this would be almost universally considered a bad thing, but since Trump reassumed office last year, it has sort of been the point. Federal law enforcement today functions mainly as a blunt tool for enforcing the president’s whims, which are nominally focused on........