Bloomberg Law reported Tuesday that FBI Director Kash Patel is “planning to shrink his legal advisory office,” the FBI Office of General Counsel. Those are the folks whose job it is to keep Patel from carrying out corrupt and/or illegal activities. Or, as Bloomberg put it, the several hundred lawyers in the office are “responsible for advising top bureau executives and agents to ensure lawful investigations, responding to lawsuits against the FBI, and coordinating with Justice Department prosecutors on cases.” (All emphases in this post are mine.)
According to Bloomberg, the OGC was instructed to cut about 25% of its personnel “although that exact percentage is no longer considered a firm expectation.” Does that mean that more could be pushed out? Bloomberg doesn’t say. It does say that the OGC has been “pushing its workforce to take early retirement.”
Bloomberg goes on to quote retired FBI supervisory special agent Dan Brunner saying that the OGC personnel have been “vital in making sure that the agents conducting investigations were always within the guidelines.” Brunner also called FBI lawyers “incredibly important” and he said that any pushback against Patel is not personal but “because there are rules that potentially could be broken.”
I can think of many reasons why Patel would not want to hear about rules and guidelines he should be following. It’s no secret that his behavior is so shockingly unprofessional that any decent president would have fired him long ago.
It gets more ominous: “Patel has steered the bureau to investigate Trump’s preferred targets, overriding internal pushback that some cases lacked sufficient grounds,” the Bloomberg article states. “Patel’s team had earlier pushed for the general counsel to fire one of his attorneys—anyone—to seemingly deliver a message, although that instruction never led to action, they added.”
So, who will be in charge of keeping Patel’s bureau in check? Don’t hold your breath that anyone will. Bloomberg points out that Project 2025 “argued that OGC’s functions could be handled instead by DOJ lawyers.”
In other words, it looks like Todd “Slush Fund” Blanche - the guy ready and willing to dole out taxpayer money to Jan 6 cop beaters and who’s making it possible for Donald Trump to get a permanent free pass to cheat on his taxes – and his flunkies will take the place of career professionals whose fidelity is to the law, not President Felon.
Law Professor Deborah Pearlstein makes a good argument that Patel’s moves are in preparation for Trump’s coming election sabotage of the midterms. He knows he’s in for a beating and instead of trying to win the election legitimately, he and his henchmen prefer to steal it.
