[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, FBI director Kash Patel announced a suspect in custody when Tyler Robinson was still at large. That caused the conservative Christopher Rufo to wondering if Patel was the right man for the FBI job. That charge leaves plenty to ponder.
The FBI failed to prevent the assassination of Kirk, so Patel’s haste to pin down a suspect is understandable, and much of what emerges in the early going is wrong. The fugitive was only captured when relatives turned him in, which brings to mind another case.
The victims of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski included Yale computer scientist David Gelernter, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and California lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. Kaczynski eluded the FBI for 17 years and was only captured, in 1996, after his brother identified his writing in a manifesto published by the New York Times. Patel may have had that case in mind, along with other failures.
The FBI failed to prevent 9/11 and terrorist attacks at Fort Hood (2009), the Boston Marathon (2013), San Bernardino (2015) and Orlando (2016), and the FBI played no role in the takedown of the terrorists. Despite the colossal failures, in recent years the bureau has indulged mission creep.
Like the CIA, the FBI was a major player in the Russia hoax against candidate and president Trump, but FBI director Christopher Wray denied that the bureau spied on the Republican. The FBI harassed Trump officials and mounted armed raids on his residence. Under Biden, the FBI targeted pro-life activists, and peacefully protesting parents, but there was more to it.
Protection of the president accrues to the Secret Service, but on August 9, 2023 an FBI SWAT team shot dead Craig Robertson, a 75-year-old woodworker who had allegedly made threats against Biden online. That came nearly a year after Joe Biden, in a hate-drenched speech, charged that Americans who want their nation to be great pose the greatest threat. At this writing, Congress has yet to conduct an investigation on the shooting of Robertson, or other cases that raise more serious questions about the bureau.
On February 21, 2020, in Amador County, California, Philip Haney, 66, was found dead from a gunshot. Means and opportunity were apparent, but a shooting death always involves a motive. In Haney’s case, the possibilities loomed large. In 2016 Haney authored See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad. The Amador authorities handed Haney’s devices to the FBI, which conducted no manhunt and announced no suspects.
According to forensic pathologist Katherine Raven MD, cause of death was a “perforating gunshot wound of torso,” and Dr. Raven ruled it a “homicide autopsy.” Under a sheriff who had attended the FBI academy, Amador officials later changed the cause of death to suicide. The Department of Homeland Security ruled that Haney possessed “contraband,” so in effect the dead man was charged with a crime. Kash Patel can show leadership by investigating this case, and the murder of Seth Rich, director of voter expansion for the Democratic National Committee.
On July 10, 2016, the 27-year-old was gunned down in Washington DC. Police called it a street robbery gone wrong, but the shooters did not take Rich’s wallet, watch or phone. Weeks after the murder, as the BBC reported, “Wikileaks published 20,000 emails obtained from Democratic National Committee computers via an anonymous source.”
The FBI took possession of Rich’s laptop and demanded 66 years, a proxy for “never,” to produce data the bureau previously denied it even possessed. Kash Patel can show leadership by revealing everything the FBI knows about this case. The Trump pick can also explain the bureau’s strange behavior in a recent mass murder.
On March 27, 2023 in the run-up to the “Trans Day of Vengeance,” Audrey Hale murdered nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, along with adults Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill and Cynthia Peak at the Covenant School in Nashville. Motive is the central factor in any murder cause but the FBI refused to release Hale’s lengthy manifesto, an obstruction supported by trans activists. That would change under Patel.
On August 27, in Minneapolis, Robin Westman – born Robert Westman but who “identified” as a woman – opened fire on worshippers at the Annunciation Catholic Church and school. Westman killed eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel, 10-year-old Harper Moyski, and wounded 17 others before killing himself. NPR said the shooter’s gender was “unclear” but Patel wasn’t having it.
“As we continue to investigate yesterday’s barbaric attack from Robert Westman, the male subject,” Patel told reporters on Thursday, “our teams have gathered information and evidence demonstrating this was an act of domestic terrorism motivated by a hate-filled ideology.” Westman left “multiple anti-Catholic, anti-religious references both in his manifesto and written on his firearms” and “expressed hatred and violence toward Jewish people, writing ‘Israel must fall,’ ‘Free Palestine,’ and using explicit language related to the Holocaust.
It now emerges that Tyler Robinson’s roommate was the transgender Lance Twiggs, 22. Charlie Kirk debated devotees of the LBGTQ construct, and was discussing murders by transgender shooters before a bullet took him down. Patel’s critics might compare the response of FBI director Christopher Wray to the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump in July of 2024.
With the best ballistics experts under his command, Wray claimed Trump could have been hit by “shrapnel,” not one of the eight shots Thomas Matthew Crooks got off from an ideal rooftop position. If anybody thought the FBI was out to minimize an obvious assassination attempt it would be hard to blame them.
Patel’s task is to prevent future assassinations but there’s plenty of unfinished business. To transform the bureau into a force for truth and justice, Patel should tell the people which official in the FBI’s Washington office called off the surveillance on Maj. Nidal Hasan, the “Solider of Allah” who murdered 14 Americans at Fort Hood in 2009. The people have a right to know, and in 2025 moving forward it’s all about memory against forgetting.
