FBI’s I wish Patel era: officials saw polygraph crackedown and loyalty test – spark controversy

Since assuming office as the FBI director, Kash Patel dramatically increased the use of polygraph tests inside the bureau, not only to VT not only security risks, but also to exclude internal dissatisfaction from the root. According to a New York Times report, under his watch, The Lee Detector has become a controversial tool not only to apply confidentiality, but also to implement loyalty, but has allegedly grilled on this matter, but also to gauge loyalty.Former FBI officials say the practice indicates a disturbed change: from protecting national security to personal loyalty to policing.“An FBI employee is loyal to the constitution, not for the Director or Deputy Director. It says everything about Patel’s weak constitution that it is also on his radar, “NYT said that former FBI agent James Davidson said.

Why are polygraphs popping in FBI?

Since taking over as the FBI Director, Patel has greatly increased the use of polygraph examinations within the agency, traditionally reserved for national security veterinarians or serious internal examinations. But under Patel’s leadership, the lie detector is reportedly more aggressively deployed, with some tests, including specific questions whether an employee made negative comments about Patel. According to several current and former officials, the bureau has subjected dozens of employees to dozens of employees for polygraph tests regarding internal effort to identify the media and find out internal criticism. A notable example included an attempt to find out leakage about Patel’s unusual request for a service weapon, despite that the FBI is not an agent.According to NYT, the FBI has refused to comment, citing “personnel matters and internal ideas”.

Is this Patel’s trump card?

Polygraph Crackdown Donald Trump has just a symptom of the broad revival of the FBI under the second period appointments. Since Patel assumed the leadership, many officials who were involved in previous investigations, disintegrated by conservatives, were sidelined, re -assigned, or placed on administrative leave.According to NYT, about 40% of FBI field offices have seen leadership turnover, either retiring with top agents, have been re -assigned, or pushed out. Observers say that Patel, along with Deputy Director Dan Bongino, is executing a top-down reorganization, designed to purify alleged ideological opponents and consolidated control. Bongino has accepted themselves “changes of dramatic personnel” and a “enterprise-reorganization”, designed them as necessary reforms. The list of high-ranking departure includes respected veterans such as Tony Ugret, who were removed after questioning the credibility of a politically sensitive intelligence report on Chinese intervention in 2020 elections. Other officials were worried about pre -informatic, pre -probed vengeance, such as the FBI’s 2016 investigation into Trump’s relationship with Russia.

‘Continuous politicization of workforce’

Beyond the reconstruction and resignation, the FBI under Patel has faced criticism for cultivation of a workplace environment defined by mistrust. Polygraph questions aimed at identifying internal critics have made many agents uncomfortable, especially as casual associations, such as Patel’s friendship with a former officer on the ‘list of enemies’.Michael Finburgh, a former top FBI agent at Virginia’s Norfolk, said he was pressurized to take a polygraph test on his friendship with an important person and Patel’s book “Government Gangsters” in the Trump-Russia investigation. Finburg alleged that the direction came from Patel’s deputy, Bongino, and warned that a widespread push was reflected to prioritize loyalty on expertise within the bureau.“Under Patel and Bongino, the subject matter expertise and operational ability is easily sacrificed for conceptual sanctity and continuous politicization of the workforce,” Fanberg wrote, who resigned before taking polygraphs. He said that to keep a job, he “expecting Grovel, apologizes and pledged to loyalty as part of the FBI’s cultural revolution, which was brought to the highest areas of American law enforcement and intelligence of Patel and Bongino.”