New FBI Director Patel must assert leadership and assemble a loyal team to hit the ground running

Newly minted FBI Director Kash Patel takes the helm at a bureau that is increasingly distrusted by the American people and has been at the center of major political controversies in recent years with a plan to restore trust in the institution. 

His success, former agents and bureau leaders tell Just the News, depends on Patel’s ability to cement himself clearly as the leader of the FBI and bring a loyal team to headquarters that are willing and able to carry out his plans. 

Trust in the Federal Bureau of Investigation has declined to 41%, down from nearly 60% about a decade ago, in the most recent polling data amid accusations from President Trump and Republicans that the bureau has become increasingly politicized.

The Russia collusion investigation initially approved by FBI leaders soured President Trump’s trust in the agency, especially after an inspector general’s investigation found the probe into his campaign’s alleged connections with Russia was unfounded. 

In recent years, Congressional Republicans have pointed to bureau retaliation against whistleblowers, pursuit of pro-life activists, and overzealous investigations into Jan. 6 defendants as evidence the agency has lost its way. 

Patel, a former prosecutor, defense attorney, and congressional investigator, recognizes that the lack of trust born from the FBI’s own missteps threatens the bureau’s mission and promised to fix it. 

Position of trust and respect

"Public cooperation is vital for the bureau to solve crimes, and its declining reputation is already affecting recruitment efforts. Violent crime is destroying families across the nation. We can’t afford a lack of trust in the institution mandated to protect them,” Patel wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed ahead of his confirmation hearing. 

"Rebuilding that trust is vital to ensuring the FBI can carry out its mission effectively,” he wrote. 

But, former agents say that Patel’s efforts could be thwarted by relying on the existing FBI leadership and failing to establish himself clearly as the leader of the investigative bureau. 

“And what I feel as though Mr. Patel has to focus on is from day one, he has to show up and establish himself firmly and prominently as the leader of the FBI. He's going to be the new director, and he is going to chart a course forward in returning the FBI to its position of trust and respect and confidence in service of the American people,” Chris Piehota, a former agent and senior official at the FBI, told the John Solomon Reports podcast. 

“He's got to establish himself as to where he's not just seen as a another political operator, but he is the director of the FBI, the country's most powerful law enforcement organization,” Piehota said. 

One of the dangers of not clearly defining his leadership, retired FBI supervisory agent Jeff Danik told Just the News, is that Patel could be “siloed” by senior officials, which would undermine his ability to successfully implement reforms, especially to bureau leadership. 

Danik said the ability for senior officials to “silo” the FBI director, that is, control the information presented to the director to influence decision making, has been a problem at the bureau throughout history. 

“[H]e’s going to need a team around him that he can trust to help vet the information he's getting,” Danik told the John Solomon Reports podcast. 

"Publish the truth, regardless of what it is."

“It's been a part of the problem with FBI directors throughout the history—that it's kind of a garbage in, garbage out, situation—where the the FBI director is siloed by the highest executive management and then told what they need to hear to come to the conclusion that the executive management wants them to come to,” Danik explained. 

To prevent being siloed by senior career officials, both former bureau officials say that Patel should work to assemble his own, loyal team at headquarters that is on board with the reforms he wants to implement and directives from the White House and the Attorney General. 

“[When] he arrives, he's got to also start forming immediately his senior leadership team. Mr. Patel, is not going to be able to do this by himself. The organization's too large. It has too many moving parts and too many programmatic areas that it covers, not only domestically, but internationally,” Piehota said. 

“So you're going to have to have a senior leadership team that he is aligned with, that aligns with him and the wishes of the Attorney General and the and the chief executive at the White House.” 

In order to refocus the country’s premier investigative agency on its core mission, as Patel promised he would do, Piehota and Danik recommend the new director focus on fixing the institutional culture, promoting strong leadership, and being open and transparent with both the public and Congress. These moves, they say, would go a long way toward preventing the kinds of abuses from the agency in recent years. 

Piehota says in recent years, especially since James Comey’s tenure as FBI Director, the bureau has adopted a “corporatized operating and leadership environment” that mirrors private companies like Google or Apple, which he says undermines the main mission, which is to investigate crimes. 

“I think it led us down where a path where we were less disciplined, and I will tell you this, the leadership in the organization also put more of a priority on being liked versus being effective in the FBI core mission set, which is to combat national security threats and crime problems, the FBI got too tied up in other peripheral matters, and they lost their mission focus,” Piehota said. 

In addition to restoring the traditional FBI culture, the former official say Patel’s focus on transparency, with both the public and Congress will go a long way to restoring the lost trust in the institution. “[Just] publish the truth, regardless of what it is, and you're going to see, you're going to see people come to the correct decision,” Danik said. 

In his first statement since being confirmed, Patel reiterated his promises for reform and transparency. “The FBI has a storied legacy—from the ‘G-Men’ to safeguarding our nation in the wake of 9/11. The American people deserve an FBI that is transparent, accountable, and committed to justice. The politicalization of our justice system has eroded public trust—but that ends today,” Director Patel posted to X after his confirmation. 

“My mission as Director is clear: let good cops be cops—and rebuild trust in the FBI,” he said.