Many controversies

Fuck Kash Patel

SFGATE columnist Drew Magary opines on the current FBI director and his many controversies

By Drew Magary

As we no longer have a functional journalism industry in the United States, it has fallen to me, a man who’d really prefer to be filling out an NCAA bracket right now, to alert you to the various criminal losers who serve as the face of Trump 2.0. I’ve introduced you to Vice Asshole JD Vance, of course. I’ve also given you a primer on War Department chief Pete Hegseth, who’s hard at work triggering World War III while also frantically searching for the nearest open liquor store. Who else have I had to take notice of against my will lately? Oh right: alleged dognapper Pam Bondi, newly deposed Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, and Noem’s would-be successor Markwayne Mullin, whose confirmation hearings are going swimmingly as I type this.

I wish that was the end of the list, because that would mean I’ve introduced you to all of these scumbags. It would mean that the evildoers running this country into the ground are finite in number. But you and I both know that Trump 2.0 has a near endless supply of crooks, Nazis and Duke graduates to draw from. So here’s the latest one:

Those are the shoes of Kash Patel, current FBI director and a man who couldn’t find Nancy Guthrie even if the woman called him directly. You might remember last month, when Patel used taxpayer resources to fly himself to Milan so he could pretend that he was a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. hockey team. It’s hard to make chugging beer uncool, but Kash Patel managed it. Astounding.

And yet that’s hardly the only way that Patel has managed to embarrass his country before or since. We’re talking about a leading innovator in the field of wanton douchebaggery here, and it’s my reluctant duty to illuminate why that is. Christ.

A quick sketch: Patel rose up through the state of Florida’s “justice” system, after which he moved up to the federal government, where he served as a national security prosecutor under President Barack Obama and then, during President Donald Trump’s first term, worked all the way up deputy director of national intelligence. After Trump was voted out of office in 2020, Patel turned to podcasting (they all end up having a podcast), where he spewed pro-Trump, Joe Rogan-grade conspiracy theories. He also started up the Kash Foundation, a nonprofit entity that gave some of its money away, including to Jan. 6  insurrectionists, but largely existed to elevate Patel’s personal brand. Here is the merch shop to prove it. Take note of all the logos on display at that link, including an altered Punisher emblem, as they’ll factor into the end of our story.

Once Lazy Hitler moved back into the Oval Office in 2025, he appointed Patel head of the FBI. After being confirmed by the Senate, the New Yorker reports that Patel used his position to fire FBI agents who were looking into the Jan. 6 riot, to fire more agents looking into GOP efforts to futz with the 2020 election results, and to fire one agent who had a Pride flag on his desk. While making all of those cuts, Patel treated the bureau’s remaining resources as if he owned them. He had agents serve as an unofficial security detail for his civilian girlfriend. He kept an FBI jet on call for himself in Florida instead of dispatching it to Providence, Rhode Island, after a mass shooting at Brown. He couldn’t even be bothered to investigate Charlie Kirk’s killing properly. In between all of that negligence, Patel also made frequent, unwelcome excursions into the sports world, including that disgraceful trip to the Winter Olympics. This is not a man who knows how to earn his beer.

That brings us to last week, when Patel decided that the best way to train the bureau’s young starlings was by inviting UFC fighters to come train them. His statement:

“This is a tremendous opportunity for our FBI agents to learn and train with some of the greatest athletes on earth—helping the world’s premier law enforcement agency be even better prepared to protect the American people.”

Good to know that, should one of my loved ones ever be abducted, the FBI agent tasked with avenging them will know how to execute a flawless rear naked choke on a CPR dummy.

This workshop served no practical utility for rookie agents, or for the citizens those agents have been hired to protect. It was just a crosspromotional event designed to benefit UFC CEO Dana White. White is friends with Donald Trump, so much so that he got Trump to host a UFC event right on the White House lawn later this year. This explains how the UFC and FBI have joined forces to waste everyone’s time. It also explains the shoes. Let’s have a look at those bad boys one more time.

These are undeniably better kicks than the oversized Florsheims that Trump is forcing the rest of his Cabinet to wear, but that’s the last nice thing I’ll say about them. Because Kash Patel’s shoes are wack. The Punisher skull isn’t just a longtime fascist signifier, but also a hackneyed one. The 9 on the side to connote Patel’s standing as the Bureau’s ninth-ever director is the nerdiest s—t I’ve seen since Elon Musk’s last tweet. And Patel’s personal K$H logo is so embarrassing that even Tom Brady’s marketing team wouldn’t have conceived of it. I bet those shoes don’t even give Kash decent arch support.

I’m so tired of this s—t. I’m tired of having to learn about any of these awful people. I’m tired of them starting wars, shooting innocent people, and frittering away billions of tax dollars that you and I pay to have a functional government. I’m tired of them wearing ugly shoes, paying each other empty compliments, and pretending like they’re anything but mediocrities. And I’m REALLY tired of them ruining things that you and I might otherwise enjoy. That includes the Olympics, but it also includes things like medicine, education, transportation, surfing around on the internet, and not dying in a nuclear holocaust. 

In theory, a powerful official like Kash Patel would also want you and me to enjoy such things. He might even work to protect that enjoyment, as a true professional might. Instead, he’s just another needy loser like the rest of them. So as far as I’m concerned, he can take those custom shoes of his and stick ‘em right up his Ka$hhole.