FBI Director Kash Patel suggested in a recent interview that the agency under former Director James Comey operated independently from the Trump Department of Justice by choosing which cases to prosecute, and ostensibly how it chose to report that information to the public.
While speaking to "Sunday Morning Futures" on the Bureau's investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James over alleged mortgage fraud, Patel told host Maria Bartiromo that the agency was biased in its Crossfire Hurricane investigation, when it tried to paint President Donald Trump as a patsy to Russia.
"You asked in the beginning," Patel said, "how the FBI was weaponized. Well, the FBI hijacked the constitutional responsibility of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General, and James Comey and others specifically decided what cases to prosecute and not prosecute. Don't believe me? Go to the videotape in the Hillary Clinton investigation."
It's not clear what videotape Patel was referring to. Nonetheless, he went on to add that it is not the Bureau's responsibility to decide what cases to pursue; that is the job of the Department of Justice.
"We don't decide prosecutions, and neither does any agent or intel analyst. We have great partners under Attorney General [Pam] Bondi. We work with them and discuss the matter with them, but the prosecutorial decision is with them."
Earlier in the interview, Patel said that new details on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation would be coming to light while also promising a "wave of transparency" for the agency.
"And I'm just telling you right now, as much as we know about Crossfire Hurricane, he and I," Patel said, pointing to FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino," just found out more last week, and we're continuing to work with Congress to put those documents out.
"That's how vindictive and vicious the former leadership structure here was. Not only did they bastardize the FISA process and lie to the American public, they withheld and hid documentation and put it in rooms where people weren't supposed to look.
"It's a good thing we're here now to clean it up, and you're about to see a wave of transparency," he added. "Just give us about a week or two."
Around 2022, the Democratic National Committee and the 2016 Clinton Campaign agreed to pay the Federal Election Commission a $113,000 fine for concealing their role in commissioning the Steele Dossier, which claimed Trump had been compromised by Russia by way of a "pee tape."