FOIA records show Kash Patel directed FBI staff to find and respond to his social media critics

Newly released FOIA records reveal FBI Director Kash Patel instructed his public affairs team to hunt down social media accounts criticizing him and fire back with bureau statistics, raising questions about whether the nation's top law enforcement official is focused on the right priorities.

A text exchange dated February 5, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and released as part of the government's ongoing review of materials related to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, shows Patel pressing his assistant director for public affairs to identify critical accounts and engage them directly. The Daily Caller first reported on the exchange after journalist Andrew Kaczynski flagged the documents on X.

The records paint a picture of a bureau director personally invested in managing his online reputation, and an aide trying, with limited success, to talk him out of it.

Patel told his team to post FBI stats "back at them all, continuously"

In the exchange, Patel appeared to share a social media account with his public affairs chief for review. The aide characterized it as an "'Epstein didn't kill himself bot account'" and offered an explanation: "if you are wondering where it's coming from."

Patel was not satisfied. He insisted the engagement on posts criticizing him was real, not automated.

"277k responses are not bots."

The aide pushed back, drawing a distinction between views and actual responses. "That's views, it's 400 responses; a real visible tweet gets 5x that," the aide wrote. The two figures, 277,000 and 400, appear to describe different metrics for the same post, though the records do not fully resolve the discrepancy.

Patel then made his directive explicit:

"What I asked you and your team to do is find them, and post our record year results back at them all, continuously."

When the aide apparently questioned the wisdom of engaging certain accounts, Patel framed the effort as a visibility strategy rather than a personal grudge. "It's not about them, it is about the number of views, because people see it and need to be seeing our stats," he wrote.

That explanation does little to change the underlying fact: the FBI director was directing federal employees to monitor social media criticism of him personally and respond on the bureau's behalf. The FBI has a public affairs operation for a reason, but its purpose is communicating bureau policy and case information to the public, not running interference for the director's personal image on X.

An aide warned that replying to "RetardFinder" would embarrass Patel

One exchange in the records stands out for its sheer absurdity. The FBI's assistant director for public affairs warned Patel that responding to an account called "RetardFinder" would "look bad" on the FBI director. The fact that a senior FBI official had to explain this to his boss tells its own story.

The records do not indicate whether Patel's team actually carried out the directive to engage critical accounts. The FBI, when contacted by the Daily Caller, offered no comment.

The broader context of the FBI's institutional credibility makes this episode harder to dismiss as trivial. The bureau has faced years of scrutiny from both sides of the aisle over allegations of politicization, mishandling of congressional oversight requests, and selective enforcement. Conservatives who fought to install leadership that would restore public trust in the FBI have a right to expect that leadership to act accordingly.

Patel was confirmed as FBI director with a mandate to clean house and refocus the bureau on its core mission. Directing staff to clap back at anonymous social media trolls is not that mission.

Epstein file questions still hang over Patel's tenure

The FOIA records were released as part of the government's review of Epstein-related materials, a process that has itself become a source of bipartisan frustration. In September 2025, Sen. John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican, pressed Patel during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on whether the FBI's Epstein files contained evidence that the convicted sex offender had trafficked women to anyone other than himself.

Patel told Kennedy that the information available to the bureau was "limited" and that there was "no credible information" indicating Epstein had trafficked victims to other individuals. Kennedy, who noted that Patel had reviewed most of the Epstein files, pressed further, but Patel held to that position.

That exchange raised eyebrows at the time among lawmakers and commentators who expected the Epstein file release to produce more definitive answers. The fact that the same document tranche now reveals Patel's preoccupation with social media critics only compounds the frustration. Voters who wanted accountability on the Epstein files are instead getting records that show the FBI director focused on his online mentions.

The broader pattern of personnel drama and unfinished business across federal law enforcement agencies has tested the patience of conservatives who expected the current administration to deliver results, not distractions.

Conservatives deserve better than vanity operations at the FBI

Kaczynski, the journalist who flagged the records, posted on X: "I can't believe this is real. FOIA records appear to show Kash Patel directing his team to find accounts critizing him and respond." He noted the documents were also flagged by Seth Hettena.

The reaction captured something real. Even supporters of aggressive reform at the FBI should find it difficult to defend a director who spends his time monitoring anonymous critics and instructing federal employees to post bureau statistics at them. The FBI's public affairs office exists to serve the public interest, not to serve as the director's personal social media rapid-response team.

Several key questions remain unanswered. The records do not specify the year of the February 5 directive, though the timeline suggests it occurred during Patel's tenure. The full name of the assistant director for public affairs involved in the exchange was not included in the released documents. And it remains unclear whether the directive was actually executed, whether FBI staff spent taxpayer-funded hours scrolling through X looking for accounts to engage on Patel's behalf.

The FBI's "no comment" response does nothing to resolve those questions. A bureau that has spent years trying to rebuild credibility after the politicization scandals of the previous decade cannot afford to look like it is being run for the benefit of one man's ego. The FBI's investigative authority is enormous, and the public's willingness to accept that authority depends on confidence that the people at the top are serious.

Patel's stated rationale, that the engagement was about getting FBI statistics in front of more eyeballs, might hold water if the bureau had a documented public communications strategy that included social media outreach. Every major federal agency does. But that is not what these records describe. They describe a director who noticed people criticizing him online, got irritated, and told his staff to do something about it.

The distinction matters. A communications strategy serves the institution. What Patel described in these texts serves Kash Patel. Senior officials across the administration have faced scrutiny over whether they are advancing the president's agenda or their own, and Patel's text exchange lands squarely in that conversation.

Conservatives rightly demanded accountability when the FBI under previous leadership appeared to act as a political instrument. The standard does not change because the director now shares their politics. If anything, the standard should be higher. Reform requires discipline, not vanity.

The FBI director's job is to run the bureau, not his mentions. If Patel wants to defend his record, he can do it on the merits, not by dispatching federal employees to argue with strangers on the internet.