(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In his latest betrayal to the MAGA movement, FBI Director Kashyap Patel has reportedly honored the agents who killed cattle rancher, foster parent and constitutional activist Robert “LaVoy” Finicum under highly suspicious circumstances.
“Patel in July presented the team members, including agent W. Joseph Astarita who was acquitted on charges related to the showdown, with the FBI’s Shield of Bravery at a ceremony at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.,” OregonLive.com reported Saturday.
The OregonLive article included an apparent photo from an internal FBI newsletter. The photo of Patel and the FBI agents who killed Finicum included the caption: “Recipients are recognized for courageous acts in the line of duty or within the scope of their FBI employment. The Hostage Resuce Team responded to a violent extremist militia group’s armed takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016.
“When the militia’s leader and key members planned to meet clandestinely outside the refuge, the FBI and the Oregon State Police staged a traffic stop to arrest them,” the caption continued. “The leader rammed his vehicle into the lead HRT vehicle, trapping SA John Neidert under the leader’s vehicle.”
The FBI’s description of the events that led to Finicum’s death is pure propaganda.
I'm gonna need to go take a walk outside, because what I want to post would get my account suspended https://t.co/zNerXqk88u pic.twitter.com/osl9c1jQ0C
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 18, 2025
What Really Happened
As has been widely documented, Finicum was killed under suspicious circumstances during the occupation of the wildlife refuge. The FBI and local law enforcement had set up a roadblock to stop Finicum and several other activists, and shot at his vehicle as he approached. Finicum got out of his truck with his hands in the air, but was gunned down by Oregon State Police anyway.
The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team initially denied firing at Finicum, but agents were later caught engaging in a coverup—removing bullet casings from the crime scene at the dead of night. The FBI was later determined to have fired at least two shots. One FBI HRT operator was indicted over the matter, but a jury acquitted him in 2018.
The Bill Barr Coverup
Last year, Headline USA broke the story that former Attorney General Bill Barr blocked then-DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz from conducting his own investigation into the FBI’s conduct in the Finicum shooting.
“The OIG encountered a significant issue regarding its access to information in this matter,” he said in a July 2024 report.
Horowitz said he was allowed to polygraph two FBI HRT operators who were present at the scene of the shooting. However, Barr wouldn’t allow him to interview a third HRT operator, he said.
“The FBI routinely uses polygraph examinations in its administrative misconduct investigations, and the OIG’s request was identical to the polygraph requests that the FBI had previously approved for the first two FBI HRT operators,” Horowitz said.
“Nonetheless, the FBI denied that request following its receipt of a memorandum from then Attorney General William Barr stating that the FBI should deny the OIG’s request because of his belief that compelling the polygraph would not be consistent with FBI policy or appropriate under the circumstances,” he added.
"The FBI shot at the vehicle when Lavoy was driving. Then FBI agents continued to shoot into the vehicle after it was stopped—shooting my brother in the arm, (the bullet is still in his arm today)," — @RealABundy https://t.co/RSD9ZtQT9R
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 10, 2024
Most of Horowitz’s report focused on the FBI’s “mishandling” of evidence. He recounted how local law enforcement assumed control of the crime scene because only two shell casings were initially found.
However, investigators later determined that at least eight shots were fired, only six by the Oregon staties. FBI aerial surveillance footage later showed FBI HRT personnel moving around the scene in the dark after the shooting—using flashlights to look under and around vehicles, examining the area near the roadblock, and appearing to pick up objects from the roadway in an apparent attempt to engage in a cover-up.
The FBI’s story about the cover-up is that its agents were looking for flash bang canister during its evening search—even though none were collected that night.
The DOJ-IG report debunked the FBI’s cover story, but nevertheless didn’t recommend any penalties for the agents involved. Instead, the DOJ-IG recommended new guidelines for how the FBI HRT handles “sensitive” evidence such as flash bangs.
Last year, Headline USA also contacted Ammon Bundy, the leader of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff, for his reaction to the report. Bundy, who was arrested over the matter but later acquitted, reiterated his longstanding belief that his friend, Finicum, is dead because of the FBI.
“The FBI HRT caused the entire incident. They shot at the vehicle when the sheriff pulled us over causing Lavoy to flee. Then the FBI shot at the vehicle when Lavoy was driving. Then FBI agents continued to shoot into the vehicle after it was stopped—shooting my brother in the arm, (the bullet is still in his arm today),” Bundy told this publication.
“Then after it was all over the FBI secretly picked up the ammunition casings and lied in the reports and interviews about how many time the shot.”
Kashyap’s Treachery
Since taking the healm at the bureau, Patel flip-flopped on domestic surveillance and now supports warrantless spying, he’s backtracked on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, and he hasn’t exposed the U.S. government’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, protests-turned-riots.
Patel’s also pushed for a bigger budget for the FBI, insisted that Epstein killed himself, and said that there’s nothing more for the public to know about the July 13 Trump assassination attempt. Despite saying that the investigation into July 13 is closed, Patel’s FBI has refused to release records on that incident.
According to former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin, Patel is a closed homosexual who parties all night and shows up for work late.
Patel was recently revealed to be living with GOP donor Michael Muldoon in the billionaire’s Las Vegas home—an arrangement that’s raising some eyebrows within the bureau, according to Seraphin.
“The other question I’ve had people bring up … including people who are pro-Trump … They don’t know a lot of 50- or 40-something-year-old Indian men that are unmarried and living with other men that don’t have something going on,” Seraphin recently said on the show Redacted, hosted by Clay Morris.
Former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin implies that Director Kashyap Patel might be a closeted homosexual because he lives with GOP donor Michael Muldoon: "There’s rumors passing around the FBI that have kind of intimidated that this may be more than just 2 men living together." pic.twitter.com/1P886arZaJ
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 17, 2025
“There’s rumors passing around the FBI that have kind of intimidated that this may be more than just two men living together, which by the way, for two men in their 40s and 50s is a pretty strange circumstance.”
The FBI reportedly declined to comment on Patel honoring the agents who killed Finicum.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
