(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Before he became FBI director, Kash Patel made a lot of bold statements about the changes he’d make to the bureau—including that he’d shut down its headquarters and turn it into a “museum for the deep state.” Patel also made more substantial promises, such that he’d release all the FBI’s files on notorious pedophile and likely federal informant Jeffrey Epstein.
Since his appointment, Patel has reversed a lot of his FBI-critical stances, and he’s yet to fulfill many of his promises.
And according to the New York Times, Patel has now appointed an agent who targeted Trump supporters for years to a key position within the bureau. Indeed, the Times reported Friday that Patel named Steven J. Jensen to run the FBI’s Washington DC field office.
As the Times reported, Jensen was in charge of the bureau’s domestic terrorism operations section during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising, and he played a “key role” in responding to that event. According to testimony from the Democrats’ Jan. 6th Commission, Jensen called J6 protestors “terrorists” and promised to “round them all up.”
BTW this Times story is about Kashyap Patel promoting an agent who ran the domestic terrorism operations unit on Jan. 6 and who hunted Trump supporters for years https://t.co/wUiXK1fh4Y pic.twitter.com/UfNZwAaMcI
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) April 4, 2025
Jensen was also in charge of the FBI’s controversial program to monitor protesting parents at school board meetings as potential domestic terrorism threats—a scandal stemming from October 2021, when Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo directing the FBI to divert counterterrorism resources towards tracking alleged threats at school board meetings.
The Times noted that Patel railed against this program in his book, Government Gangsters.
“Patel wrote that the Justice Department targeted parents who pushed back against ‘programs to teach their children vile and hateful race theory.’ The department, Mr. Patel said, ‘justified its threatening campaign against parents in a memo that labeled these law-abiding citizens as ‘domestic terrorists,’” the Times reported Friday.
The Times aptly described Patel’s newfound professed love for the FBI as a “bait and switch” on MAGA. The Times cited emails Patel and his deputy director, Dan Bongino, wrote to the bureau’s agents, praising them and the FBI.
Kash Patel's new head of the FBI Washington Field Office Steve Jensen on January 6 protestors:
"I don't give a blank, they're goddamn terrorists and we're gonna round them all up."@realDonaldTrump, Kash is embarrassing you!
Source: @SeniorChiefEXW https://t.co/TikAMkAjD2 pic.twitter.com/ui4EDrYUL6
— 🇺🇸 (@FreeStateWill) April 5, 2025
“Over the past few years, the F.B.I.’s reputation has been damaged in the eyes of our employers, the American people,” Patel wrote on Wednesday in one of the messages, according to the Times. “I know each of you, serving across this great nation, are tackling cases that will further the betterment of the communities in which you live and work.”
Along with all the reversals described above, Patel has also reversed his position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Patel previously expressed support for implementing warrant requirements for FISA 702, but he abandoned that position during his confirmation hearings.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
