Eight anonymous sources told the Atlantic the FBI director is a problem. Twenty-three years on the job tells me they’re the problem.
The Patel bourbon FBI story broke last week, and on cue, the same people who never wore a badge are explaining what’s wrong with the Bureau. They have eight anonymous sources and a magazine willing to print them. I have twenty-three years on the job and a pretty good idea what’s actually going on here.
What Sarah Fitzpatrick’s report describes as “unheard-of” is actually the oldest thing in policing. The boss buys a round. He puts his name on a coin. He makes you feel like part of something bigger than yourself. That used to be called morale. Now apparently it’s a federal case.
Every FBI Director Left A Mark
Hoover handed out fingerprint cards with his name on them. Comey wrote memos to himself about his own meetings. Mueller had his moments. Every director leaves something behind. The difference with Patel is that he’s leaving something the right people don’t approve of. A retired senior official, when asked about previous directors handing out personalized liquor, “burst out laughing.” Yeah. The retired guys always laugh. Then they go on cable.
The Bureau spokesperson said the bottles are part of a tradition that “started well over a decade ago, long before Director Patel arrived.” That sounds about right to me. The bottles existed. Only the engraving is new. Everything important about leadership is in the engraving.
The Polygraph Problem
Anonymous sources told the Atlantic that Patel “lost his mind” over a missing bottle at Quantico and threatened to polygraph his staff. And? You bring a case of bourbon to a training seminar, you account for the case of bourbon. If you can’t pass a polygraph about whether you took something that wasn’t yours, you’ve got bigger problems than your director’s mood.
This is what the magazine doesn’t understand. Loyalty is not a dirty word. The agents quoted in this Patel bourbon FBI piece ran to a lawyer named Kurt Siuzdak, who is now telling current FBI employees to “run from” the director. Twenty-plus years on the job and he ends up giving legal advice to rats. There’s a name for that career arc. We didn’t use it in polite company, but every cop knows it.
How The Patel Bourbon FBI Story Ends
Here is what I learned over a long career. You don’t win in the moment. You win in the paperwork. Settlements get filed without admission of wrongdoing. Medical retirements get processed without prejudice. The next guy down the line learns to keep his complaints internal. That used to be how the Bureau handled its internal matters. Internally. Not in The Atlantic.
And before the usual watchdog groups start filing their usual reports about “gift rules” and “ethics waivers”—a man who reimburses the Bureau for his own bourbon out of his own pocket is not corrupt. He is generous. The Clintons took $2 billion through their foundation. Patel buys his agents a bottle of Woodford Reserve and somehow that’s the scandal of the year.
They will keep digging. They will find another “concerned” agent and another “former senior official” who burst out laughing on cue. None of it will matter. The Bureau under Patel does what the Bureau under his predecessors wouldn’t. That is not a scandal. That is the job.
The Atlantic’s whistleblowers will fade. The director who didn’t fold when the press came for him won’t. I’ve seen how this ends.
About the Author
