Kash's Turn in the Barrel
Plus:
MAGA's foreign troll farms
Nov 24, 2025
Kash
Patel, grifter.
As we slide into an abbreviated holiday week, I suggest we
take a step back from the Sturm und Drang of the daily news
cycle to enjoy two delicacies offered to us over the weekend.
First, is the dawning realization, even
within the Trumpian swamp of grift, that Kash Patel is turning out to be a
clueless, ethically-tone deaf cretin. (Patel Under Scrutiny for Use of SWAT Teams to Protect His
Girlfriend - The New York Times.)
The second is the “revelation” that
many of the MAGA keyboard claque — the barkers of “America First” — are
actually trolls from Bangladesh, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Nigeria, and Thailand.
(MAGA diehard X accounts are exposed as being run from
far-flung foreign countries.)
What’s not to enjoy? Happy Monday.
Shocked by Grift
For those of you with a refined palate for irony, consider
this delicious morsel from yesterday’s NYT (Gift link):
Mr. Patel’s heavy use of
taxpayer-funded resources during his first nine months on the job has
contributed to growing questions inside the administration about
whether it exceeds the bounds of standard practice. This
includes an intense use of security to protect himself and his girlfriend.
I know that it has become something of a cliche to pull out
the Casablanca chestnut about being “shocked, shocked.”
But damn. Imagine being part of Donald Trump’s second
administration — a daily festival of insider dealing, graft, kickbacks, crypto
bribes, and self-dealing — and suddenly realizing that the place is stocked to
the rafters with trough-feeders and grifters.
Imagine being too dishonest for TrumpWorld circa 2025.
But, apparently, Kash Patel has managed to find the outer
limits of Trumpian “ethics”, at least for someone not named Trump. He’s
done so by conflating his love life, FBI SWAT teams, and taxpayer dollars in
truly dazzling ways. The NYT tells a particularly juicy tale:
When Alexis Wilkins, an
aspiring country singer dating the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, sang “The
Star-Spangled Banner” at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in
Atlanta in the spring, she arrived with a formidable protective posse —
a SWAT team from the bureau’s local field office.
The
two agents, members of a specialized unit trained to storm
barricaded buildings and rescue hostages, had been sent there on Mr.
Patel’s orders. But seeing that the event at the Georgia World
Congress Center had been secured, and that Ms. Wilkins was in no apparent
danger, they left before the event was over, according to six people with
knowledge of the incident.
She noticed. So did her
boyfriend.
Soon after, Mr. Patel
ripped into the team’s commander, saying that his girlfriend had been left
without taxpayer-funded defenders, and slamming what he saw as failure to
communicate their movements up the chain of command during her time on the
convention floor — where she sang and chatted with attendees, the people said.
It should go without saying that FBI SWAT teams are neither
trained, not tasked, with taking care of the boss’s girlfriends. “[Current] and
former F.B.I. officials said that the use of SWAT agents to protect Mr. Patel’s
girlfriend was highly unusual, given their specialized and often dangerous
duties such as executing high-risk warrants and investigating cases.”
Love
is a many splendoured thing. especially if you can deploy FBI SWAT teams.
But Patel has different priorities.
The incident in Atlanta
was not the first time that SWAT team members had been used to protect Ms.
Wilkins, 27, who has been in a relationship with Mr. Patel, 45, for about three
years. SWAT team resources have been diverted to protect Ms. Wilkins several
times in recent months, including in Nashville, where she lives.
In
late September, bureau officials recalled agents on the tactical team to the
F.B.I. office in Salt Lake City, even after they had worked long hours in the
wake of the killing of a longtime Trump ally, Charlie Kirk, in Utah. They were
reassigned to provide Ms. Wilkins with additional protection at a political event out of concern that she
could also be targeted.
Apparently, Patel simply regards this as one of the perks
of the job. Like taxpayer funded jets. Reports The Times: ““He has
also used a government jet for some of his recreational travel, such as a golf
trip with buddies to a private resort in Scotland over the summer.”
Since taking over in
February, Mr. Patel, who is said by associates to enjoy the swag and trappings
of his post — personalized commemorative coins, cheroots,
F.B.I.-branded jackets — has made extensive use of the director’s small private
jet and a larger Boeing 757. Many of the
trips have been for business purposes; some have been to fly back and forth to
Nevada or to see Ms. Wilkins in Nashville.
Exit take. You can read the whole thing here. But
maybe the most interesting part of the story is that the call is coming from
within the MAGA house. Somebody from Trump World leaked the story about the
“growing questions inside the administration.”
In other words, MAGA continues to eat one another’s faces.
MAGA’s Foreign Troll Farms
Delicacy #2.
The X-account known as “Trump is My President” turns out to
be from Macedonia; and “MAGA Nation” emanates from “Eastern Europe” — as does
“MAGANationX” which describes itself as the “Patriot Voice for We The People”.
The fan site, “IvankaNews” is actually run from Nigeria; “the MAGA Beacon”
posted from South Asia, while “Dark MAGA” pushes out right-wing spin from
Thailand.
Over the weekend, Elon Musk rolled out a new feature that
reveals the location of many of the most active Trump-boosting accounts. And
the results are, well, the word “delicious” comes to mind once again. Some of
the high-profile accounts come from Bangladesh, India, Eastern Europe, and
Nigeria.
Consider this one, which defies attempts at parody:
“America First,” a site that describes itself as “Promoting Good Resisting
Evil,” comes to us from… Bangladesh.
MAGA Scope,” which sports a picture of VP JD Vance, turns
out to originate in Nigeria.
Nota bene
Americans are not hot for a war with Venezuela. CBS News poll finds most would oppose U.S. military
action in Venezuela, say Trump hasn’t explained - CBS News
Across party lines, big
majorities say the administration needs to explain what the U.S. intends
regarding any action, and that it has not done so clearly yet….
Americans do not think
of Venezuela as a major threat to the US.
Instead, more see a minor one, and they are largely opposed to potential military action.
So, the idea of
potential U.S. military action in Venezuela meets with widespread disapproval.
It doesn’t get overwhelming backing from Republicans either.
Three in four Americans
also say Trump would need congressional approval before taking
military action in Venezuela, including just over half of Republicans.
**
DOGE, we hardly knew ye. “DOGE ‘doesn’t exist’ with eight months left on its
charter” —Reuters
Trump’s Department of
Government Efficiency has disbanded with eight months left to its mandate,
ending an initiative launched with fanfare as a symbol of Trump’s pledge to
slash the government’s size but which critics say delivered few measurable
savings.
“That doesn’t exist,”
Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Reuters earlier this
month when asked about DOGE’s status.
It is no longer a
“centralized entity,” Kupor added, in the first public comments from the Trump
administration on the end of DOGE.
