Trump picked Kash Patel to clean house at the FBI after years of corruption under Christopher Wray.
But conservatives are starting to wonder if they made a mistake.
And Kash Patel got testy when Bret Baier asked him this one question about Butler.
Patel snaps at Fox News anchor over Butler investigation questions
FBI Director Kash Patel appeared on Fox News Tuesday night and showed Americans why he's falling short of expectations.
Bret Baier pressed Patel on the gaping holes in the FBI's investigation into Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who tried to assassinate President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024.
Nearly two years later, Americans still don't know who Crooks was talking to, what was on his cell phones, or why he wanted Trump dead.
"I don't think we the public have a more robust picture of that shooter," Baier said.
Patel bristled immediately.
"I think that's an unfair supposition," Patel shot back. "We [at] the FBI have put out all the information that we possibly and legally can while protecting any ongoing matters that are unrelated."
That's exactly the kind of stonewalling Christopher Wray gave Congress for years.
The Butler cover-up continues under new management
The FBI hasn't released basic information that should have been public within weeks of the shooting.
Investigators found Crooks owned five cell phones and used encrypted accounts, but the bureau won't say who he contacted or what those conversations revealed.
Tucker Carlson's investigation found Crooks posted 737 times on YouTube from 2019 to 2020, all verified through metadata and IP logs that the FBI ignored.
The FBI said Crooks was a "ghost" online with no social media presence.
That was a lie.
The FBI won't release ballistics reports, saying only that evidence is "consistent" with Secret Service rounds but refusing to confirm a definitive match.
House investigators said there's no public proof the weapon belonged to Crooks or that bullets recovered matched his rifle.
His body was cremated within days and his home was professionally scrubbed, leaving no personal belongings behind, "not even silverware."
Someone who regularly visited Crooks' home and workplace also appeared near an FBI office in Washington, D.C., according to device-tracking data reported by the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project.
Senator Ron Johnson, who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, issued subpoenas for the FBI's ballistics reports and witness transcripts because the bureau stonewalled his requests.
"We're cranking this up," Johnson said. "I've not been happy with the slow response we've gotten to our requests for information. There's still many unanswered questions here."
A year after the attempted assassination, the FBI still hasn't determined Crooks' motive, hasn't explained his online activity, and hasn't released the most basic investigative findings.
Patel told Baier the FBI provided 40,000 pages of documents to Congress.
"That's a 400% increase from the prior two directors," Patel said. "We will continue to provide this information with our partners on Capitol Hill, when we are legally able."
Christopher Wray set the bar so low Patel thinks he's succeeding
Patel comparing himself favorably to Christopher Wray shows how little he understands what Trump voters expected.
Wray was a disaster who weaponized the FBI against Catholics, parents at school board meetings, and anyone who questioned the 2020 election.
He suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story weeks before the 2020 election, buried intelligence about Chinese election interference to protect himself from criticism, and faced a contempt of Congress resolution for refusing to hand over documents about Biden family corruption.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Senator Chuck Grassley spent years fighting Wray for basic transparency.
Patel finally started turning over documents Jordan and Grassley requested for years, including records about targeting pro-life Christians under the FACE Act and surveillance of traditional Catholics.
Grassley praised Patel for "corrected whistleblower retaliation and increased transparency more than any other FBI Director I've seen."
But that's grading on a curve so generous it's meaningless.
Wray set expectations so low that doing the bare minimum looks like a victory.
Trump didn't fire Wray and install Patel to be slightly better than a man who turned the FBI into the Democrat Party's enforcement arm.
He picked Patel to blow up the status quo and restore accountability.
Patel's defensive attitude mirrors the problem
When Baier asked reasonable questions about what Americans still don't know, Patel acted like a bureaucrat protecting turf instead of an FBI Director serving the public.
"Everything, whether it's Epstein or Charlie Kirk or whether it's this shooter in Butler, we always put out what the law permits us to put out," Patel said.
The law permits far more transparency than Patel is delivering.
After Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy, the FBI and CIA compiled a detailed account of Oswald's life, documenting what he did by the day, hour, and even minute in the months and years before the assassination.
All of that was available to the public a year after the assassination when the Warren Report was published.
Compare that to Crooks.
Two years after Butler, Americans know almost nothing about who he was, who he talked to, or why he climbed that roof.
The FBI concluded Crooks acted alone in November 2025, but provided no evidence to support that finding.
Public opinion polls show over half of Americans believe Crooks didn't act alone.
The FBI's opacity created exactly the conditions for Americans to lose faith in federal law enforcement.
Patel inherited a mess, but snapping at Bret Baier for asking legitimate questions shows he doesn't grasp the scale of rebuilding trust that's required.
Trump voters didn't elect him to run a slightly more transparent version of Wray's FBI.
They elected him to burn it down and start over.
Sources:
- Mariane Angela, "Kash Patel Gets Testy as Bret Baier Presses Him About Trump Assassination Attempt Details," Daily Caller News Foundation, February 4, 2026.
- Graham Kates et al., "CBS News investigation: The secret double life of Thomas Crooks, Trump's would-be assassin," CBS News, July 11, 2025.
- Lindsey McPherson, "One year since assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, 'The American people don't have answers,'" Washington Times, July 14, 2025.
- Tucker Carlson, "Tucker Carlson Releases New Findings on Butler Shooting as Questions Mount Over FBI's Handling of Thomas Crooks," YourNEWS Media, November 14, 2025.
- Chuck Grassley, "Grassley Releases Bombshell Records Showing FBI Headquarters Interfered with Alleged Chinese Election Interference Probe to Shield Christopher Wray from Political Blowback," Senate Judiciary Committee, 2025.
- Chuck Grassley, "Grassley Questions Patel at FBI Oversight Hearing," Senate Judiciary Committee, 2025.
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