This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

In a surprise, Fox News is reporting that the knives are out for FBI Director Cash Patel,

due to a series of recent missteps, including the botching of key facts about the hunt for Charlie Kirk's assassin. That this is coming from Fox News may be a sign of how dire a Patel's

internal standing has truly become. Yet we're in the middle of a complex moment. Even as

Patel's tenure is beset with follies, we may be facing a dramatic expansion of power for federal law enforcement, in particular, to target the liberal left in response to Kirk's assassination.

Stephen Miller just telegraphed this with some new quotes that are truly grotesque.

So we thought we'd take stock of all this with someone who knows about the FBI from the

inside. Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent and now a prominent commentator. Asha,

thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. So Fox News reports that the knives are indeed

out for Patel, quoting one source saying that the White House

and Attorney General Pam Bondi have no confidence in him. This comes after Patel prematurely declared

that the FBI had apprehended the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, but also after Patel

feuded with Bondi over the release of the Epstein files, which was an utter fiasco for the

administration. Asha, Fox also quotes sources close to Trump saying he's not thrilled with Patel.

What do you make of this reporting? This is an incredibly image conscious administration.

So whatever ideological alignment there is, Trump in particular does not

like to be made to look bad. And it sounds like everyone agrees on both sides of the aisle

that Patel made him look bad. I mean, not just him, but his administration. This was a very

bungled response from the FBI director. I don't think we can remember any director doing these kinds

of missteps. And in fact, to the extent that anyone did, we could look at James Comey, who I don't know that he

got in a wrangling match with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, but he clashed with her. And that was what

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