Patel Ordered FBI to Fight Online Troll

FBI Director Kash Patel ordered the bureau's communications staff to publicly answer an anonymous X account that mocked him, and his top spokesman refused, according to text messages in newly released FBI records.

The exchange comes from a Feb. 5 text conversation between Patel and Ben Williamson, the FBI's assistant director for public affairs, contained in the latest tranche of records the government released as part of its review of investigative holdings related to Jeffrey Epstein.

The account had shared Patel's official portrait alongside a post ridiculing him. Its username is a slur for people with intellectual disabilities.

What the Texts Say

"What I asked you and your team to do is find them, and post our record year results back at them all, continuously," Patel wrote, then asked whether his staff had been doing it. Williamson said they had not.

"We're not responding to 'ifindr——s.' That would look bad on you," Williamson wrote, according to the records.

Patel pressed on: "Its not about them, it is about the number of views, because people see it and need to be seeing our stats."

Williamson called the account "an 'Epstein didn't kill himself' bot account." Patel insisted the "277k responses are not bots." Williamson corrected him — per Raw Story's account of the messages, the 277,000 figure was views, not replies, and the post had drawn roughly 400 responses.