A former senior FBI official is accusing Donald Trump’s allies of turning the bureau into a political tool — and says the people now leading it are unqualified and dangerous.
Michael Feinberg, who served as an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI’s Norfolk field office, says Trump-picked leaders Kash Patel and Dan Bongino have no real understanding of federal law enforcement and are instead pushing a political agenda.
“They get a kick out of playing dress-up and acting tough,” Feinberg told The Atlantic. “But they actually have no idea what they’re doing.”
Feinberg spent 15 years at the FBI before abruptly resigning earlier this year. He says he was pushed out over a personal friendship with Peter Strzok, the former FBI counterintelligence agent who became a target of Trump’s rage after sending private texts critical of the president. Strzok was fired in 2018.
Feinberg says the FBI leadership saw his connection to Strzok as a red flag. His promotion was pulled. He was warned he could face demotion and be forced to take a polygraph test. That’s when he walked.
“I love my country and our Constitution with a fervor that mere language will not allow me to articulate,” Feinberg wrote in his resignation letter. “It pains me that my profession will no longer entail being their servant.”
Now, Feinberg is warning that the FBI is no longer focused on protecting the country — it’s being twisted into a weapon for political loyalty.
In a recent Lawfare essay, he wrote: “The FBI is increasingly concerned with ‘ideological purity and the ceaseless politicization of the workforce,’ which ‘makes us all less safe.’”
Feinberg, who joined the bureau in 2009, helped lead the FBI’s investigation into Huawei and national security threats from China. He speaks fluent Mandarin and spent years tracking Chinese intelligence operations. After leaving, he said he’s not sure if any senior officials working counterintelligence at the bureau even speak Chinese now.
“It’s particularly concerning to me, as someone who dedicated his professional career to combating the Chinese Communist Party and all of its tentacles,” he wrote, “to see resources and efforts diverted away from hostile foreign intelligence services and other serious threats to the homeland to focus on minor immigration status offenses.”
The two men now overseeing the FBI — Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino — are well-known Trump loyalists. Both have close ties to far-right media and have promoted conspiracy theories, including false claims about the 2020 election.
Earlier this month, Patel and Bongino made headlines again by suggesting major revelations were coming about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But the Trump administration itself released a memo dismissing those claims and saying there is no Epstein “client list,” despite online rumors.
Feinberg says this is exactly the problem: inexperienced, politically motivated leadership.
“They’re playing dress-up,” he said. “They don’t understand the job. They’re not protecting the country — they’re protecting their politics.”
