Kash Patel used meeting after Charlie Kirk's assassination to plot agency's social media posting plan, agents say

Source: The Independent

Thursday 22 January 2026 18:05 EST


FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly prioritized planning social media posts for himself, former Deputy Dan Bongino and the Salt Lake City field office in the moments after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, as senior executives and field offices were trying to brief officials on the situation.

Recounting the moments after Kirk, a right-wing political activist, was killed in Utah, a senior FBI executive told the New York Times that a “super emotional” Patel got on a conference call and “berated” the special agent in charge of the field office before planning social media posts. The unnamed senior FBI executive called the exchange “surreal,” noting that Patel’s knee-jerk reaction broke from traditional critical incident conference calls, in which those with situation awareness brief field offices and executives on the incident.

“[Patel] and Bongino start talking about their Twitter strategy,” the senior FBI executive told NYT. “And Kash is like: I’m gonna tweet this. Salt Lake, you tweet that. Dan, you come in with this. Then I’ll come back with this. They’re literally scripting out their social media, not talking about how we’re going to respond or resources or the situation. He’s screaming that he wants to put stuff out, but it’s not even vetted yet. It’s not even accurate.”

Memorably, Patel prematurely announced on X that the FBI had captured the suspect accused of fatally shooting Kirk on the college campus – however, that suspect was later released.

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/kash-patel-fbi-charlie-kirk-x-post-b2905980.html