On March 19, Kash Patel stood at a Justice Department podium and delivered the kind of line that plays perfectly on cable news. “We took down four of their operation’s pillars and we’re not done,” the FBI director said after the government seized domains linked to Handala, an Iran-linked hacking group. It was the usual show of force — chest out, enemy named, victory declared.
Eight days later, Handala hacked Patel’s personal Gmail and dumped what it said were years of emails and personal photos online. Among the images was a mirror selfie of Patel holding a large bottle of rum. At the time, the picture looked like a humiliating punchline. The man who had just bragged about crippling Iran’s hackers had his inbox raided by the same crew. Washington got its irony hit, the internet got its meme, and the story moved on.
That was March. The laughter came easily because the image looked random.
Yesterday, The Atlantic made that photo land differently.
The magazine reports that more than two dozen current and former officials, aides, hospitality workers, lobbyists, and others described Patel’s tenure as erratic, alcohol-soaked, and alarming enough that senior administration figures are already discussing possible replacements. The article says meetings and briefings were pushed later because of Patel’s late-night drinking, that his security detail at one point requested breaching equipment after he was unreachable behind locked doors, and that on April 10 he panicked over a technical login problem, concluded he had been fired, and triggered calls across the FBI, Congress, and the White House asking who was in charge. (more...)
When Iranian Hackers Published Kash Patel’s Rum Photo, It Looked Like a Joke. Now It Doesn’t
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