Brian Driscoll Says Patel Tied FBI Vetting to Trump Loyalty

Brian Driscoll said Kash Patel tied his FBI deputy director vetting to political loyalty, including who he voted for in 2024 and whether he used social media or donated to Democrats. Driscoll, who briefly served as acting FBI director, said the pressure grew into a broader push to remove people linked to Jan. 6 investigations and Trump cases.

Driscoll’s Vetting Account

Driscoll said he underwent the review last year after being offered the deputy director job at the FBI. He said Patel told him the process would go smoothly as long as he wasn’t active on social media, made no donations to the Democratic Party, and didn’t vote for Kamala Harris as president.

He said he was also asked who he voted for in 2024 and when he became a supporter of Donald Trump. “It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” he said of the exchange.

February 2025 And After

After Patel’s Senate confirmation in February 2025, Driscoll said Patel told him the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hadn’t forgotten it. Driscoll said that message sat alongside the personnel fight that followed his refusal to hand over the names of every employee involved in investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 rioters.

He said he told colleagues, “I was telling them this is wrong,” when ordered to fire eight senior officials. The order, he said, came from Emil Bove while Bove was acting deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, and Bove described the bureau as having “cultural rot in the FBI.”

Firing And Lawsuit

Driscoll was fired without explanation last August, and a month later he and two other ousted FBI officials filed a lawsuit against Patel, Pam Bondi, the FBI, the DOJ, and the Executive Office of the President. The suit alleged they were terminated over insufficient loyalty to Trump and said Patel’s own job security depended on removing agents who worked on cases involving the president.

Driscoll said the cost went beyond one personnel fight. “You take all of these highly experienced people with the perspective gained through that experience, through success and failure alike, and remove them,” he said. “It’s devastating to the workforce, not just for the morale, but also the stability of the organization and the faith in it from the people inside of it and the people outside of it.”