Latest news with #KashPatel
CBS News
21 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump administration boosts monitoring of possible Iran-backed cells in U.S., as Trump weighs strikes, sources say
Leavitt says Trump will make decision on Iran within next two weeks As President Trump is contemplating potential U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, law enforcement officials have stepped up surveillance of Iran-backed operatives in the United States, multiple sources told CBS News. FBI Director Kash Patel has increased efforts to monitor possible domestic sleeper cells linked to Hezbollah — a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization backed by Iran — since Israel's Operation Rising Lion offensive began earlier this month, U.S. officials said. Both the White House and FBI declined to comment. The threat from Iranian operatives has worried current and former administration officials since Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was assassinated on Mr. Trump's orders in January 2020. Late last year, federal prosecutors charged an operative of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and two U.S.-based people with plotting to surveil and assassinate critics of the Iranian regime. The IRGC operative allegedly told investigators he was pushed by unnamed IRGC officials to plan an attack against Mr. Trump. For years, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have been concerned about Iran's ability to direct or inspire attacks within the United States — a concern that has ramped up since Soleimani's killing. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security and others have devoted significant resources to countering the threat. There are a range of potential targets. In recent years, prosecutors have charged people with plotting to kill Mr. Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton and Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad, both of whom are frequent critics of Iran's government. Bolton was granted Secret Service protection in 2021, but Mr. Trump revoked his protection this year. Mr. Trump is considering whether to strike Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, joining Israel's weeklong campaign against Iranian nuclear and military targets, CBS News has previously reported. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday the president will make a decision within the next two weeks, citing "a substantial chance of negotiation that may or may not take place" with Iran. Iran has threatened to retaliate if the U.S. decides to strike.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
FBI Director Patel says man who threatened Trump used same message as Comey's 'destructive' Instagram post
FBI Director Kash Patel took to social media on Tuesday to condemn a former Coast Guard officer who was arrested for allegedly threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump, which Patel claimed resulted, in part, from a "destructive" Instagram post shared earlier this year by his predecessor, former FBI director James Comey. "This is a guy who threatened President Trump's life using the '86 47' language," Patel said of Peter Stinson, the former Coast Guard official who was charged with making threats to kill the president. Stinson, who served from 1988 to 2021 in the Coast Guard – where he held roles as a sharpshooter and FEMA instructor – will appear in federal court for the first time on Wednesday. Stinson appears to have made multiple, graphic threats against President Donald Trump, according to court documents, including 13 references to the "86 47" message shared in a now-deleted Instagram post by former FBI director James Comey. Comey in May posted a photo of shells arranged in the sand with the number "86 47" on Instagram. The post, which he deleted hours later, prompted backlash, including from Trump himself, and sparked at least two interviews with the Secret Service, as Comey later detailed. The former FBI director has said in multiple public interviews since that he did not have any dark intentions in sharing the photo and that his wife had associated it with her time as a restaurant server to mean taking something off the menu. According to Merriman Webster, "86" is slang that can mean "to throw out," "to get rid of" or "to refuse service to." Trump, of course, is the 47th president. "I regret the distraction and the controversy around it," Comey said of the incident on MSNBC. "But again, it's hard to have regret about something that, even in hindsight, looks to me to be totally innocent." Comey is not currently under investigation for the post and has said that neither he nor his wife, who was with him at the time, believed it had any nefarious meaning. Still, the Comeys' repeated public statements and his compliance with Secret Service personnel have done little to assuage some Trump administration officials, including Patel, who now has Comey's former job. "Tragically, this case was predictable," Patel told Fox News Digital on Tuesday in regard to Stinson's alleged threats. "When former Director Comey first pulled his destructive Instagram stunt, it forced the FBI to pull numerous agents off of critical portfolios, taking key personnel away from important initiatives protecting the American people to deal with an overwhelming number of copycats following Comey's lead and posting threatening messages against the president of the United States," Patel said. "Thankfully, law enforcement did excellent work preventing a potential violent actor, and we'll continue to be on guard," he added. Stinson is a Northern Virginia resident, and while it is unclear to what degree Stinson was influenced by the Comey Instagram post or the resulting media coverage of it, court documents show that many of Stinson's threats were posted long beforehand, including in the run-up to Election Day and during the 2024 presidential campaign. Stinson, a "self-identified" member of Antifa, made at least one threat appearing to invoke the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump while he campaigned in Butler, Pennsylvania. "Those secret service agents moved very slowly," Stinson said in a post at the time. "They left him in the open way to (sic) long. A missed opportunity will not come around again. They will teach this to future agents as a failure to protect and act." In February, Stinson posted on his X account, "Sure. This is war. Sides will be drawn. Antifa always wins in the end. Violence is inherently necessary." The most recent post referenced in the document was published on BlueSky on June 11, when Stinson allegedly wrote, "When he dies, the party is going to be yuge." Comey did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on Patel's remarks nor on any role that the Instagram post in question may have inadvertently played in the case. News of Stinson's arrest comes after a federal grand jury indicted a San Bernardino County, California, man just weeks earlier for allegedly threatening to assassinate then-President-elect Donald Trump after he was elected to a second White House term. "This defendant is charged with threatening the life of our President – a man who has already survived two deranged attempts on his life," Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time. "The Department of Justice takes these threats with the utmost seriousness and will prosecute this crime to the fullest extent of the law," Bondi added.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
FBI alleges Chinese interference in 2020 election
FBI Director Kash Patel has turned over an intelligence report alleging that Chinese officials sought to rig the 2020 election with mail-in ballots by giving out tens of thousands of fake IDs. Newly declassified intelligence reports from August 2020 allege a vast conspiracy to benefit Democrat Joe Biden , officials who reviewed the file told Just the News. 'The FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election, including allegations of interference by the CCP,' Patel wrote on X Monday evening. 'Specifically, these include allegations of plans from the CCP to manufacture fake driver's licenses and ship them into the United States for the purpose of facilitating fraudulent mail-in ballots – allegations which, while substantiated, were abruptly recalled and never disclosed to the public,' Patel told the outlet. The report was originally sent out to FBI offices around the country, but the memo was later recalled within weeks and never fully investigated on the grounds that the source needed to be interviewed again. The withdrawal came around the time that then-FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly testified that there were not any known election interference operations in the 2020 election, the officials said. The documents were requested by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who first raised concerns that the intelligence had not been fully investigated despite there being evidence of fake drivers' licenses. 'In accordance with Chairman Grassley's request for documents, I have immediately declassified the material and turned the document over to the Chairman for further review,' Patel said in a statement. Grassley's office has since requested additional documents from Patel in a letter, specifically one report from the FBI's Albany field office from September 2020. Sources familiar with the document told Just the News that the FBI report was based on a relatively new confidential source. The informant warned the agency that the Chinese government was producing fake U.S. drivers' licenses as a part of a plot to provide Chinese residents in the U.S. with forms of ID to vote in the 2020 election. These IDs would then be used to help the non-citizens vote using mail-in ballots, officials claim. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intercepted nearly 20,000 fake licenses around the time of the intelligence report, officials claim. 'Chairman Grassley is in receipt of an FBI document responsive to a request he made based on legally protected whistleblower disclosures,' the senator's office said in a statement. 'The document alleges serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated by the FBI.' 'Grassley is requesting additional documentation from the FBI to verify the production, and is urging the FBI to do its due diligence to investigate why the document was recalled, who recalled it and inform the American people of its findings.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump's FBI unveils shocking details of Chinese plot using 'fake ballots' to defeat him in 2020 election
FBI Director Kash Patel has turned over an intelligence report alleging that Chinese officials sought to rig the 2020 election with mail-in ballots by giving out tens of thousands of fake IDs. Newly declassified intelligence reports from August 2020 allege a vast conspiracy to benefit Democrat Joe Biden, officials who reviewed the file told Just the News. 'The FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election, including allegations of interference by the CCP,' Patel wrote on X Monday evening. 'Specifically, these include allegations of plans from the CCP to manufacture fake driver's licenses and ship them into the United States for the purpose of facilitating fraudulent mail-in ballots – allegations which, while substantiated, were abruptly recalled and never disclosed to the public,' Patel told the outlet. The report was originally sent out to FBI offices around the country, but the memo was later recalled within weeks and never fully investigated on the grounds that the source needed to be interviewed again. The withdrawal came around the time that then-FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly testified that there were not any known election interference operations in the 2020 election, the officials said. The documents were requested by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who first raised concerns that the intelligence had not been fully investigated despite there being evidence of fake drivers' licenses. 'In accordance with Chairman Grassley's request for documents, I have immediately declassified the material and turned the document over to the Chairman for further review,' Patel said in a statement. Grassley's office has since requested additional documents from Patel in a letter, specifically one report from the FBI's Albany field office from September 2020. Sources familiar with the document told Just the News that the FBI report was based on a relatively new confidential source. The informant warned the agency that the Chinese government was producing fake U.S. drivers' licenses as a part of a plot to provide Chinese residents in the U.S. with forms of ID to vote in the 2020 election. These IDs would then be used to help the non-citizens vote using mail-in ballots, officials claim. According to officials, the plot was meant to benefit Biden. However, internal FBI memos about the report were recalled 'in order to re-interview the source,' Grassley's office claims. The FBI later advised: 'Recipients should destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings.' U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intercepted nearly 20,000 fake licenses around the time of the intelligence report, officials claim. 'Chairman Grassley is in receipt of an FBI document responsive to a request he made based on legally protected whistleblower disclosures,' the senator's office said in a statement. 'The document alleges serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated by the FBI.' 'Grassley is requesting additional documentation from the FBI to verify the production, and is urging the FBI to do its due diligence to investigate why the document was recalled, who recalled it and inform the American people of its findings.' Biden beat Trump by just a few thousand votes in several states. Biden won Arizona by roughly 10,000 votes. In Georgia the Democrat won by 12,000 votes. Trump lost Wisconsin by around 20,000 votes.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
‘Alarming allegations': FBI director Kash Patel declassifies documents on 2020 election; China, Russia accused of meddling
AP file photo FBI Director Kash Patel has made public a batch of documents that he claims contain 'alarming allegations' about foreign interference in the 2020 US presidential election. "The FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 US election, including allegations of interference by the CCP. I have immediately declassified the material and turned the documents over to Chairman Grassley for further review," Patel tweeted. According to BBC, a statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) before the 2020 election had warned that China, Russia, and Iran were among the countries trying to influence the outcome of the election through both open and secret methods. William Evanina, the head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) had said China was believed to oppose Donald Trump's re-election and had been working to expand its influence in the United States. Russia, on the other hand, was accused of attempting to damage Joe Biden's candidacy, partly by spreading disinformation on social media and Russian TV. Iran was also said to be engaging in efforts to create confusion and undermine democratic institutions. When asked about the interference report during a press conference, President Trump had said at that time his administration would examine the claims 'very closely.' He added that he didn't believe Russia wanted him to win, arguing that his administration had taken the toughest stance against Moscow compared to any other. Since starting his second term in January 2025, Trump has taken steps and made remarks that suggest a friendlier approach towards Russia than earlier US administrations.
