The FBI under Director Kash Patel is delivering real results. After years of leaks, politicization, and scandals, arrests have surged nearly 200% — with big wins against violent crime, gangs, fentanyl traffickers, and child predators. The Bureau is back to work protecting Americans.
Yet on May 7, 2026, on MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, Psaki was joined by Eric Holder, former Attorney General under President Obama. The two defended the old guard at the FBI.
Psaki:
I try as often as I can to remind people watching or try to inform on what is normal and what is not normal. And I think we know a lot of Kash Patel’s behavior is not normal.
But this reporting on the polygraph test being used across the FBI, a law enforcement agency that is full of nonpolitical career servants trying to keep our country safe. I just wonder what goes through your mind when you hear that?
Holder:
Well, first off, to echo what you said, Jen, this is not normal, and the American people need to understand that. These are people at the FBI, at the Justice Department, who dedicate their careers to this nation, the protection of people in this nation.
The FBI is one of our premier national security agencies, in addition to everything else that it does. And to have an FBI director who apparently does not trust the people in the FBI — and I suspect the people in the FBI probably do not trust him as well — for him to polygraph people on the basis that has been reported is extremely disturbing.
And I think it ought to cost him his job. I didn’t think he was qualified for the job going in, and all the reports that we have seen since he became FBI director have confirmed my belief that he wasn’t qualified to do the job.
The sight of him at the Olympics slogging down beer when he was supposed to be in Milan on a business trip. The reports now about having some bourbon branded in his name. These are all things inconsistent with what we would expect to have a competent FBI director do.
And the conduct that he’s engaging in, the polygraphs that he is making people go through, is unbelievably abnormal. And I would think disqualifying.
Psaki:
One of the things that is so striking to me is that while Kash Patel is desperately trying to crack down on leaks. People inside the FBI continue sharing information with reporters. And it’s not out of maliciousness or anything like that.
One of the things that Sara Fitzpatrick who wrote some of these stories for The Atlantic shared with me is that some of the things, what they’ve been sharing is that they basically have grave concern about our national security under Kash Patel’s leadership. And that is why they felt the need to share this information. And shared these stories. It seems like you share that although you you tell us what you think. And also tell us how unique or rare it is for FBI officials, many, many sources to be sharing this kind of information with reporters.
Holder:
It’s unbelievably abnormal, again, to have this kind of interaction between the FBI and reporters about these kinds of things. These personnel things for lack of better term.
These are really patriotic people, again, dedicating their lives to the protection of the nation. And I think they made the determination that they are more concerned about the leadership of the FBI. And the need to perhaps change the leadership of the FBI if they are going to be able to be in the position to do that what the American people expect of the FBI. These are patriots.
This is laughable. The same FBI that targeted the Tea Party, pushed the Trump-Russia hoax, and weaponized investigations for years is now called a flawless band of patriots.
Psaki and Holder aren’t defending good agents — they’re defending the corrupt, politicized status quo that Kash Patel is finally cleaning up.
America wants an FBI that fights crime — not one that politicizes and leaks.
See the results for yourself:
FBI Press Releases → https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases
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