Comment by everdrive
1 day ago
Interesting, and not all that implausible. The real test: his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that bears out.
If they wanted to maintain access, they certainly wouldn't celebrate it publicly, which is why I assume they want to release information. But, there shouldn't be anything damning to release. ie, there ought not to be if the director is acting professionally. We'll see how the facts bear out. I also suppose it's possible they're just going for any win they can and there's nothing interesting here whatsoever, or it's a really boring secondary address or something.
I think this is actually the opposite of the correct conclusion—just look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal). I seriously doubt that Kash Patel doesn't have a bunch of skeletons to dust off and show the world; the man is a weirdo (much like the rest of the administration).
EDIT: I actually misread the comment; I think we're likely in agreement. My bad.
I don't know, these days skeletons seem to be treated as funny decoration and we're in a permanent state of Halloween.
Sullying Halloween's good name
Trump doesn't have a few skeletons in his closest, he boasts a series of catacombs.
I think theirs was the right conclusion, but for the wrong reason. If there was anything really damning, Iran would rather use that as leverage.
The fact that they released it publicly means that the most embarrassing part of it is just the hack in itself.
If I was Iran I'd leak the innocuous stuff first to let them know I had access to potentially more damning things, to try and force the US to the table.
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From the news I’ve read the most “embarrassing” things in his personal email are photos of him smoking cigars, holding a bottle of rum, and posing in front of a supercar. What a scandal…
I'd like to chime in and say that that Kash Patel, while completely unprofessional and incompetent, is way less of a weirdo than the rest of the administration.
His scandals are all about shirking job responsibilities to party and sightsee. That's not great from the FBI director but its way more normal than the rest of them.
I dunno, a sitting FBI director testifying under oath about details that are clearly false, goes above and way beyond "to party and sightsee". At least in my world it puts him up there together with the rest of the weirdos.
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That's not remotely true of his history.. he's a full on Jan-6er, deep into Q-Anon, he was involved in numerous serious scandals during the first Trump admin (Nunes Memo / Russiagate 'parallel' investigation: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-men...), he has a number of sketchy moneymaking side-businesses, he was formerly living with a GOP megadonor 'Timeshare Tycoon' as roommates in Vegas (https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/trump-fbi-pick-kash...), he collected enemies' lists for Trump which resulted in firing of most of the Iran counterintel team right before we started launching attacks because they had the termerity to investigate why Trump was showing donors top-secret maps of Iran after he left office..
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90% of US media is not aligned with the Democrats and as such they do not possess the same power to manufacture outrage as the Republicans do.
How can you way that with a straight face when this book exists.
https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/19555...
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So you mean to point out that the sitting FBI director is a bro's bro.
I was just reading a X thread that published some of the more notable things and overall it's pretty innocuous. The most "controversial" thing thus far is he took a trip to Cuba
My favorite explanation of the Petraeus scandal: https://vimeo.com/100348256
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> look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was
Those times have passed. I'll restate what I said in a comment some days ago:
>> 50 years ago the press was "impeaching" presidents. Today presidents are "impeaching" the press
The current strategy is "keep the outrage hose on full blast and eventually people get desensitized". It works.
The press was stupid. They were doing stupid gotchas like swiftboats, fake reports on GWB (Dan Rather), but couldn’t care less about things like the CIA and the crack cocaine connection[1], or lots of other things the government gets away with (including Clappers total information awareness unconstitutional surveillance efforts) The press is always carrying water for someone but that someone is rarely the public unless is just pure coincidence.
[1] there was one reporter who dared but the toll from the story resulted in his suicide, some years later. His colleagues poo-pooed his reporting on the connection.
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Maybe the hackers will release information connecting Patel to the Noem and Lewandowski grift operations with govt contracts. Out of the four companies allowed to bid for the $220 million advertising contract, 3 were linked to Noem and Lewandowski and one to Patel.
Im sure they are all doing it...
Well, if the president sets the example. What can you expect from the rest ?
well if you're listing your hopes, not talking from what those hackers brought...
that just means the operation is a dismal failure -- nothing to see
this really undermines iran hackers' claims regarding 'big things' on trump administration
There is so much corruption and impropriety in this administration that skeletons don't matter anymore. Looking at what sunk officials in previous administrations provides a sense for just how far gone we are, but it's not an indicator of what future consequences will be.
Dan Quayle lost a serious bid because he couldn't spell potato.
Now look at where we're at. It really is wild. Right, wrong, or indifferent. How far we've shifted is absolutely wild.
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Like what? We have two presidents, including the current one, that took multiple trips to a pedophile island. What skeletons could be greater than accusations of punching a child in the face after they bit the dude’s penis during forced sodomy?
There is no credible evidence that either of the Presidents you alluded to visited "the island". It's amazing to see conspiracy theories promulgated on HN.
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This simping is such a bad look. Why go to bat for a man who wouldn't piss on you to put out a fire? Act like a man jesus christ
Trump is currently in office ;)
Surely we are currently clean on OPSEC. There couldn't be any precedent for government officials using private email servers for confidential information!
obligatory - that first famous private server was done because someone wanted a blackberry like Obama had, and was told no by NSA. Man that BB keyboard was good.
That can't be the first one. Colin Powell used a personal email account during the GWB administration.
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/08/493133413/colin-powells-ways-...
Of course that pales in comparison with the practices of the GWB White House:
https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/george-w-bush-white-hous...
Check this out (can't wait til mine arrives): https://www.clicks.tech/
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Are we talking about the same FBI director here? Professional and competent are not how I would describe Kash Patel. Given his overt buffoonishness and the whole administration's disdain for procedure and expertise I would be shocked if he didn't have extremely inappropriate content in his inbox.
I believe “if” is doing a tremendous amount of work in parent’s comment.
>his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA
medical diagnoses can be incredibly useful in understanding past and future actions
>there shouldn't be anything damning to release. ie, there ought not to be if the director is acting professionally
that "if" is doing some heavy lifting given who we are discussing
Yeah, the fact they announced it proves it’s nothing. I saw a picture of him smoking a cigar. We’ve already seen him drinking beer and acting foolish; probably enough to get you executed in Isfahan, but a giant nothining in the USA.
> his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that bears out.
Aren't these the same people who apparently used Signal with a journalist in the chat, and had military conversations in that very chat?
Color me surprised if these people haven't heard of opsec before, and mix their work/personal life all over the place.
Yes, and I wouldn't be shocked if there was classified information in there. I struggled with wording, but what I meant was "you're not supposed to be able to find classified or sensitive information in personal email, but I who knows what will be the case here."
> Aren't these the same people who apparently used Signal with a journalist in the chat, and had military conversations in that very chat?
Signal is one of the most secure communication platforms out there, but it is obviously not immune to human error or social engineering.
Also wildly illegal to use to conduct government business, especially confidential government business. (and yes the messages were auto-deleting and largely lost before anyone chimes in with technically they could be archived!)
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> Signal is one of the most secure communication platforms out there
That might be true amongst the communication platforms available for the average Joe. It is definietly not the most secure communication platform available for someone high ranking in the USA government.
> it is obviously not immune to human error or social engineering
Nothing is immune. But there are systems more and systems less prone to these issues.
https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-use...
Ok? Signal is not the topic of my comment really, nor has anyone claimed it's less secure than other chat apps.
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> The investigation has led to turmoil within the Defense Department, raising tensions and the firings and resignations of several top DoD officials, including former Chief of Staff Joe Kasper. [...] On May 1, 2025, it was revealed that both national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong would be leaving their posts in the National Security Council
Let me guess, the "leak" was intentional just to break a bunch of laws and to cause a bunch of people to get fired and leave their posts?
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The facts simply do not bear this interpretation out. Investigations and heads rolling for a stage whisper? Nah
Signal started being used during the Biden administration, the issue was how they were managing contacts which could be added to groups. They weren't carefully vetting access and a journalist with the same name as another military guy was added to the group by accident.
Source?
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But his girlfriend, though...
https://www.tabletmag.com/the-scroll/articles/march-25-kash-...
We’re not getting any juicy leaks from it because it’s just full of 20-year-old memes and meeting invites to look busy.
Those "should"s are doing a lot of heavy lifting.
> The real test: his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news.
I have no idea why this would be the default assumption for somebody as sloppy and erratic as Patel. Look at how many people were emailing damning stuff to/from Epstein's personal email accounts from their own personal email accounts!
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