Spies, secrets, and a broken promise: How Trump’s FBI boss let down MI5

Five Eyes officials have watched with alarm as Patel has fired agents who investigated President Donald Trump and invoked his powers to investigate the president’s perceived enemies. The officials and others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The shift under Patel has struck directly at the Five Eyes relationship through the removal of senior agents who spent years fighting Islamic extremists or blunting counterintelligence threats alongside operatives from allied countries.

The FBI declined to comment on the director’s discussions with McCallum. A representative of the British home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, whom McCallum reports to, said her office does not comment on intelligence matters.

“In all of my life – 32 years in the business – I have never seen a law enforcement or intelligence organisation like the bureau be directed to go after people purely on political, vindictive reasons,” said Phil Gurski, a former analyst with Canada’s intelligence and cryptologic agencies. “In a Western democracy, that’s unheard of. It’s every day in Russia and China.”

Patel, who lacked the deep experience of his predecessors and is unabashedly partisan, has had a rocky introduction to his Five Eyes allies.

On a visit to New Zealand in July, he brought plastic 3D-printed replica pistols as gifts to senior national security officials, but they were illegal under local laws and had to be destroyed.

“To ensure compliance with firearms laws, I instructed police to retain and destroy them,” New Zealand’s police commissioner, Richard Chambers, told the Associated Press, which previously reported on the episode.

Patel had gone to Wellington to open a new FBI office, an initiative that former agents had questioned as the bureau faces budget deficits.

He also visited Australia, where he had suspended the bureau’s top representative in that country because she had taken a knee during racial justice protests in 2020. He later fired her.

The FBI’s relationship with MI5 is arguably the most important in Five Eyes, a bond that dates back to at least 1938, when the two agencies investigated a hairdresser from Glasgow, Scotland, for providing military secrets to the Germans. The two agencies work closely on many operations.

Awkward encounter

Patel’s trip to Britain in May was the kind of gathering that top national security officials regularly attend, a conference with other Trump administration officials and their Five Eyes peers to discuss such issues as counterterrorism and cybersecurity. Organisers also set aside time for the principals to meet and discuss specific investigations, as well as to get acquainted.

Held at South Lodge, a luxury hotel in the Sussex countryside that boasts Michelin-starred cuisine, the event was code-named “Gold Sycamore” by British officials.

Patel’s visit started awkwardly even before he arrived.

Slated to land at Stansted Airport outside London, he sought to fly to an airport closer to the hotel. British officials denied the request, making clear that dignitaries must use Stansted for security reasons, according to one of the former officials and another person familiar with the interactions.

They said that during the trip, the Royalty and Specialist Protection Command of the Metropolitan Police told the FBI that Patel’s security detail could not be armed. Britain has strict gun-control laws, and police limit armed details based on risk assessments. The police assessment on Patel found he didn’t meet the threshold for an exemption.

The details for the heads of the CIA and the National Security Agency were armed, another US official said. That discrepancy prompted an emergency meeting between the FBI and British security officials. The British officials held firm.

An FBI official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, denied that there had been a dispute over arming Patel’s detail. He acknowledged that the director had in the past pressed people on why FBI details weren’t always granted allowances that other agencies got, but that he was seeking equal treatment for them, not for himself. The official also said the discussions about flying into Gatwick involved a scheduling issue.

The conference had a detailed agenda. Patel complained about the number of meetings, one of the former officials said, a well-known gripe of his. The FBI official said Patel did not object to meetings but rather was trying to figure out which ones were essential so he could fit in other important work.

The gathering was relatively informal, but even so, Patel surprised other attendees when he arrived wearing a trucker hat and a green hooded sweatshirt, the former US official said. Patel frequently attends official events without wearing a suit, breaking with FBI tradition.

McCallum, a Scot known for his discretion and mild manner, who was close to Patel’s predecessor, Christopher Wray, was waiting.

When McCallum asked Patel to keep the agent’s key position in London, Patel told him that it would not go away and that money would be found to keep the agent in London, according to two of the former US officials familiar with the episode.

But the funding for that position had already been cut before Patel left for Britain. It was not clear whether Patel was aware of this at the time he made the pledge to MI5, though his aides had been briefed beforehand about the cut, the two former officials said.

Patel ultimately refused to reallocate funding for the role because of the costs associated with it, according to three of the current and former US officials.

Before leaving Britain, Patel and his girlfriend joined the other security and intelligence officials for a dinner at Windsor Castle with King Charles III, according to two of the former officials. At the end of the night, the group gathered for a photograph. Patel stood next to the King.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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