Patel Suspends FBI Official Who Helped Lead ‘Russian Collusion’ Probe
News April 13, 2025 · Comments off
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The FBI has placed an anti-Trump analyst on administrative leave who was on what Director Kash Patel has referred to as his “enemies list,” according to a Friday report.
The New York Times reported that the analyst, Brian Auten, was suspended last week, according to sources familiar with the situation who requested anonymity.
Mr. Auten worked on two major investigations that angered Mr. Trump and Mr. Patel, including the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election. He was also involved in analyzing the information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, a discovery that roiled the 2020 presidential campaign,” the Times reported.
“The suspension of Mr. Auten came after he and others had been disciplined for serious mistakes found in the F.B.I.’s applications for a secret surveillance warrant involving a former Trump campaign adviser,” the Times added.
The Russian collusion case was found to be based largely on false information and originated within then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, several probes found. None of the allegations have been proven.
The so-called dossier offered up by former British spy Christopher Steele was also widely discredited via multiple investigations. Finally, the FBI obtained Hunter Biden’s laptop about a year before the 2020 election and failed to move on it. Information found on the device which also appeared to implicate his father, then-Vice President and later President Joe Biden, was found to be valid, but the bureau never moved on any of it nor sought arrests.
The Biden Justice Dept. did, however, go after others who were involved in several business deals with the Bidens selling influence, including former Hunter partner Devon Archer, whom Trump has since pardoned.
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Contents of the laptop were first reported by the New York Post in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election. The Post’s story was censored on social media, and its then-Twitter account locked while most major media outlets, including the Times, echoed the false claim that the laptop contained “Russian disinformation.”
In May 2024, the Biden administration shut down a national security group located within the Department of Homeland Security, some of whose members denied the Hunter Biden laptop story in response to a lawsuit from a conservative organization.
The Epoch Times reported that in September 2023, DHS established the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group to offer guidance on intelligence and national security policy. In November, the Trump-aligned America First Legal (AFL) and former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell filed a lawsuit against the DHS, the group, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, arguing that the experts’ group violated provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
Section 5 of FACA requires that any advisory committee be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view” while mandating there be provisions to ensure that “the advice and recommendations of the advisory committee will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interest.”
But the lawsuit argued that “the Experts Group’s members are political allies of the Biden Administration. Most members have applauded the Administration’s decisions and fervidly condemned former President Trump’s America First approach to foreign policy.”
“They have overwhelmingly donated to President Biden or other Democrats. Defendant Mayorkas selected members that are agreeable, not balanced,” it stated.
Several members of the group were also among the signatories of a letter that dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation, the outlet reported.
