Kash Patel stays silent at Charlie Kirk assassination briefing with bureau under fire over manhunt

Kash Patel stood stone faced and silent as authorities in Utah gave a critical update in the manhunt for the assassin who shot and killed political influencer Charlie Kirk. 

Utah’s Republican Governor Spencer Cox presented a video of the shooting and urged the public to help track down the killer. 

The FBI director, who flew to Utah for the briefing, did not take questions or address the public. 

The former MAGA podcaster has come under increasing scrutiny over the blunders at the bureau in the aftermath of the shooting at Utah Valley University.

In the hours after the shooting, Patel wrongly said a suspect was in custody while critics have blasted him for gutting the FBI’s leadership in Salt Lake City prior to the shooting. 

Patel was mocked online as one commenter noted that the spy chief appeared to be a deer in headlights during the crucial press conference. 

‘Don’t worry guys Kash Patel is clearly on the case,’ the person wrote. 

‘I mean look at how he checks every last nook and cranny in the press conference room to see if the assassin might actually be there with them.’ 

Another called out Patel’s silence directly: ‘He flew all the way there and didn’t say a word. I don’t get it! Something else is going on!’ 

‘Zero questions and zero talking from Kash Patel. WTAF?’

Patel reportedly had a lot to say on an expletive-laden Thursday morning conference call about the shooting and decried the search to this point as a ‘Mickey Mouse operation.’ 

He slammed employees he claimed hadn’t given him up-to-date information and said the local FBI didn’t show him a photo of the suspected killer for 12 hours, The New York Times reported. 

A White House source, granted anonymity to discuss internal discussions, told Reuters Patel’s announcement unprofessional and said ‘his performance is really not acceptable to the White House or the American public’ and will be addressed. 

The White House said Patel had Trump’s backing and described Reuters’ reporting as despicable ‘when there’s a crazed killer still on the loose.’

‘This is a despicable story from anonymous sources clearly trying to sow distrust amongst the President’s team during a time of utmost unity,’ White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Reuters. 

‘Kash Patel is leading the manhunt to catch the killer of our friend, and everyone is supporting him and trying to be as helpful as possible during this effort, including the President of the United States.’

Patel faced heat earlier Thursday after it surfaced that he fired the ‘legendary’ special agent in charge of Utah’s FBI division just a month before she would have led the ongoing manhunt for Charlie Kirk’s assassin. 

The special agent in charge in Salt Lake City, Mehtab Syed, was pushed out of the role in August, despite former agents saying she was ‘absolutely the best’ in the bureau. 

‘Truly a humble servant leader who treats co-workers like family,’ former FBI agent Christopher O’Leary, an MSNBC national security contributor who worked with Syed, told NBC. 

‘And she’s a legendary case agent who was involved in some of the most significant national security cases of the last two decades,’ he added. 

Syed was fired just six months after she was appointed in February, with sources telling NBC that the reasons for her sacking were not clear. 

Associate Deputy Director J. William Rivers, who works for Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, reportedly told Syed that she wasn’t a good fit for the office. 

Syed was instead offered a lower-level job in the FBI field office in Huntsville, Alabama, but she decided to retire rather than take the demotion following a distinguished career. 

She previously held a number of significant FBI roles including head of cyberterrorism and counterterrorism in the Los Angeles field office, a section chief in counterintelligence at FBI headquarters, and assistant legal attaché in Pakistan during the height of the U.S. war against Al Qaeda. 

It comes as the country waits for any concrete updates on the killer’s whereabouts after nearly 36 fruitless hours searching.  

Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason told NBC News they have ‘no idea’ whether the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s shooting is still in Utah or across state lines.

‘We have no idea,’ Mason said when asked whether Kirk’s suspected shooter may still be close to the site of the shooting or even within state lines.

‘We’re exploring leads for individuals that live close by,’ he continued. ‘We literally have persons of interest, tips coming in on the tip line, that are spanning far and wide.’

The Utah Dept. of Public Safety has released additional images of the person of interest in Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

They show the suspect wearing a dark, long sleeved shirt with an American flag on the chest, a gray baseball cap and sunglasses.

He also carried a black backpack as he went up and down the stairs.

Newly-released surveillance footage shows the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination running across the roof of a building on campus.

Once he reaches the edge, the suspect climbs down and jumps onto the ground.

Authorities are now asking the public to be on the lookout for the suspect, noting he had a distinctive t-shirt and a baseball cap with a triangle on it.

‘We cannot do our job without the public’s help right now,’ Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said at a news conference Thursday night, adding that authorities have already received over 7,000 tips and have conducted more than 200 interviews. 

The chaos continues just a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk, 31, was fatally shot at Utah Valley University.