With four weeks until Election Day, the FBI released a campaign-season video to social media this week that was decidedly unsubtle in its glorification of Kash Patel, the bureau’s troubled director. That was not, however, what made the video controversial.

Though the FBI is ostensibly apolitical, the two-minute clip, posted Tuesday, also condemned “democratic socialist leaders” and called out a series of prominent Democrats by name, including Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, who just happens to be the Democratic nominee in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races.

The bureau’s ad, which happened to be released as the early voting window started to open in several states, went on to condemn progressive policies on criminal justice as a “complete failure,” which is certainly in line with Republican Party talking points but isn’t exactly bolstered by evidence.

A report in The New Republic added, “Federal law clearly prohibits the use of government funds for campaign purposes, partisan political messaging, and propaganda. A wildly inaccurate attack ad against a Democratic candidate would more than count under all three of these categories — and it’s more than a little ironic that the FBI’s latest video preaching law and order likely violated federal law.”

And then something unexpected happened: Two days after the video was posted, the FBI took it down without explanation.

It’s probably best not to read too much into the developments. But at least for now, it appears the FBI heard the complaints that the bureau was running afoul of federal ethics laws and acted.

The Hill cited subject-matter experts who agreed the video ran afoul of electioneering laws. From the report:

“Although the video does not direct viewers to vote for or against a candidate, its message that the candidates’ policies ‘failed’ and ‘Americans were left exposed’ is advocacy against their election that violates the Hatch Act,” Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), wrote on the social platform X.

“The video’s mention of El-Sayed as ‘Progressive Democrat, Senate Nominee’ clearly invokes the election. He is not a current gov’t official & his inclusion has no other purpose than to advocate for success or failure of a partisan candidate — a clear Hatch Act violation.”

Delaney Marsco, director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, added, “If you are referencing political parties in a gratuitous way, in an inflammatory way, if it’s made close to an election, if it’s framed as an attack on a political party, that’s going to be political activity, and you need to be aware of how that’s going to run afoul of the Hatch Act. … It shouldn’t shock anyone that this is not compliant with the Hatch Act.”

For now, the FBI has not commented on the video or its removal from social media platforms. I have a hunch we haven’t heard the last of this one.

The post Kash Patel’s FBI removes video that looked quite a bit like an election season ad appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.