The After-Action Report

The After-Action Report

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The After-Action Report
The After-Action Report
More on Kash Patel and the SEAL Team Six hostage rescue

More on Kash Patel and the SEAL Team Six hostage rescue

The story of a 2020 hostage rescue explains why so many cabinet secretaries felt the man Trump picked to run the FBI was a danger.

Seth Hettena's avatar
Seth Hettena
Feb 11, 2025
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The After-Action Report
The After-Action Report
More on Kash Patel and the SEAL Team Six hostage rescue
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Kash Patel’s Official 2020 Portrait

This article is available to everyone, but please consider upgrading your subscription for $5/month. In addition to making my writing here sustainable, you’ll get full access to my archive and The Ice Man, a book I’ve published on Substack about a Navy SEAL platoon that took the fall for a CIA murder.

Kash Patel has said a lot of things unbefitting an FBI director.

It’s one thing to declare on a podcast that you’re going to “come after” journalists or blurt out the FBI “brazenly rigged the 2020 election” in a social media post that you can later claim was “taken out of context,” a phrase that appears 18 times in Patel’s written responses to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It’s a different matter—and one that Patel will consistently encounter if he’s confirmed as FBI director—when his words have life-or-death implications.

This is why I’ve been paying attention to how Patel has handled questions about his bungling of a SEAL Team Six resc…

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