Interesting, and not all that implausible. The real test: his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that bears out.

If they wanted to maintain access, they certainly wouldn't celebrate it publicly, which is why I assume they want to release information. But, there shouldn't be anything damning to release. ie, there ought not to be if the director is acting professionally. We'll see how the facts bear out. I also suppose it's possible they're just going for any win they can and there's nothing interesting here whatsoever, or it's a really boring secondary address or something.

▲ throwaway27448 a day ago | parent | next [-]

I think this is actually the opposite of the correct conclusion—just look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal). I seriously doubt that Kash Patel doesn't have a bunch of skeletons to dust off and show the world; the man is a weirdo (much like the rest of the administration).

EDIT: I actually misread the comment; I think we're likely in agreement. My bad.

▲ Jare a day ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know, these days skeletons seem to be treated as funny decoration and we're in a permanent state of Halloween.

	▲	redanddead a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sullying Halloween's good name
	▲	scrollop an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Trump doesn't have a few skeletons in his closest, he boasts a series of catacombs.

▲ aqme28 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think theirs was the right conclusion, but for the wrong reason. If there was anything really damning, Iran would rather use that as leverage.

The fact that they released it publicly means that the most embarrassing part of it is just the hack in itself.

	▲	ikr678 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If I was Iran I'd leak the innocuous stuff first to let them know I had access to potentially more damning things, to try and force the US to the table.

▲ _fat_santa a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was just reading a X thread that published some of the more notable things and overall it's pretty innocuous. The most "controversial" thing thus far is he took a trip to Cuba

▲ nixon_why69 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd like to chime in and say that that Kash Patel, while completely unprofessional and incompetent, is way less of a weirdo than the rest of the administration.

His scandals are all about shirking job responsibilities to party and sightsee. That's not great from the FBI director but its way more normal than the rest of them.

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embedding-shape a day ago | parent | next [-]

I dunno, a sitting FBI director testifying under oath about details that are clearly false, goes above and way beyond "to party and sightsee". At least in my world it puts him up there together with the rest of the weirdos.

	▲	kelipso 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		A sitting FBI director testifying under oath about details that are clearly false is tradition at this point.

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mikeyouse a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's not remotely true of his history.. he's a full on Jan-6er, deep into Q-Anon, he was involved in numerous serious scandals during the first Trump admin (Nunes Memo / Russiagate 'parallel' investigation: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-men...), he has a number of sketchy moneymaking side-businesses, he was formerly living with a GOP megadonor 'Timeshare Tycoon' as roommates in Vegas (https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/trump-fbi-pick-kash...), he collected enemies' lists for Trump which resulted in firing of most of the Iran counterintel team right before we started launching attacks because they had the termerity to investigate why Trump was showing donors top-secret maps of Iran after he left office..

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quantified 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the current environment, those are more expecteds than scandalous. Insider trades around government activities, same-sex behavior, overt racism for example might nudge the needle.

	▲	sysguest 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yeah that world-event gambling stuff gotta stop... I mean, if I can send troops, I would bet on sending troops, wont I? those gamblers who aren't Trump or any 'event initiators themselves' must be idiots of extraordinary quality

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a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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nixon_why69 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not defending or advocating for the guy, just saying, if you're gonna be a piece of shit, he seems more relatable than the rest of them.

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Hikikomori 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How can you way that with a straight face when this book exists.

https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/19555...

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nixon_why69 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I did not know about that book, yeah that is cringe.

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sysguest 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

idk if you have to dig in and link to some amazon link...

this iran hack is a dismal propaganda failure...

nothing much to see I guess

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Hikikomori 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Dig in? Was already aware of his book, and he's made many more weird books. Trump's cabinet are all weird little goblins, some more Nazi than others, like Miller.

	▲	sysguest an hour ago \| parent [-]
		isn't that "hackers" supposed to get some unknown secret scandalous stuff? if you're digging amazon FOR them, what's the point of their activity? and by "digging", yes it's digging because is that link THE FIRST RECOMMENDED THING from amazon? gosh I didn't even say "trump cabinet is the best and perfect"... ...damn did you get like 300 on SAT reading?

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bjourne 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

90% of US media is not aligned with the Democrats and as such they do not possess the same power to manufacture outrage as the Republicans do.

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nickburns a day ago | parent | prev [-]

So you mean to point out that the sitting FBI director is a bro's bro.

▲ ChrisMarshallNY 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My favorite explanation of the Petraeus scandal: https://vimeo.com/100348256

	▲	cindyllm 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

▲ austin-cheney 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Like what? We have two presidents, including the current one, that took multiple trips to a pedophile island. What skeletons could be greater than accusations of punching a child in the face after they bit the dude’s penis during forced sodomy?

▲ Amezarak 3 hours ago | parent [-]

There is no credible evidence that either of the Presidents you alluded to visited "the island". It's amazing to see conspiracy theories promulgated on HN.

▲ austin-cheney 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There is lots of evidence that these two presidents were on the pedophile island many times, and one of their wives. That is well established.

There is no evidence released to the public directly linking those two men to specific sex acts by name. There is unnamed evidence released by the US DOJ specifically describing the assault I described in the prior comment. Again, none of this is theoretical, conspiracy, or conjecture. It’s in the documents released by the government that the government has confirmed as authentic.

	▲	Amezarak 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No doubt you are aware that the claims about Clinton originated with the founder of the Epstein Mythos, Virginia Giuffre, who we know for a fact was a serial confabulator. While she was inarguably one of Epstein's victims, she also made several claims that were demonstrably untrue, she could not keep her own stories straight, the FBI concluded internally that she was totally unreliable and that she was even lying about what the FBI told her, other victims contradicted her, and she was herself forced to recant on several subjects, including admitting that her "autobiography" book was a work of fiction. If you doubt me, feel free to read the FBI memo about her. In the case of both Clinton and Trump, there is no evidence that either of them visited Little St. James, and plenty of evidence otherwise - for example, Epstein even says so about Clinton in an email. > It’s in the documents released by the government that the government has confirmed as authentic. The documents are "authentic" in that yes, a real schizo did really tell the government he heard it secondhand 30 years ago that this happened and also that he discovered Hilary Clinton was behind the WTC bombing. (For some reason, people like you always leave that part of the bombshell revelations out.) I am for total transparency generally, but this whole saga has been a major disappointment for me in that the level of public discourse is so lazy and low that its clear that in a purely utilitarian way, it would have been better to not release it. Hopefully long-term the sacrifice of many people whose reputations are being destroyed over little or nothing is worth it. Every crank call about celebrities is being treated as gospel.

▲ defrost 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Remarkable that Epstein confined his pedophile activities to a single location.

No, wait:

  In 2008, Epstein reached a plea deal with prosecutors after the parents of a 14-year-old girl told Florida police that Epstein had molested their daughter at his Palm Beach home.

Hmm ... would that be the same Palm Beach home that Trump visited a good many times back when he was best of chums with Jeffrey and sending him the nude outline sketches?

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Amezarak 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Remarkable that Epstein confined his pedophile activities to a single location

Correct, the vast majority of his criminal activity appeared to be in his Palm Beach home and in New York, where he recruited high dozens to hundreds of high school girls for his personal sexualized massages. It actually appears only a very small amount of his illicit activity ever took place on the island, which makes it all the more ironic that's what the conspiracy theorists focus on.

I was willing to be more than openmminded about the conspiracists' mass trafficking ring (ie, beyond the two people charged) angle, but the ironic thing is about the Epstein files is they revealed it was almost all smoke. Of course, in the conspirational mindset, all contradicting evidence is actually, secretly, when you apply the correct hermeutics, even more damning, or else evidence of a coverup.

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defrost 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> the ironic thing is about the Epstein files is they revealed it was almost all smoke.

and a few massive conspiracy shaped holes - eg: the references to missing content regarding Trump and a few other. Oh, and the shortfall between what has been released Vs what has been indexed, the black paging, and the hints from those that have seen but are sworn to not tell about that which they have seen but cannot recount.

Still, at least we seem to agree that PedoIsland is a misdirect when it comes to determining who did what to whom and where.

I can't see Pam Bondi coming clean here anytime soon.

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Amezarak 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> the hints from those that have seen but are sworn to not tell about that which they have seen but cannot recoun

The people who were victimized by anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell could come forward at any time, just as dozens of Epstein's victims have. They have some of the highest-powered civil lawyers in America, hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement funds available, and vast swaths of the country behind them.

That they haven't should tell you something.

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ziml77 an hour ago | parent [-]

It tells me that they are afraid of their safety and the safety of their families. They would risking backlash from a billionaire who loves intimidation tactics, who currently has the highest amount of power of any individual in the US, and who has nutty followers who would act on his behalf and let him pretend he was not at all happy about what they are doing.

The people who have come forward about Epstein's abuses have little to worry about because that man is dead and he's a perfect scapegoat for all the the other ultra-rich who took part in the abuses.

	▲	Amezarak 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		If you’re talking about Trump, you may remember that E Jean Carroll won a lawsuit against him. She’s walking the earth and continuing to live a public life. And again, millions of dollars are available from settlement funds if Epstein was involved, there’s already some of the best lawyers in the country begging to represent you, and there’s people volunteering to pay for your security needs. You’re also ignoring the many victims that came out before Epstein died. This is just an excuse to perpetuate the conspiracy theories. It doesn’t hold water. And of course if anything was released from super secret “the files” they’re definitely still covering up, they’d become publicly known. Surely you see how this line of reasoning is identical to that of any other conspiracy or moral panic.

▲ close04 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was

Those times have passed. I'll restate what I said in a comment some days ago:

>> 50 years ago the press was "impeaching" presidents. Today presidents are "impeaching" the press

The current strategy is "keep the outrage hose on full blast and eventually people get desensitized". It works.

	▲	mc32 a day ago \| parent [-]
		The press was stupid. They were doing stupid gotchas like swiftboats, fake reports on GWB (Dan Rather), but couldn’t care less about things like the CIA and the crack cocaine connection[1], or lots of other things the government gets away with (including Clappers total information awareness unconstitutional surveillance efforts) The press is always carrying water for someone but that someone is rarely the public unless is just pure coincidence. [1] there was one reporter who dared but the toll from the story resulted in his suicide, some years later. His colleagues poo-pooed his reporting on the connection.

▲ treebeard901 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe the hackers will release information connecting Patel to the Noem and Lewandowski grift operations with govt contracts. Out of the four companies allowed to bid for the $220 million advertising contract, 3 were linked to Noem and Lewandowski and one to Patel.

Im sure they are all doing it...

	▲	sysguest 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		well if you're listing your hopes, not talking from what those hackers brought... that just means the operation is a dismal failure -- nothing to see this really undermines iran hackers' claims regarding 'big things' on trump administration
	▲	MyHonestOpinon a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Well, if the president sets the example. What can you expect from the rest ?

▲ hypeatei a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is so much corruption and impropriety in this administration that skeletons don't matter anymore. Looking at what sunk officials in previous administrations provides a sense for just how far gone we are, but it's not an indicator of what future consequences will be.

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Loughla 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Dan Quayle lost a serious bid because he couldn't spell potato.

Now look at where we're at. It really is wild. Right, wrong, or indifferent. How far we've shifted is absolutely wild.

	▲	throwaway27448 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Dan Quayle also had the charisma of a potato. Let's not overfit this curve.

▲ stronglikedan a day ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

	▲	snapcaster a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This simping is such a bad look. Why go to bat for a man who wouldn't piss on you to put out a fire? Act like a man jesus christ
	▲	thejazzman a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Trump is currently in office ;)

▲ tencentshill a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Surely we are currently clean on OPSEC. There couldn't be any precedent for government officials using private email servers for confidential information!

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vessenes a day ago | parent [-]

obligatory - that first famous private server was done because someone wanted a blackberry like Obama had, and was told no by NSA. Man that BB keyboard was good.

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the_why_of_y 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That can't be the first one. Colin Powell used a personal email account during the GWB administration.

https://www.npr.org/2016/09/08/493133413/colin-powells-ways-...

Of course that pales in comparison with the practices of the GWB White House:

https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/george-w-bush-white-hous...

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bookofjoe a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Check this out (can't wait til mine arrives): https://www.clicks.tech/

	▲	connorgurney 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I’ve been using a Clicks case since the early days and have personally loved every second of it but it’s definitely an acquired taste. Let us know how you find it.

▲ rurp a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are we talking about the same FBI director here? Professional and competent are not how I would describe Kash Patel. Given his overt buffoonishness and the whole administration's disdain for procedure and expertise I would be shocked if he didn't have extremely inappropriate content in his inbox.

	▲	conception a day ago \| parent [-]
		I believe “if” is doing a tremendous amount of work in parent’s comment.

▲ renegade-otter 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But his girlfriend, though...

https://www.tabletmag.com/the-scroll/articles/march-25-kash-...

▲ firefax a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA

medical diagnoses can be incredibly useful in understanding past and future actions

>there shouldn't be anything damning to release. ie, there ought not to be if the director is acting professionally

that "if" is doing some heavy lifting given who we are discussing

▲ bitwank a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, the fact they announced it proves it’s nothing. I saw a picture of him smoking a cigar. We’ve already seen him drinking beer and acting foolish; probably enough to get you executed in Isfahan, but a giant nothining in the USA.

▲ embedding-shape a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that bears out.

Aren't these the same people who apparently used Signal with a journalist in the chat, and had military conversations in that very chat?

Color me surprised if these people haven't heard of opsec before, and mix their work/personal life all over the place.

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everdrive a day ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, and I wouldn't be shocked if there was classified information in there. I struggled with wording, but what I meant was "you're not supposed to be able to find classified or sensitive information in personal email, but I who knows what will be the case here."

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drnick1 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Aren't these the same people who apparently used Signal with a journalist in the chat, and had military conversations in that very chat?

Signal is one of the most secure communication platforms out there, but it is obviously not immune to human error or social engineering.

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mikeyouse a day ago | parent | next [-]

Also wildly illegal to use to conduct government business, especially confidential government business. (and yes the messages were auto-deleting and largely lost before anyone chimes in with technically they could be archived!)

	▲	nickburns a day ago \| parent [-]
		It was a custom (presumably DoD-approved) build. And the story gets much better than that: https://youtu.be/KFYyfrTIPQY&t=724

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krisoft 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Signal is one of the most secure communication platforms out there

That might be true amongst the communication platforms available for the average Joe. It is definietly not the most secure communication platform available for someone high ranking in the USA government.

> it is obviously not immune to human error or social engineering

Nothing is immune. But there are systems more and systems less prone to these issues.

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embedding-shape a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Ok? Signal is not the topic of my comment really, nor has anyone claimed it's less secure than other chat apps.

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throwa356262 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

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embedding-shape a day ago | parent | next [-]

> The investigation has led to turmoil within the Defense Department, raising tensions and the firings and resignations of several top DoD officials, including former Chief of Staff Joe Kasper. [...] On May 1, 2025, it was revealed that both national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong would be leaving their posts in the National Security Council

Let me guess, the "leak" was intentional just to break a bunch of laws and to cause a bunch of people to get fired and leave their posts?

	▲	apercu a day ago \| parent [-]
		They do a lot of mental heavy lifting to support a corrupt and incompetent administration- sunk cost fallacy I imagine.

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Forgeties79 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The facts simply do not bear this interpretation out. Investigations and heads rolling for a stage whisper? Nah

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dmix a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Signal started being used during the Biden administration, the issue was how they were managing contacts which could be added to groups. They weren't carefully vetting access and a journalist with the same name as another military guy was added to the group by accident.

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apical_dendrite a day ago | parent [-]

Source?

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dmix a day ago | parent [-]

The public record of a contract to the Israeli company which handled archiving Signal chats for the DoD was done during Biden admin. And it's been well reported if you just Google it:

> Alexa Henning, spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, tweeted last week that “widespread use” of Signal began under the Biden administration, adding that “at ODNI, when I got my phone, it was pre-installed.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/02/inside-the-hazy-fra...

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apical_dendrite 21 hours ago | parent [-]

You're missing some key distinctions. The issues are: 1) putting classified information into a non-classified system; 2) putting information that needs to be preserved under laws like the presidential records act into systems where it's set to be auto-deleted. Both are illegal. Simply saying that the Biden administration pre-installed Signal is irrelevant. There are legitimate uses.

Your own article makes this exact point: > Matthew Shoemaker, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who left the agency in 2021, said that while Signal was used during his time in government, “it was almost exclusively restricted to scheduling purposes,” such as letting their boss know that they’ll be late to work because of personal circumstances. “That’s why Signalgate is all the more staggering — because these senior leaders were doing the exact opposite of what even my most junior intelligence officers knew not to do,” he said.

You're doing bullshit partisan whataboutism. "well the democrats did it first".

This has nothing to do with adding the wrong contacts. It has to do with putting highly-sensitive material into Signal to circumvent the law around records preservation and as a result creating a situation where it's possible to accidentally add the wrong contact and therefore exposing that information to a journalist.

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dmix 14 hours ago | parent [-]

> This has nothing to do with adding the wrong contacts. It has to do with putting highly-sensitive material into Signal to circumvent the law around records preservation

My comment above already mentions public records of the DoD contracting out archiving of the Signal chat, so it doesn't in fact circumvent laws around preservation.

> You're doing bullshit partisan whataboutism. "well the democrats did it first".

I don't think it's a huge sin for government workers to be using Signal, remote work and messaging is the new norm and they will use something whether we like it or not, and Signal is the least bad option. I don't blame the Biden DoD for experimenting down that road at all, as I'm skeptical they'd build something better internally - and to your hyperpolitical points I don't see large distinctions between these type of tech choices between administrations (the DoD staff largely remains the same even when presidents change).

The issue with encryption and security will always be human security practices come first-and-foremost, technology second. They failed an OPSEC checklist when using group chats and need to implement better identification management. That's the sort of lesson that large organizations frequently need to re-learn the hard way when adopting new (and often better) things.

This was just a good lesson in security hygiene

	▲	fc417fc802 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not clear on the verdict here. 1. Classified information. Was it legal to put that into the DoD approved Signal build? The media coverage at the time gave me the impression that it was not. 2. Records keeping. Were the Trump admin chats in question properly archived then? I had been led to believe that they weren't. Do you believe that to be incorrect? > I don't blame the Biden DoD for experimenting down that road at all The person you're replying to never criticized them for such.

▲ GorbachevyChase 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We’re not getting any juicy leaks from it because it’s just full of 20-year-old memes and meeting invites to look busy.

▲ BigTTYGothGF a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those "should"s are doing a lot of heavy lifting.

▲ a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲ JeremyNT a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The real test: his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news.

I have no idea why this would be the default assumption for somebody as sloppy and erratic as Patel. Look at how many people were emailing damning stuff to/from Epstein's personal email accounts from their own personal email accounts!

▲ a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲ lanevich a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

▲ a day ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]