Friend (of) Mine

“It would be an understatement to say that I had not expected this. In fact, I was in the midst of preparing for a potential move to Washington, D.C. to take on a new position at FBI headquarters. But, it turned out, I had made a terrible mistake: I had remained friends with someone who had appeared on Kash Patel’s enemies list. How did Bongino find out about this private friendship? I honestly don’t know. What business was it of his? None at all. Was I accused of any sort of misconduct? No. It didn’t matter.” Michael Feinberg on his resignation from the FBI. Goodbye to All That.

+ As we lose the decent people, the least decent rise to positions of extreme power. NYT (Gift Article): The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller. “Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who reportedly accompanied Mr. Miller on his visit to ICE headquarters, seems to defer to him. ‘It’s really Stephen running D.H.S.,’ a Trump adviser said. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, is so focused on preparing for and appearing on Fox News that she has essentially ceded control of the Department of Justice to Mr. Miller, making him, according to the conservative legal scholar Edward Whelan, ‘the de facto attorney general.’ And in a White House where the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is not well versed or terribly interested in policy — ‘She’s producing a reality TV show every day,’ another Trump adviser said, ‘and it’s pretty amazing, right?’ — Mr. Miller is typically the final word.”