Bulwark Takes - Iran Hacks Kash Patel's Emails

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

Sam Stein and Tim Miller give their takes on the latest fiasco for FBI Director Kash Patel after Iran-linked hackers breached his email and released a trove of personal messages and photos. From embarrassing photos during a trip to Cuba to serious counterintelligence concerns, it’s another brutal moment for a guy already struggling to prove he’s up for the job.

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Cannot be combined with any other offer. Hey, everyone, it's me Sam Stein. Manjigin at the Bullwark. I'm here with Tim Miller. And we have been the loving recipients of a leak, I guess. No, a hack. A hack of FBI directors, Cash Patel's photos and a resume. That's what we know of now by the Iranians. This is all relatively new. We're just sort of sorting through the stuff. But basically, and Tim can pick up in a second, Early this morning, word began trickling out on the internet that the Iranians had hacked Cash Patel. The group that did it is called the Handela Hack Team. Have you heard of them before, Tim?

Only like a week or two ago because they were in the news about some other hacks that they were engaging in. Okay. And they've gotten information that deals with Cash's life from prior to this administration up to about 2018. We'll go through some of the pictures in the resume. but Tim, you made a very important and keen insight when we were talking about this beforehand, which is it's not particularly great when you have compromise on the FBI director. Yeah, I mean, we're at war with Iran, and the FBI director is the point person for counterintelligence against foreign adversaries at home.

And so if the foreign adversaries are successfully hacking him, this is sensibly in charge of counterintelligence, and they have information now over a 10-year period from his email. And we should say that a justice court official confirmed that Patel's email had been breached and that the material published online appeared authentic. I'm trying to show you. And so, look, I mean, we don't know exactly what is in that material. I mean, cash definitely seems like the kind of person that between 2010 and 2019

might have been doing some things that he would not want into the public sphere. I'd have had some communications. He would not want the public sphere. And who knows? Just imagine for any person, imagine if your email over a 10-year period was hacked, especially if it was from like six years ago. Think about what kind of embarrassing, like forget the prurient stuff. Like just think about what kind of embarrassing, you know, takes you would have had or opinion.

You know, who knows? Like there could be a wide variety of types of compromise now that the, I don't know what the Iranian word is for compromise. So we're just going to stick with the Russian word. they've got it now. They've got a cash of cash material, if you will. And yeah, there you go. Sorry, I was doing my best Will Salatam. But yeah, no, it's bad.

And it's mostly just embarrassing. I mean, I think it's also embarrassing in the context of something we talked a little bit yesterday with the trio of just cash has been an utter failure. Like, just thought of in the context of if you are a MAGA person that was really excited about, you know, the FBI, you know, finally being in control. of Trump's allies so they could root out the people in the deep state that had been going after Trump over all these years that had, you know, gone after Trump and his family, gone after MAGA Americans. Like this is their frame, their theory of the case. There had been this large conspiracy going after Trump. They finally had their guy at the charge of the FBI. And since he's been there, there's been an assassination of a leading MAGA commentator and Charlie Kirk.

And there's conspiracies over what exactly happened there. Cash has been totally unable to successfully indict or prosecute or uncover evidence of any of the conspiracies that they've advanced. They have, you know, the enemies list is nobody, no checkmarks on the enemies list, at least as far as the FBI is concerned. And now, you know, he's had the embarrassing videos of him like doing shotgunning beers in the hockey team locker room. We had the embarrassing story that Will Summer wrote about, about using the plane that we all pay for to fly around his girlfriend. She can sing at semi-pro wrestling matches. And now his like accountant has been hacked by the Iranians. It's just like L after L after L for cash.

In addition to the actual potential security concerns about him being compromised by our foe. So that's my general take on this. And we don't know what the hell's in this cash. We'll get to the pictures in a second because the pictures that that had been put up as of now. And this is 1145 a.m. on a Friday. They're just like Kim, it would appears to be.

in Cuba, like looking at cars hanging out. He appears intoxicated in a few of these sniffing cigars. They're just like kind of doing stupid things, making funny faces. But this is the issue is that the reputation around Patel at this point, the real knock on him beyond just his ineffectualness is that he's just not a serious person, right? It's like he doesn't take the job seriously. To your point, he's in locker rooms with the hockey team trying to be one of the boys. He's like jetting around and going to his girlfriend's performances and calling her a sensation.

It's like he's not taking the job particularly seriously is, I think, the real knock. And you even see some of those podcasts bros being like, why is he doing this? Like, why is he in the locker room? And so that's where this comes in. So let's put up some of these pictures. Like, again, this is up until 2018. And it's just him kind of like duden out in Cuba. it appears. So, like, here's him just sniffing a cigar with his eyes completely glazed over.

There's him in what looks like a hotel room, passed out with a cigar in his mouth. I mean, look, to your point, Tim, take any slice of my inbox from any point in, like, the late 20s, early 30s, maybe even last week. And you'll find embarrassing shit. But I'm not the FBI director. You're not the FBI director. And once you become the FBI director, you would presume that there would be security precautions put in place. That you would. Yes. You know what I mean?

Or if you can't put security cautions in place because it's a Gmail account, you know, then you would just get rid of all of your past, you know, messages and accounts. Like, you don't, cash doesn't need to be saving on the cloud, pictures of him partying in Cuba, right? Like, that's, like, there's,

there's no value in having that anymore. And so, like, look, there are processes and procedures. for doing this. And so it shows his own seriousness. It also, again, shows the weakness of the U.S. and the vulnerability to asymmetric attacks right now. And I think that all this stuff compiles on the original sin of this war, which is that nobody knows what it's for or why we're doing it. Well, explain that. Why does this? Because it's just like, look, I think that, like, let's say that there was a real acute security issue, right? Like, that the Iranians had tried to use

a ballistic missile on us and we had intercepted it or whatever. There had been some terrorist attack that was state sponsored. And then, you know, they said, you know, we got to take out this regime. They're real threat. And then the war starts and we're kind of thrust into it. And, you know, then like shit happens in war. You know, like shit happens. Like the FBI director gets attacked, you know, there are other lone wolf attacks. I think that the American people look at that and say, okay, like that is, you know, something that happens when you have to respond to a threat from an external country. That's not what happened here. Like nobody understands why we're doing this. Like there's no point. They can't offer a coherent explanation for why they're doing it.

There's no material benefit to the U.S. Nobody felt materially threatened by Iran. And so now it's just like these embarrassments are are accentuated. You know, it's just like now like we chose this. We picked the time of this war. And yet simultaneously, the FBI fired their Iranian experts. And then a week after that, the FBI director gets hacked and embarrassing pictures of him, you know, broling out and being all faded in Cuba, are released by Iranian hackers. It just makes us look like we're losers in the B team. And this is pathetic and embarrassing. And that is a real issue for these guys. And if you look at the kind of Joe Kent podcast tour, when you mention the podcast, bros, you're sensing that tone in that. interviews that he's doing. Where people who had been supportive of MAGA are going, what is, like, what is this?

Like, this is a cluster five. Yeah. And there's definitely a lack of sobriety around it. I mean, it's not just, you know, the leaking of the emails, which they should obviously not have, this should not have happened. It's like, I find it always when Pete Higgseth is briefing and this sort of like obvious co-splay that he's doing about tough guy warrior shit. And it's just like, I don't think they understand how.

lame that looks and how defensive it looks and how insecure, right? Like, I guess I see your point there where it's just like you don't need to pretend to be tough. You just need to actually do the job, except we don't really know what the job is in this case. Last bit on this. One of the things that was leaked was Cash Patel's resume from this time period, listing his apartment in D.C., his Gmail address and his cell phone number, listing the security clearance, he got listing the jobs that he held prior to 2000 and this got to be 2018 because it's 2017 to present.

Yeah. Nothing crazy in here other than the fact that his email and cell phone are released. I will say we called the cell phone number. We're not going to put it up on the screen. One ring straight to voicemail. Maybe someone's just get, I do feel bad if someone took over his old cell phone number is just getting bombarded right now. But yeah, I don't know if anything jumped out to you.

a Long Island. Shout out to 516. It's a 516 area. It's embarrassing. Again, it's embarrassing for the FBI director's resume to be put out there. Like, it's like he's some college kid who is just, you know, polishing up his, you know, what his various internships are. So you can get a job at DC. Like, the whole thing is just embarrassing. Did he like proficient at like Spanish? Yeah, proficient in Excel. Proficient at word. And you said that's the last one, but this one. It's like, curious in, what is he wearing in this? This yellow, it's like a the hat? What is that hat?

What is that hat? I don't know. This man is in charge of our security. It's just like, look at this picture. This man is in charge of the counterintelligence for the country with the Iranians. And this is a job that Bob Mueller had, that Christopher Ray had. These are serious people, you know, and it's a serious

job. It's a job for serious people. Like, this is a fine picture if you're going to be a podcaster. You know, you're goofy. Yeah. But like, you know, it just, it seems like another L for him and the Iranians have one over on him. And everybody's just got to kind of hold on to our hats. Because, like, do you feel, is there any, could you have, have you had less confidence in our ability to prepare for some kind of attack on the homeland than you have in this minute right now?

No. No, I've thought about that. It's hard, it's hard to think about, but no, it feels very precarious, to be honest. honest. All right, buddy, well, I appreciate this. I'm sure this is not the last chapter. There's no way they hacked the emails from this period of time, and this is all they have. Yeah, no, there's more. There's more to come. There's more. Yeah. Okay. We'll see. All right, folks, thanks for watching. Appreciate it. Subscribe to the feed. We get stuff like this. Tim, talk to you later, bud. Bye, buddy. Peace.