MAGA betrayal? Kash Patel appoints J6 ‘terrorist’ hunter to key position

FBI Director Kash Patel has made it clear that he rejects the mainstream narrative that January 6 was a massive insurrection and has even suggested that the FBI played a role in inciting the event.

These sentiments stand in stark contrast to his recent appointment of Steven Jensen as the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Jensen’s past role as Section Chief of the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, in which he labeled January 6 protesters "terrorists," leading to aggressive efforts to arrest them, has sparked widespread controversy.

“This comes as a shock to conservatives who were counting on FBI director Kash Patel to clean up the bureau, because Jensen was a key figure in the domestic terror push against January 6 protesters,” says “Blaze News Tonight’s” Jill Savage.

To get the inside scoop on this strange appointment, Jill speaks with Blaze Media investigative journalist Steve Baker, who co-authored a recent article with Joe Hanneman on this subject.

“What should we make of this decision to have Steve Jensen out there in the Washington Field Office?” Jill asks.

“This is the most confounding thing to come out of the administration thus far, especially out of the new FBI, the new Department of Justice. As you know, we expected and we hoped that Kash and Dan Bongino collectively would be a wrecking ball in that agency,” says Baker. “That's what they alluded to and told us that they would do in so many interviews and in Kash Patel's own book.”

Jensen’s appointment is causing many conservatives to recant their former endorsements. Even leftist outlets are pointing out the hypocrisy. Baker says the New York Times admitted that Jensen’s appointment “seemed to be kind of contrary to what Kash Patel has promised the MAGA movement, the Trump supporters, and the J6 community.”

To make matters worse, the hiring was done covertly. It was an email leak that publicized the controversy.

“He was already an employee, but it was not announced in any way. This was done kind of surreptitiously under the cover of darkness. Nobody announced it; there was no press release; there was no announcement from Kash Patel or any other FBI spokesman,” says Baker.

“It wasn't until we caused a ruckus through our X thread … that [the Washington Field Office] finally responded and said, ‘just go check the website,’ and we did…and Steven Jensen's name has been added as assistant director in charge.”

Now that the news is out, conservatives across the country are raging.

Jensen’s role in the investigation and prosecution of January 6 protesters destroyed a lot of lives, says Baker, who knows a thing or two about being victimized by a weaponized DOJ for his January 6 attendance as an investigative journalist.

“We're talking about misdemeanor defendants, nonviolent defendants, families that were raided by FBI SWAT teams at 6:30 in the morning, guns up on their family, on their children, on their wives,” he reflects.

“People lost their homes; they lost their jobs, their careers; they were kicked out of their churches; they lost their marriages — all manner of family destruction and lives that were ruined as a result of this process, and this guy was at the actual forefront. He was the tip of the spear in the agency that was seeing this forward.”

On top of that, Jensen also was part of these “twice daily phone calls” that began two days after January 6, in which the FBI spoke with local and state police, governor's mansions, and mayoral residences and offices from every city in America to give them the official J6 “narrative, marching order, and agenda.”

“This was a national forum for which they were able to indoctrinate all of the law enforcement agencies across the country, the mayor's offices, the governors across the country, and teach them, tell them, and show them how to go out and prosecute these individuals,” says Baker.

Thus far, it’s been crickets from Kash Patel. Bongino has posted a cryptic “trust the plan” memo without ever addressing Jensen directly.

“They are obviously ignoring it for some reason,” Baker says.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

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