Mediaite founder Dan Abrams called out FBI Director Kash Patel and the media after an alleged plot to attack government officials at the Freedom 250 UFC event was foiled.

On The Dan Abrams Show on Sirius XM, Abrams noted that he was surprised to see the slow reaction from the media to a story about an alleged plot to target government officials at Sunday’s Freedom 250 event, which included multiple UFC matches outside the White House.

Abrams noted that he first saw the story on Fox News on Wednesday morning and then later here at Mediaite. He argued the mainstream media was largely hesitant to cover the story until actual court documents were released because “they don’t believe” Patel. He also argued Patel has his own “back slapping” reasons for giving the story to Fox first.

Five men were arrested and charged over an alleged plot to carry out an attack and kill government officials at the UFC Freedom 250 fight on Sunday outside the White House. According to the Department of Justice, the men procured weapons and made plans to carry out their attack. They were arrested in Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, and California, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Patel said authorities became aware of the alleged threat on June 10, just days before the UFC event, which is part of a series of events to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.

The alleged plan involved involved deploying “drones armed with explosives in and around the UFC Freedom 250 event in order to force an evacuation of the event.” The alleged plot would then see snipers target “high value targets” as the event was being evacuated. A total of 23 people were identified as part of the alleged network of plotters.

Abrams read from the Fox article and noted it ignored the “political makeup” of those arrested as part of the plot.

He said:

You don’t know exactly what the political makeup/background is of these of these guys. Now, that story came at 6 a.m. I saw a story this morning at 7:30 on Mediaite, which I own, about “FBI identifies 23 in thwarted attack plot at UFC event.” And they cite Fox News for a lot of that information. And so I immediately look to see who else is covering it. I’m like, wow, how is no one else covering — or very few, not no one — why are so few other media entities covering what should be a mega story? 8:00, 8.30. Still almost no mainstream media coverage. Why? Because so many people have come to distrust Kash Patel. It’s that bad. People just don’t believe Kash Patel.

Abrams noted that Patel had a statement out about the alleged plot, but the media still largely ignored the story until 9 a.m. when federal court documents were released. Abrams argued Patel left out one major detail from the early report on the individuals arrested and that’s that they were “far right white nationalists.”

He said:

I get it. I’m not criticizing them. I get it. I don’t trust Kash Patel. But here’s another interesting wrinkle. He gave it to Fox News so they could shape it in a particular way, and that was success of FBI catching bad guys trying to attack the president, right? I mean, the last line of the Fox News piece says, “the alleged plot comes amid a growing series of threats and security incidents involving Trump and senior administration officials fueling heightened concerns about political violence.” And that’s true. But what they don’t say is that these were far right white nationalists.

Had the individuals been identified as extremists on the left, Abrams added, that detail would have been spread far and wide by the administration.

“That’s why the administration wanted to be very careful, because remember, anytime it’s someone on the left, it’s the first thing that they’re saying, oh, it’s a leftist, this is the problem, this is that the left is fomenting hate, et cetera,” he said.

Abrams also noted that a detail that seemed to be downplayed in Patel’s statement about the FBI’s actions is that one of the suspect’s mothers called the Knox County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio to express concern about her son’s communications online and recent gun purchases. Tycen C. Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio, was later visited by police and the alleged plot became known to the FBI. Proper allegedly told police that the Freedom 250 plot was meant to jumpstart a revolution and that some members in the network expressed concern about people in government having ties to convicted child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

“Now, the FBI statement and the Fox News story made it sound like the FBI — you know, again, I give the FBI enormous credit, I’ve always thought that they are the elite law enforcement agency in the country — but the reality is, you know, the way that it was framed was as if, you know, they uncovered this,” Abrams said.

He noted that there has still been “very little coverage” of the story, arguing the mainstream media and the left don’t trust Patel and the right finds the politics of the individuals at the center of the alleged plot inconvenient.

Abrams said:

Just as interesting to me is the media side of this, the fact that this isn’t getting a ton of play even on Fox today. This isn’t getting a ton a play period. I mean, I was watching cable news all day. I have four monitors up with cable news up all day, and then I’ve got Law and Crime and Court TV, of course, but there was very little coverage of this. And I think it’s because on the one hand, the left doesn’t believe a word Kash Patel says and then the right doesn’t want to admit who these people were.

He added that this “important story” is getting lost in Patel’s “back slapping” and spin and the media’s “hesitation” to trust him.

Abrams said:

Are you telling me that if it was a bunch of left-wing lunatics, that the president wouldn’t have been talking about it non-stop? This is the problem about where we are. Again, I am as pro-law enforcement as anyone. It’s why it rubs me the wrong way that Kash Patel, who I don’t even view as a long-term law enforcement person, is trying to take credit for something where really Knox County Sheriff’s Office deserves credit for bringing in the FBI. And then the FBI agents, of course, deserve credit. But the way that the story was framed at 6 a.m. was as if Kash Patel and the FBI had cracked this case. And that’s why there was hesitation, understandably so, from others in the media to pick up on it. And there were a lot more details. But this is an important story. It is a really good thing that Knox County and the FBI were able to stop this. It’s a really thing that you had a family that was aware enough to call it in. But rather than Patel’s back slapping and taking credit, let’s call it what it is.

Watch above via Sirius XM.

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