About four hours after the right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated by an unknown shooter at Utah Valley University Wednesday, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a picture of himself with Kirk on his personal X account. The undated photo shows the two men grinning, apparently about to tape Kirk’s daily livestream show; Patel wears a branded shirt with his own name on it, styled as “K$H.” Roughly five minutes later, Patel’s official FBI account published another post on X, this time announcing the good news that the suspected shooter was already in custody. Then, an hour and a half later, that account posted again—alerting the public that the suspect “has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.” A suspect is now in custody …

Typically, the FBI waits until it’s certain before making announcements. It also doesn’t normally provide quick successive updates midway through a sensitive investigation before abruptly backtracking. But, as the photo with Kirk suggests, Patel is not a typical FBI director. He posted his way into the job—moving from roles as a congressional staffer and national-security aide in the first Trump administration to a career as a pro-Trump influencer who sold MAGA children’s books and called for purges at the FBI to “defeat the Deep State.” Now he’s posting through it.