Senator Dick Durbin accused FBI Director Kash Patel of delaying the FBI's response to the December 13, 2025, Brown University mass shooting and the murder of Charlie Kirk in Utah due to personal flights using FBI aircraft, as stated in a whistleblower revelation shared by @MacFarlaneNews between 9:15 PM and 9:45 PM UTC on February 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Durbin cited the Director's "misplaced priorities and poor management of the FBI’s resources—including its aircraft." Durbin specified that the FBI’s shooting reconstruction team in Richmond, Virginia, could not fly to Brown University immediately because of Patel's use of FBI planes, according to the @MacFarlaneNews post. Separately, the team's deployment to Utah after Charlie Kirk's murder was delayed by at least a day due to a Bureau plane and pilot shortage caused by the Director’s personal flights to Florida, where Patel reportedly ordered the FBI’s only other jet held, as corroborated by @factpostnews within the 29-minute window. House Speaker Mike Johnson stated he spoke with President Donald Trump 90 minutes ago, noting the president was in a good mood ahead of the State of the Union address and predicting "it might be a lengthy one, because there's a lot of wins to recount here," according to @AnthonyAdragna. Johnson also affirmed that Trump has used tariffs to affect America's trade policy with "dramatically positive results," as captured by @atrupar in the reporting window. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until Friday to comply with Pentagon demands on using its AI models or face contract cancellation, according to a Wall Street Journal report shared by @WSJ during the period. This follows prior reports of Democratic leads in Texas primary early voting and criticisms of Trump on Epstein files and Iran, as previously documented.
