Bad Guys

The FBI built the most powerful—and least accountable—domestic intelligence operation in American history to hunt enemies of the state. The post-9/11 era of surveillance and entrapment bred distrust, and that distrust fueled conspiracies that left the Bureau vulnerable to the authoritarian forces now weaponizing it. For decades, the FBI has been at the center of America’s response to extremism and political violence. But an institution that treats everyone as a threat will see enemies everywhere. Investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson confronts a country where the enemies list never stops growing. Moving between stories that spiral closer together, he follows a convert whose search for belonging ends on the battlefield in Syria; an informant paid to set up his friend, then left to live with the consequences; agents who once believed in the FBI’s mission now watching it curdle; and Kash Patel, the outsider who captured the Bureau by pushing conspiracy theories. Then Aaronson lands on the list too. The journalist becomes one more enemy in the story he’s trying to expose. Bad Guys is a deeply reported, propulsive exploration of how Americans have drifted toward extremism and how federal agents tasked with stopping political violence can manufacture the very threats they’re hunting. The FBI, built to find enemies, finds one in itself.