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Kash Patel appears to have ripped off iconic Beastie Boys video using AI: report

FBI Director Kash Patel appears to have used an AI-generated ripoff of a Beastie Boys music video to promote the Trump administration's anti-fraud efforts, NPR reported on Tuesday.
"With President Trump’s leadership, this @FBI and our interagency partners are conducting massive fraud takedowns coast to coast — and we’re not stopping," Patel wrote in a post to X at the start of the week.
"An analysis by NPR shows at least six clips in the FBI video were frame-by-frame recreations of shots in the iconic 'Sabotage' music video, which was directed by Spike Jonze," said the report. "The clips featured vehicles, people and buildings that were incredibly similar to the original video, but with small differences that would likely be generated by AI."
"For example, in one shot where a car is spinning out, grilles are clearly visible in some of the windows in the original footage, but they are missing in the FBI version of the clip," said the report. "Another shot shows an individual with a megaphone jumping from roof-to-roof with telephone lines in the background. The lines and dirt on the building all align identically to the 1994 video, which was filmed over 30 years ago. In one frame, one of the telephone lines appears to go through the head of the character: the sort of flaw that can be common in AI video generation."
Neither representatives for the Beastie Boys nor the FBI responded to NPR's requests for comment.
This comes after former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was fired following an awkward and blame-shifting testimony to Congress about a taxpayer-funded $200 million ad for the department featuring her on a horse, putting greater scrutiny on how agency heads under the Trump administration use public resources for self-promotion.
It also comes as Patel himself has been reported by The Atlantic to have a drinking problem, to be chronically absent, and paranoid about his own political future — claims Patel denies, and is now suing the publication over.
GOP megadonor puts Republicans on notice of stark reality — and real battleground ahead

Ken Griffin, a wealthy investor and one of the largest Republican megadonors, conceded to CNBC's Sara Eisen on Tuesday that he expects Democrats to win the House of Representatives this fall.
"I think Trump has to deal with that reality that the American people have just had it when it comes to inflation," said Griffin. "And unfortunately, I think he's being disproportionately blamed for the diminution in purchasing power, the story of which was really written during the pandemic days of the Biden administration."
"And all the money that got injected into the economy afterwards. So, I mean, do you see the Democrats taking Congress?" asked Eisen.
"So it's almost a certainty the Democrats will take the House," said Griffin. "That's the — that's the nature of almost every midterm election cycle, is the House seats swing in the in the favor of the opposing party, the Senate will be the big battleground in this midterm."
He went on to express his confidence that Republicans could still retain control of the Senate, where Democrats would have to pick up at least four Republican-held seats without losing any of their own in battleground states.
Griffin, who runs the Citadel hedge fund, has had a complicated relationship with President Donald Trump, backing many of his policies, but also keeping him at arm's length, endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over him in the 2024 primary, and accusing Trump of using the government to corruptly enrich himself.
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