Does a real photo accurately depict a notable difference in height between Kash Patel and the FBI agent trainees running with him? No, that's not true: This image has been altered to make Patel appear much smaller than he appears in the original photo. The unaltered image was originally shared by Patel's verified account on X.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @bourscheid account on X on Sept. 17, 2026. It read:
This cannot be real life.
This is what the image in the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @bourscheid on X.)
FBI Director Kash Patel published a post with four photos (archived here) on Sept. 17, 2026 (embedded below). The image published by Patel has blurs added to the faces of the FBI trainees.
Staying ready for the mission with FBI New Agent trainees class 26-04 and 26-05
-- FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) September 17, 2026
A Lead Stories GIF (pictured below) shows the differences between the image as originally posted by Patel and altered image. In the original photo there is another runner wearing black directly behind Patel who was taken out of the image. A new figure wearing a gray T-shirt has been added -- filling the space created by scaling down of Patel's image. Using Adobe Photoshop for exact pixel counts, Lead Stories calculated that the image of Patel, between the bottom of his shoe and the top of his hair, has been digitally reduced in linear height by approximately 10.3%.
(Image source: posts by @bourscheid and @FBIDirectorKash on X.)
