AMNA NAWAZ: Well, for more on Patel's hearing and his tenure so far at the FBI, I spoke earlier today with Asha Rangappa.

She's a former FBI agent, now a lecturer at Yale University.

Asha Rangappa, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

ASHA RANGAPPA, Former FBI Special Agent: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So let's just begin with your reaction to the charges that we learned about today brought against the accused gunman in the killing of Charlie Kirk and prosecutors' decision to seek the death penalty.

Was all of this to be expected?

ASHA RANGAPPA: Yes, I think so.

And what is notable about the charges is that they have tried to find as many ways to charge the most serious crimes possible.

So, for example, they are charging aggravated murder because people other than Mr.

Kirk were put in danger.

There are charges relating to children witnessing this act.

And there's also a targeting enhancement that's included on many of the counts alleging that the shooter targeted Mr.

Kirk because of his political beliefs.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to turn now to that hearing featuring the FBI director, Kash Patel.

He took questions before a Senate committee.

And I just want to get your reaction to it and in particular how you think he handled some of those tougher lines of questioning from Democrats in particular.

ASHA RANGAPPA: I think that it's a mixed bag, to be honest.

I mean, many of his responses were evading some of the questions.

Now, there is ongoing litigation right now, where three senior former FBI officials have sued Director Patel and the Department of Justice for unlawful termination.

So, on many of those questions, he kind of hid behind the shield that he couldn't answer those questions with ongoing litigation.

So I don't know that he was completely responsive.

AMNA NAWAZ: He was asked, of course, about the firings of those agents.

And, as you mentioned, they're suing him and accusing him of political retribution.

I'm curious.

From the folks that you're still in touch with from inside the bureau, how is all of that resonating with them?

What's it like for folks who work there right now?

ASHA RANGAPPA: It is really low morale.

I mean, these firings have reverberated throughout the Bureau.

But many of these firings were because of matters that these agents worked on or were supervising.

And that obviously sends a chilling effect within the Bureau.

And then on top of that, there has been a serious reallocation of agents towards things like immigration enforcement, which is really not something that the FBI typically does.

So I think all of these create a sense of uncertainty and anxiety and very much not consistent with the very steady state culture of the Bureau that normally is in place.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we saw Director Patel asked about those reallocation of resources.

There was also a lot of focus on his performance just in the last few days in the wake of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, about how he went to go dine at an exclusive New York restaurant hours after the shooting, how he posted wrong information about someone in custody and then had to later correct it.

And we should point out the president has defended him.

He points out that they did get a suspect in custody within two days and have now charged him.

But was that criticism of his performance, in your view, was that warranted?

ASHA RANGAPPA: I think so in this case especially, because you had an ongoing investigation where the suspect at the moment where he was dining at the restaurant was still at large.

And in that kind of fast-moving situation, especially where you have a local field office that is partnering with state and local law enforcement on the ground, you really want to be careful before you put out information to make sure it is 100 percent accurate and that it is going to further the investigation and not impede it.

And I think the putting out prematurely that there was a suspect in custody really had the potential to maybe dissuade some people from turning in leads, for example.

It's really just not the kind of thing that the director of the FBI would be doing, normally speaking.

This would really be handled by the FBI field office that is the closest to the ground and working with the partners.

AMNA NAWAZ: Asha, last issue I want to put to you here was something else that came up in the hearing about left-wing violence in particular.

We have heard this idea repeated by the president as well, blaming the shooting on what he calls left-wing radicals.

This idea that left-wing violence is on the rise, what do we know about that?

Is there data to back that up?

ASHA RANGAPPA: There is left-wing political violence, but compared to other politically motivated violence, it is not the largest percentage of the instances that we have seen.

The Cato Institute actually published a study showing that right-wing violence constitute about 54 percent of recent events, Islamic terrorism about 21 percent, and then left-wing terror -- left-wing-motivated violence about 21 percent.

So, it's a little bit inaccurate in terms of the emphasis on it, but it does exist.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, that is former FBI agent currently with Yale University Asha Rangappa joining us tonight.

Asha, thank you so much for your time.

ASHA RANGAPPA: Thank you.