A senior FBI analyst who played key roles in the 2016-17 Trump-Russia collusion hoax and the shutdown of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation in 2020 has been suspended.

Democrats and the media have predictably asserted that the suspension of FBI analyst Brian Auten is politically motivated since Auten was mentioned by name in FBI Director Kash Patel's book that included a so-called "enemies list," The New York Times reported.

Yet, an inspector general, a special counsel, and investigative reporters have documented in detail Auten's highly partisan anti-Trump behavior and failures to do his job.

Suspended after being named in Patel's book

The Times reported on Friday that it had learned from unnamed sources that Auten was placed on administrative leave last week without any explanation for the reasoning behind the suspension.

The outlet glossed over the fact that Auten played integral roles in "two major investigations that angered Trump and Patel" -- the Trump-Russia collusion hoax and Hunter Biden's laptop -- and instead strongly implied that FBI Director Patel had broken his promise made during his January Senate confirmation hearings to lead the bureau in a nonpartisan manner.

The Times focused on Patel's book, "Government Gangsters," in which Auten was included along with dozens of other current and former "Members of the Executive Branch Deep State" in an appendix that critics likened to an "enemies list."

"It’s a total mischaracterization," Patel told senators of the claim that he'd compiled a list of enemies deserving of retribution, and later added, "There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI, should I be confirmed as FBI director."

Knew the anti-Trump dossier was fraudulent but used it anyway

The Times noted that the FBI previously suspended Auten for 30 days over improper actions he took during the Trump-Russia collusion hoax investigation following an inspector general probe, but in Patel's book, he wrote of Auten, "Yet just like his superiors, Auten has faced no real accountability in light of these findings. The fact that Auten was not fired from the FBI and prosecuted for his part in the Russia Gate conspiracy is a national embarrassment."

A RealClearInvestigations report in 2023 detailed at length how DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and later, Special Counsel John Durham, had uncovered multiple major problems with Auten concerning the anti-Trump Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

That included Auten's heavy involvement in pushing for a FISA warrant to spy on a Trump campaign staffer based largely on the fraudulent anti-Trump Steele dossier, despite Auten knowing the documents and their allegations were uncorroborated as well as his knowledge of the dubious veracity of the dossier's main source -- a suspected Russian spy he'd previously closed an investigation against and instead groomed and paid to be an FBI informant.

Further, Auten was revealed to have deliberately misled the FISA Court into granting and renewing a warrant to spy on Trump's campaign by knowingly including the unvetted and uncorroborated information from the dossier in the applications.

Shut down the Hunter Biden laptop probe

As if that wasn't enough to earn serious repercussions for Auten, Patel noted in his book that the senior FBI analyst had played a critical role in shutting down the FBI's investigation of Hunter Biden's laptop in 2020, in that he worked to "discredit any derogatory information about Hunter Biden by falsely claiming that none of it was true."

Indeed, that was confirmed in 2022 by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), per anonymous whistleblower accounts, Newsmax reported at the time. In a letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and then-FBI Director Chris Wray, the senator wrote that whistleblower disclosures about Auten "appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation," which resulted in the probe being shut down.

"If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are -- and have been -- institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law," Grassley wrote at the time.