A CNN panel reacted with a mix of disbelief and disgust to newly surfaced text messages showing FBI Director Kash Patel trying, and failing, to marshal the bureau's press shop against an anonymous internet troll.

The exchange, reported Thursday after journalist Seth Hettena spotted it in an FBI records release, showed Patel pressing his communications team to fire back at an account that had mocked him with a slur, replying with the FBI's "record year" stats. A top spokesman refused, warning it "would look bad on you." Patel pushed anyway, insisting it was about the post's view count.

On CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper," the panel struggled Friday to make sense of it.

"They are very, very thin-skinned, and they are willing to use the resources of the government to protect their thin skin," said Corbin Trent, a former communications director for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). He noted Patel appeared to misread the platform entirely, mistaking the post's views for comments, and called the director's fixation "bizarre" and "a dereliction of duty" as antisemitism and Islamophobia were rising.

Republican strategist Ashley Davis, a former George W. Bush White House official, condemned the slur outright.

"If my son said that word, I'd slap him up against the head. I just think it's such an offensive word," she said.

Davis questioned why the nation's top law enforcement official would "lower himself" to spar with a troll while crime and murders were falling.

"Don't worry about some trolls calling you a [slur]," she said.

The texts had already surfaced in the FBI's release of records tied to its Jeffrey Epstein review, drawing days of ridicule. They come amid persistent scrutiny of Patel's handling of the Epstein files and his freewheeling use of social media. The FBI declined to comment to CNN.