Overview
- Published images show a nontraditional coin shaped like the Punisher skull, featuring guns, spiders, and a K$H logo on one side and Patel’s signature, the FBI seal, and a tommy gun on the other.
- Commentators including Joyce White Vance and Joe Conason ridiculed the item, with Vance questioning taxpayer spending and others deriding the tone and taste of the design.
- The coin’s iconography echoes a symbol embraced by some law‑enforcement officers and extremist groups, a history the Punisher’s creator Gerry Conway has publicly condemned.
- Researchers noted references to Norse themes such as Valhalla in commentary around Patel, adding concern over imagery that overlaps with motifs used by some white‑nationalist milieus.
- Prior weeks saw Patel distribute a more conventional circular coin with a U.S. flag fading into a Gadsden flag, and as of today there is no official FBI explanation or confirmation of how the new coin was funded.