Kash Patel’s tenure as FBI director has featured a lengthy stream of failures and controversies, but a brutal report in The Atlantic last month was among the lowest of the low points. The report, relying on more than two dozen sources, alleged that FBI personnel have expressed concerns about the director’s unexplained absences and excessive drinking, which have reportedly alarmed colleagues and potentially created a security risk.
Patel denied the allegations, accused The Atlantic of being part of an elaborate journalistic conspiracy he equated with organized crime, and filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the magazine soon after the article’s publication. But the reporter who wrote the piece, Sarah Fitzpatrick, not only stood by her work, she also said the article had generated fresh outreach from new sources within the FBI about the director’s work.
It’s against this backdrop that The Atlantic published Fitzpatrick’s latest report on Patel on Wednesday afternoon, which created a new headache for the bureau’s beleaguered director:
President Trump’s FBI director has a great deal of affection for swag. Merchandise for sale on a website he co-founded — still operating, nearly 15 months into his term — includes beanies ($35), T-shirts ($35), orange camo hoodies ($65), trucker caps ($25), “government gangsters” playing cards (on sale for $10), and a Fight With Kash Punisher scarf ($25).
One thing not for sale is liquor, because liquor is something Patel gives away for free.
While previous FBI directors have avoided branded merchandise, the incumbent has bottles of personalized branded bourbon, engraved with the words “Kash Patel FBI Director.” As The Atlantic’s report added, surrounding the image of an FBI shield “is a band of text featuring Patel’s director title and his favored spelling of his first name: Ka$h. An eagle holds the shield in its talons, along with the number 9, presumably a reference to Patel’s place in the history of FBI directors. In some cases, the 750-milliliter bottles bear Patel’s signature, with ‘#9’ there as well.”
This is not just some keepsake for the director to put on a shelf. On the contrary, the report (which MS NOW has not independently verified) noted that Patel has handed out the bottles to FBI staff and civilians, and it is “not unusual for him to travel with a supply of personalized branded bourbon,” domestically and internationally.
The article added that the FBI has traditionally had “a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized use of alcohol on the job and for its misuse while off duty,” but under Patel, that standard is apparently “bending.”
To be sure, this is not the first time the former podcast personality has confronted an alcohol-related controversy. Patel’s partying with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team in February sparked widespread coverage, and The Atlantic’s report about allegations of the director’s excessive drinking came two months later.
But his practice of handing out personally branded liquor bottles clearly takes the broader story to a new level.
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A spokesperson for the bureau made no effort to deny the latest reporting, arguing that “the bottles in question are part of a tradition in the FBI that started well over a decade ago, long before Director Patel arrived.”
“Senior Bureau officials have long exchanged commemorative items in formal gift settings consistent with ethics rules,” the spokesperson added. “Director Patel has followed all applicable ethical guidelines and pays for any personal gift himself.”
The Atlantic’s article, however, noted, “When I reached a former longtime senior FBI official to ask whether he’d ever seen personally branded liquor bottles distributed by a previous FBI director, he burst out laughing.”
Time will tell what, if any, impact this will have on Patel’s professional future, but it’s worth noting that Donald Trump is a longtime teetotaler, and it was nearly two weeks ago when Politico reported that things “aren’t looking great” for Patel, adding that he appeared likely to be the next high-ranking official to exit the administration. This dovetailed with related observations about just how little the White House has done to defend Patel, or even to say his name out loud, in the face of multiple controversies.
The director started scrambling soon after to save his job, but between The Atlantic’s reporting and the “Saturday Night Live” sketch that lampooned Patel as a national joke, no one should be too surprised if the president starts looking for some faraway land that needs a new ambassador. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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