FBI Director Kash Patel, during what his spokesman said was an official trip to Milan for security meetings, was filmed guzzling from a beer bottle and celebrating in the locker room with U.S. Olympic hockey players Sunday after they won the gold-medal game.
Several videos emerged on social media showing Patel in the locker room after the game, but one in particular drew outrage from current and former FBI agents. It depicted Patel pouring what appeared to be beer down his throat, spraying some of it in the air and screaming in celebration as a player put a gold medal around his neck.
Eight former FBI and Justice Department officials sent MS NOW a copy of the video, which they said was drawing outrage as it rocketed around FBI and DOJ circles.
Patel is an avid hockey fan, and nothing in the videos is unusual for a post-game celebration after a victory of this magnitude. But his presence in the locker room drew attention because Patel flew to Milan on the FBI’s private jet, and his spokesman denounced reporting by MS NOW and other outlets that he was flying to Milan to watch the men’s hockey games at the Olympics.
Patel posted to his personal X account late Sunday: “For the very concerned media – yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys.”
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told MS NOW on Thursday that Patel was going to Milan for a series of business meetings, and it was unfair to describe the trip as having to do with hockey or pleasure.
“Your rag outlet wrote that he went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime – even when provided information that your theory was false,” Williamson posed Saturday on X. He did not respond to a request for comment about the video.
Patel posted a photo showing him in the post-game locker room as he congratulated the U.S. team on the win.
Williamson previously noted that Patel attended at least four “official public events” while in Italy, and he argued it was therefore misleading to suggest Patel traveled to Milan to watch the Olympics.
In July, after the National Hockey League announced it was allowing players to participate in the games, Patel posted on X: “Team, USA, I’ll see you there.”
As MS NOW previously reported, some former agents have compared Patel’s decisions about personal use of FBI resources to those of William Sessions, the first FBI director to be fired in U.S. history.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton fired Sessions based on an internal investigation that found Sessions had misused FBI resources for personal trips for himself and his wife. A report documented that Sessions, who was first appointed by President George H.W. Bush and continued as director in the Clinton administration, forced security agents off FBI planes and demanded they fly commercially so that his wife could accompany him at government expense.
At Sessions’ direction, the report concluded, FBI aircraft were diverted to pick up his wife in other cities, and FBI vehicles were employed to take her to get her nails done, shop and pick up firewood. The report, conducted by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, found that Sessions had scheduled official appointments in specific locations to justify charging the government for personal travel.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.