{"id":27959,"date":"2026-05-13T01:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/27959\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T01:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:20:12","slug":"fbi-director-kash-patel-denies-drinking-allegations-at-senate-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/27959\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Director Kash Patel denies drinking allegations at Senate hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 FBI Director Kash Patel angrily lashed out at a Democratic lawmaker at a budget hearing Tuesday, calling allegations that he drinks excessively<\/a> on the job and has been unreachable to his staff at times \u201cunequivocally, categorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not be tarnished by baseless allegations and fraudulent statements from the media,\u201d Patel told Sen. Chris Van Hollen during a testy exchange that began when the Maryland Democrat confronted him about a recent article in The Atlantic magazine that painted an unflattering portrait of his leadership of the nation\u2019s premier federal law enforcement agency. <\/p>\n

Patel has filed a $250 million lawsuit over the story<\/a>. The Atlantic has said it stands by its reporting and would vigorously defend against the \u201cmeritless lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patel shouted over Van Hollen and sought to turn the tables by accusing him of \u201cslinging margaritas on the taxpayer dime\u201d in El Salvador, a reference to a visit the Democrat paid last year to Kilmar Abrego Garcia<\/a> while he was jailed there following his mistaken deportation to the country. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe only person who has been drinking during the day on the taxpayer dime was you,\u201d Patel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirector Patel, come on,\u201d Van Hollen said. \u201cThese are serious allegations that were made against you.\u201d <\/p>\n

He at one point asked Patel if he was willing to take a test meant to measure whether an individual has a drinking problem, prompting Patel to shoot back, \u201cI\u2019ll take any test you\u2019re willing to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

The senator called Patel\u2019s claims of margaritas in El Salvador \u201cprovably false.\u201d After last year\u2019s meeting, Van Hollen publicly accused El Salvador\u2019s government<\/a> of having misrepresented the nature of his encounter with Abrego Garcia, saying officials there had staged the meeting with drinks appearing to be alcohol and angled to set the meeting by a hotel pool.<\/p>\n

The testy exchange occurred at an annual Senate subcommittee budget hearing featuring Patel and other senior law enforcement leaders. The director used the forum to tout what he described as major crime-fighting achievements since he took the position and received a friendly reception from Republican senators who praised his leadership.<\/p>\n

Democrats, by contrast, pressed Patel on headline-generating travel that has blended his professional duties with private leisure \u2014 including a trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy, where he partied with the U.S. men\u2019s hockey team<\/a> after their gold medal win \u2014 as well as the mass terminations<\/a> of agents who worked on investigations into President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou attended the Olympics in Milan,\u201d said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat. \u201cHow much did your trip cost and to what extent did that help you carry out your mission as director of the FBI?\u201d<\/p>\n

Patel responded that the FBI was responsible for security at the Olympics and asserted that his trip to Italy helped facilitate the transfer of a Chinese cybercriminal to U.S. custody, who had been detained by Italian authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 FBI Director Kash Patel angrily lashed out at a Democratic lawmaker at a budget hearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[219,10388,8464,432,38,10488,50,8,3507,6354,218,166,169,9,67,7,363,2464,477,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-27959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-central-america","9":"tag-chris-van-hollen","10":"tag-christopher-coons","11":"tag-congress","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-el-salvador","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-kash-patel","17":"tag-kilmar-abrego-garcia","18":"tag-latin-america","19":"tag-law-enforcement","20":"tag-lawsuits","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","25":"tag-u-s-federal-bureau-of-investigation","26":"tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","27":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116564644521881644","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}