The controversies surrounding FBI Director Kash Patel went from bad to worse late last week when The Atlantic published a brutal report alleging that FBI personnel have expressed concerns about the director’s unexplained absences and excessive drinking, which have alarmed colleagues and his security detail.
It reached the point that some within the bureau have worried that the former podcast personality’s personal behavior “has become a threat to public safety.”
The same report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that Patel’s erratic behavior at the FBI could lead to his ouster and that he’s “deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy.”
On Monday morning, the bureau’s director filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the magazine, which apparently didn’t faze Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who delivered floor remarks right around the same time that Patel’s lawyers filed their case.
“The Atlantic’s reporting only confirmed what Senate Democrats have said from the start: Kash Patel is not simply unqualified, he’s a grave risk to the rule of law and to American national security,” the New York Democrat said. He added, “Kash Patel’s job is to protect the American people and our Constitution — not to party on the job. Patel must resign immediately. Every day he remains in office subjects America to serious and unnecessary risks.
As the day progressed, Schumer and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, demanding that the Justice Department and the FBI preserve all records and materials related to the alleged incidents — suggesting a Democratic-led Congress would launch its own investigation into Patel.
The letter read in part:
The American people deserve an FBI Director who is temperate, steady, sober, and on the job, not someone who disappears behind locked doors when the country needs him most. For months, there has been increasingly devastating reporting — including this weekend’s article in The Atlantic — detailing Director Patel as frequently intoxicated, inexplicably absent, and so out of it and unreachable that his own security detail considered breaching doors to reach him.
He has made glaring missteps on high profile investigations and repeatedly jetted off to Las Vegas while urgent work at FBI headquarters was left unattended. If even a fraction of this is true, the person leading our nation’s premier law enforcement agency is an unacceptable national security risk, especially during a time of war when national security needs are heighted.
For his part, neither the acting attorney general nor the FBI director has commented on the senators’ directive.
As for the president who chose Blanche and Patel for their respective roles, Donald Trump has also said nothing about the latest allegations against the FBI director. In fact, the president has been conspicuously quiet about the former podcast personality of late, failing to say his name out loud or online in roughly a month.
No wonder Patel is feeling antsy about his standing.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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