The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, who has been criticized for blurring the lines between personal recreation and his professional responsibility, spent Sunday celebrating the American hockey team’s Olympic victory in Milan as the bureau was grappling with crises at home.
A video of a euphoric Mr. Patel, a devoted hockey fan who plays the sport himself, was posted on social media, showing him giving a shaka sign — the thumb-and-pinky salute — in the gold-winning team’s locker room as he stood next to Dylan Larkin, the team’s center.
“Congratulations, Team USA!” shouted Mr. Patel while wearing a white jersey and craning his head to get into the frame of a cellphone video with Mr. Larkin, who flashed his gold medal at the camera.
Earlier, he sat in a box watching the team’s 2-to-1 overtime win against Canada, a contest marred by on-ice fisticuffs and shadowed by President Trump’s off-ice taunt that the United States’ neighbor would make a great 51st state. From his perch in the arena, he shared news of an intrusion and shooting at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida, sticking around to join in on the celebrations in the locker room about an hour later.
Mr. Patel’s trip to Italy came at a fraught and frenetic time for the bureau and for Mr. Patel, who has shown little willingness to curb or even conceal his jet-setting.
Mr. Trump and his advisers have been discussing preparations for a potential attack on Iran, a decision that could lead to threats to the homeland. Bureau investigators were still lending a hand in the urgent search for Nancy Guthrie, the mother of the “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie.
On Sunday, the Secret Service said law enforcement officers killed a would-be intruder at Mar-a-Lago. The F.B.I. is expected to play a central role in the subsequent investigation.
Mr. Patel’s aides downplayed the fun-and-games aspect of his visit to Italy when news broke of his trip a few days ago. They said it was a coincidence that the Games overlapped with security consultations he had planned months ago with European counterparts.
The core purposes of the trip, Mr. Patel’s spokesman said, were to meet with Italian law enforcement officials and with Tilman Fertitta, the U.S. ambassador to Italy, and to oversee the F.B.I.’s involvement in Olympic security.
He participated in six meetings, all told, two of them classified briefings, according to a senior law enforcement official with knowledge of his schedule.
Mr. Patel is able to keep abreast of developments in Iran and other matters wherever he travels. But the optics of the trip could add fuel for critics already at odds with his leadership, both inside and outside the Trump administration, as he faces an increasingly skeptical rank-and-file at the bureau.
It was not immediately clear how much the trip to Italy cost. F.B.I. directors must fly on government aircraft for their travel because of required access to secure communications equipment. But using government jets for business trips requires significant planning and coordination with others, including the director’s security team.
Mr. Patel has offered comparable explanations when pressed on his decision to provide SWAT team protection for his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, a country singer and right-wing activist, as well as for his heavy use of federal resources for travel that has at times appeared to blur professional lines.
Over the summer, he flew on a government jet from the Washington area to Inverness, Scotland, for a getaway at the exclusive golf resort, the Carnegie Club, with friends, including former Navy SEALs. He also taken flights, at taxpayer expense, to a private hunting ranch in Texas and to a wrestling match in State College, Pa., to watch a performance by Ms. Wilkins.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
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