Last summer, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, capped a whirlwind South Pacific trip with a snorkel trip in Hawaii.
There, Navy SEALs used two boats to transport and escort Mr. Patel and nine other people on what a Defense Department email called a “V.I.P. Snorkel” at one of the military’s most sacred sites, the underwater tomb of the U.S.S. Arizona that holds the remains of more than 900 Navy sailors and Marines who died at Pearl Harbor.
Mr. Patel swam in the vicinity of the tomb for 30 minutes, according to the Navy.
Out of respect for the dead entombed in the wreck of the Arizona, rules bar visitors even from wearing swimwear at the memorial. With some exceptions over the years for dignitaries, the only people allowed in the water around the tomb are military and National Park Service divers interring the remains of the last Arizona survivors in the wreck, or conducting annual maintenance surveys, according to a former Navy officer and a former National Park Service official familiar with restrictions at the site.
Officials from the Navy and the Defense Department said V.I.P. “tours” over the Arizona were common, but they declined to say how often they take people snorkeling. A Navy spokeswoman declined to identify the nine people who joined Mr. Patel on the trip. The F.B.I. said that Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr., the head of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, invited Mr. Patel to Pearl Harbor.
The New York Times obtained details of the Pearl Harbor trip through a Freedom of Information Act request and information from a former F.B.I. official. Mr. Patel’s participation in the snorkeling trip was reported earlier by The Associated Press.
The idea of a high-ranking government official receiving an escort from the SEALs for a recreational swim above the tomb is “horrifying,” said William M. McBride, a Navy veteran and professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
“This is a war grave with the same legal status as Arlington National Cemetery,” Mr. McBride said in an interview. “Snorkeling around Arizona is as disrespectful as playing kickball on top of the graves at Arlington.”
The Pearl Harbor trip was at the end of an itinerary in which Mr. Patel visited F.B.I. facilities in Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. Disclosure of the snorkeling tour, and new details about other trips he has taken, comes as Mr. Patel is already under scrutiny for blending leisure travel with official business or instructing F.B.I. employees to make accommodations for him and his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins.
This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former F.B.I. and law enforcement agents as well as people familiar with Mr. Patel’s travel plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from Mr. Patel or because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The article is also based on flight records and other documents.
Mr. Patel’s use of government jets and F.B.I. agents for himself and Ms. Wilkins has drawn bipartisan criticism and led to growing questions even inside the Trump administration about whether it exceeds the bounds of standard practice.
“The badge is a responsibility, not a V.I.P. pass,” said Rob D’Amico, a former F.B.I. special agent and hostage rescue team operator. With Mr. Patel, he said, “the pattern is clear — exotic locations, exclusive access that no member of the public could ever get, and a support staff working overtime to make it happen.”
F.B.I. policy requires its directors to use government planes for all air travel, personal as well as professional. The director is required to reimburse the government for private trips at the cost of coach travel, and the F.B.I. said Mr. Patel has done so.
But in his travels on F.B.I. aircraft, Mr. Patel has made time for side trips, including to V.I.P. suites for events, leisure activities or nights out with his girlfriend. The F.B.I. declined to say who paid for one of those evenings out, a previously unreported trip with Ms. Wilkins to a country music concert in Philadelphia, where they arrived on a Gulfstream V government jet and were spotted in a private suite that rents for upward of $35,000.
Before taking office, Mr. Patel repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Christopher Wray, for his use of government jets for private travel. “I’m just saying, Chris Wray doesn’t need a government-funded GV jet to go to vacation,” Mr. Patel told an interviewer in 2023. “Maybe we ground that plane.”
Without providing details, the F.B.I. said Mr. Patel was averaging fewer personal trips per year than did Mr. Wray.
As The Times reported in February, the F.B.I. has justified Ms. Wilkins’s full-time security detail by citing death threats she has received. “Alexis receives constant, serious threats,” Mr. Patel said in a statement issued by his office.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said in his own statement on Thursday that “Director Patel and his loved ones should not have their lives threatened.” The Justice Department, he added, “fully supports protecting Director Patel’s partner given the constant threats against her.’’
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Previous F.B.I. directors’ spouses and family members did not receive full-time government security or transport, and neither do the families of other cabinet-level appointees and members of Congress.
Mr. Patel’s tenure as director has been marked by purges of agents deemed insufficiently loyal or to have participated in investigations of President Trump, leaving Mr. Patel facing lawsuits and widespread criticism from current and former employees. A dozen former and current F.B.I. agents characterized Mr. Patel’s personal travel and protection and perks for his girlfriend as a breach of ethics rules and an embarrassing distraction as the agency works to thwart domestic threats, including ones related to the Iran war.
Mr. Patel has responded to the criticism by working to identify leakers through polygraphs and other means. Last month, he filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic for an article that claimed Mr. Patel was drinking to excess and prone to unexplained absences that were putting national security in jeopardy.
This spring the F.B.I. took steps to investigate a New York Times reporter for an article about Mr. Patel’s providing government travel and security for Ms. Wilkins. The Justice Department determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Mr. Patel’s purges of agents have generated lawsuits against him and the F.B.I., and spurred an exodus of bureau employees. Field offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Albany, Tampa, New Orleans, Salt Lake City and several other cities are seeking to fill empty slots.
“Anybody who can retire has or is, and the rest are counting the days,” said Christopher O’Leary, a former senior executive in the F.B.I.’s counterterrorism division.
A Concert Date on an F.B.I. Jet
Last year on Saturday, May 10, Mr. Patel and Ms. Wilkins traveled from Washington to Philadelphia to see George Strait and Chris Stapleton perform, a hot ticket among country music fans. Mr. Patel and Ms. Wilkins flew there on the F.B.I.’s Gulfstream V jet.
Mr. Patel and Ms. Wilkins saw the show from a private suite at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, according to three people with knowledge of their trip, including an F.B.I. employee who happened to be at the concert and saw them. The suite sold for $35,000 to $50,000 for that show, according to a person who has booked those accommodations in the past.
Through an F.B.I. spokesman, Mr. Patel declined to respond to questions about who financed the outing for himself and Ms. Wilkins. The spokesman, Ben Williamson, added that Ms. Wilkins was “an invited guest” of the performers, whose representatives did not respond to multiple inquiries seeking confirmation.
The flight crew and detail waited for the couple, collecting overtime pay, until after 11 p.m., when they were flown on the jet back to Manassas, Va.
After his confirmation as F.B.I. director last year, Mr. Patel began directing agents from field offices around the country to provide Ms. Wilkins with SWAT team security in her personal travels. He transferred agents from other field offices to Nashville, where she lives, and assigned four SWAT agents and two SUVs to guard and transport her on personal errands.
A former senior official who has hired such agents said Ms. Wilkins’s Nashville detail — two SUVs and four agents — costs about $1 million a year, with additional overtime, vehicle and other expenses.
F.B.I. officials recommended that Mr. Patel seek a legal review and a threat assessment to determine whether such a level of security for a girlfriend in another city was ethical and necessary. Mr. Patel berated one of them, saying his authority was all that was needed, according to three people briefed on the incident.
“The claim that Director Patel ordered agents to do anything improper, or berated agents is completely false,” Mr. Williamson, the F.B.I. spokesman, said.
A Closed-Door Meeting
After Mr. Patel took a government jet to Italy during the Winter Olympics in February and was criticized for drinking beer and partying in the locker room with the gold medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team, Mr. Patel has sought to bolster his standing with the president.
A stream of posts from Mr. Patel’s official X account praise Mr. Trump and promote F.B.I. achievements and Mr. Patel’s interviews with friendly media. In testimony this week at a Senate hearing, Mr. Patel displayed handouts that included statistics taking credit for developments like declining urban murder rates and arrests of child predators, which are the responsibility of state and local police departments, not the F.B.I., according to an F.B.I. agent involved in compiling the statistics.
He has continued to bring Ms. Wilkins on some of his recent travels.
In early April, Senator David McCormick, Republican of Pennsylvania, invited Mr. Patel and top federal and state law enforcement officials to Allentown, Pa., for a closed-door meeting on combating trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has killed tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians.
Mr. Patel brought along Ms. Wilkins, who sat at the head of the table with Mr. Patel and top F.B.I. officials as they discussed strategy and heard emotional testimony from families whose children died from overdoses. Ms. Wilkins’s presence confused some attendees, one of whom asked the F.B.I. what her role was. In an emailed statement, Mr. McCormick said he had invited Mr. Patel, but the F.B.I. said he invited Ms. Wilkins, too.
Informed that The Times had inquired about the meeting, Ms. Wilkins posted on X that she attended because “I work with fentanyl and angel families.” Ms. Wilkins is a spokeswoman for the American Border Story, a conservative group that publicizes fentanyl deaths and crimes committed by migrants in support of the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.
The South Pacific tour last summer that ended with the Pearl Harbor swim began with a visit by Mr. Patel to the F.B.I.’s Honolulu field office earlier in the week.
From Hawaii, Mr. Patel flew to Australia and New Zealand, where he opened an F.B.I. satellite office. On his last morning in New Zealand, Mr. Patel went for a run and a swim in Wellington’s harbor with the police commissioner, Richard Chambers. The moment was later covered by local media, with reports pointing out that the two were swimming during a tsunami advisory.
Mr. Patel then returned to Hawaii to snorkel over the Arizona.
Patricia Mazzei contributed reporting from Miami, and Eileen Sullivan, John Ismay and Glenn Thrush from Washington. Kitty Bennett and Aric Toler contributed research.
Elizabeth Williamson is a feature writer for The Times, based in Washington. She has been a journalist for three decades, on three continents.
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