Kash Patel’s locker room performance in Italy may have tested teetotal President Donald Trump.
The hockey-mad FBI director called Trump as he mingled with Team USA right after they beat Canada to win gold at the Winter Olympics. Footage from the locker room showed Patel chugging a beer, slamming it on a table and generally absorbing the merriment, if not leading it.
FBI agent turned podcaster Kyle Seraphin led the blowback, saying Patel may have “abused his official position” with his enthusiastic celebrations. Democratic politicians, too, of course, lined up to slam Patel.
He may have crossed Trump, too. While Trump congratulated Team USA during the locker room phone call, Patel slid a beer can toward himself and cracked it open, right beside the phone’s speaker. It is unclear if Trump heard it, but he continued talking—inviting the squad to Tuesday’s State of the Union speech—as Patel began to drink.
“We’ll get Kash, and we’ll get the military to get you guys,” he said, as his FBI boss continued drinking. “I got it, boss, I got it!” Patel randomly spluttered as Trump spoke.
“You got it, Kash?” the president asked. “I’m on it, I’m f—–g on it,” the 45-year-old responded. While Trump uses coarse language himself, it is unclear how he might feel about a high-ranking official using such language while the president addresses an Olympic team.
However, he did not address it, opting instead to continue congratulating the team. “I’m drivin’ the bus, boss, we’ll bring ‘em home,” Patel added before the footage, shared on X by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, cut out.
In December, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles described teetotal Donald Trump as someone with an “alcoholic’s personality.” However, Trump does not drink, citing his older brother Fred Jr.’s struggles with alcoholism and his early death in 1981 at the age of 42.
In a surprisingly candid 2019 interview with The Washington Post, Trump lamented how years of alcohol abuse had affected his “handsome” brother physically.
Patel, on the other hand, is fond of a party, according to former counter-intelligence official Frank Figliuzzi. He told MS Now’s Morning Joe in December that Patel is rarely spotted at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.
Figliuzzi, who was appointed assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division by Robert Mueller in 2011, said: “Reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.”
He added: “And there are reports that daily briefings to him have been changed from every day to maybe twice weekly.”
MS Now walked back on Figliuzzi’s claims a few days later. “This was a misstatement. We have not verified that claim,” co-host Jonathan Lemaire said.
The White House and the FBI were contacted for comment. The latter referred the Daily Beast to a post on Patel’s personal X profile.
“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- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth,” he said.
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