FBI Director Kash Patel’s planned trip abroad has two top lawmakers and some of his own agents fearing for the nation’s secrets.
Patel is reportedly set to travel to Russia as soon as next week, roughly three weeks before the midterm elections, The Atlantic reported Friday. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, have sent Patel a letter urging him to scrap the visit over concerns he can’t be trusted to protect sensitive information.
“As Director of the FBI, you possess information that would be highly valuable to America’s adversaries,” the lawmakers wrote, per The Atlantic. “Unfortunately, your affinity for the Russian government does not inspire confidence that you will be able to effectively safeguard those secrets.”
The letter also demands a closed-door briefing on the trip, along with its itinerary, the names of everyone traveling with Patel, including “any private citizens of members of President Trump’s family,” and “a full accounting” of where the director will be during his downtime.
That last request comes as Patel sues The Atlantic for $250 million over its earlier reporting that his drinking and unexplained absences alarmed colleagues, who viewed them as potential national security vulnerabilities.
Current and former FBI officials told the outlet that some employees quietly pushed leadership to cancel the trip and, when those efforts went nowhere, took their concerns to Congress. Politico previously reported that Patel’s likely host would be the FSB, the Russian security service that succeeded the KGB.
Raskin warned that Patel “will be a target and sitting duck for every kind of Russian espionage and influence operation.” Former officials also questioned the timing, noting that FBI leadership has been pressing agents to substantiate election conspiracy theories that Russian intelligence routinely amplifies.
“If there was real concern about interference in our elections, then the FBI director should be in the United States leading the effort around the clock,” said Christopher O’Leary, a former senior executive in the bureau’s counterterrorism division.
Julia Curlee, a former CIA analyst who served on the National Security Council under the second Trump administration, was blunter.
“Unless he’s going to warn them to stay out of our elections and get out of Ukraine, he has no business there,” she said.
The FBI and the White House did not respond to The Atlantic’s requests for comment, and the bureau has not publicly confirmed the trip.
Still, officials said there may be little anyone can do to stop it.
“Who can stop him?” one former FBI official asked.
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