FBI Director Kash Patel said he would commit to taking a test for his alcohol use after a testy exchange with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) in which each traded accusations with the other.
Patel said he would take the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), as long as he did it “side by side” with the senator.
Van Hollen pointed to a story in The Atlantic, which Patel has said is false, to raise questions about the FBI director’s alleged drinking.
“When your private actions make it impossible for you to perform your public duties, we have a big problem. You cannot perform those public duties if you’re incapacitated,” Van Hollen said to Patel during the hearing.
“And Director Patel, these reports about your conduct, including reports of your being so drunk and hungover that your staff had to force entry into your home, are extremely alarming. If true, they demonstrate a gross dereliction of your duty and a betrayal of public trust,” Van Hollen continued.
He later asked Patel and the leaders of other law enforcement agencies how they would handle an employee who appeared to be excessively drinking.
“I really don’t care about your personal life, so long as you are able to perform your public and official responsibilities, which are awesome responsibilities. Multiple reports, including reporting by The Atlantic, have alleged episodes of excessive drinking, unexplained absences and behavior that concern current and former FBI and DOJ officials,” Van Hollen said.
Patel, who has launched a defamation suit over the story in The Atlantic, called it “unequivocally, categorically false” before launching accusations of his own, accusing Van Hollen of drinking margaritas during a trip to El Salvador to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a mistakenly deported man who was imprisoned there at the time.
“The only person who was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gangbanging rapist was you,” Patel fired back.
Van Hollen fired back that the claim was false and “the fact that you mentioned that indicates you don’t know what you are talking about.”
He later said while he gave Patel the opportunity to respond to the allegations, “in the process, you made these provably false statements that I know are sort of like urban legend in right-wing media about margaritas in El Salvador, which is provably false.”
“And so coming from the mouth of an FBI director to make provably false statements in a hearing like this is extremely troubling, and it leads me to ask whether or not the other things you’ve been saying are false statements,” he said.
During their final exchange, Van Hollen repeatedly asked if Patel knew that it was a crime to lie to Congress, with the director responding each time that he had not perjured himself during the Tuesday hearing.
Van Hollen has long maintained the margaritas were an obvious stunt by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
Van Hollen said at a press conference after he returned from El Salvador in April of last year that a Salvadoran government official “deposited two other glasses on the table.”
Van Hollen noted Abrego Garcia’s glass appeared to have less in it to give the impression that he’d been drinking out of it.
“Let me just be very clear: Neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us,” he said at the time.
“Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is. But this is the lesson in the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on,” Van Hollen said, adding that the salt on the rim was visibly undisturbed.
The allegations from the Trump administration that Abrego Garcia was in a gang are based largely on a tip from one confidential informant. Abrego Garcia, who was returned to the U.S. to face human trafficking charges, has not been charged in relation with sexual assault. He has also not been convicted of a crime, contrary to Patel’s claims.
During the exchange Patel also insinuated Van Hollen had run up a $7,000 bar tab, later posting a Federal Election Commission filing from the Maryland lawmaker’s Senate campaign showing an expense of that amount for catering for an event at Lobby Bar.
The test Van Hollen asked Patel to take was one called for by House Judiciary Democrats, who pushed for the director to take the 10-question survey.
Van Hollen agreed to the terms set by Patel, who said he would only take the test if the senator would also submit to it.
“Let’s go,” Patel said. “Side by side.”
Other Democratic senators also offered their critiques of Patel.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) asked about the number of FBI personnel that had been dispatched to work on immigration matters, a figure she said the Cato Institute pegged at more than 2,000. And she also asked about reports that the FBI has been using its personnel to investigate reporters who have written about Patel — something he flatly denied.
That includes a report from MS NOW that the FBI was probing the reporter who initially wrote about Patel in The Atlantic, Sarah Fitzpatrick. The Atlantic subsequently published another report detailing that Patel had given out personalized bourbon bottles.
“We need serious leadership at the FBI that the American people can trust. And I am deeply concerned about the reports that your leadership has not been serious. We need somebody at this agency who’s focused on solving criminal cases, not passing out branded bourbon, or jetting around the globe. Your job is to be reachable,” she said.
“And I know Sen. Van Hollen asked you about this, but I have got to say, if you want to pass out liquor, or pop bottles in a locker room: Stick to podcasting. Leave law and order to people who really do care about justice.”
Updated at 5:35 p.m. EDT
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