Acting like a frat bro with the winning U.S. Olympic hockey team in Italy is just his latest antics. I was always a bit skeptical of our vaunted FBI director, Kash Patel, who never served in the FBI or law enforcement and only worked for a short period as a federal prosecutor.
I found him underqualified and unserious.
Still, I generally supported him on his policies and defended him as a loyal member of the Trump Team. I also prefer not to agree with Democrats. But principled conservatives shouldn’t just reflexively defend our side even if they are wrong.
And Patel’s behavior both on the job and outside the job is really making me cringe in embarrassment and question his judgment and seriousness for the job. And it’s not just partying with our hockey team.
Despite being a top U.S. national security official and one of the nation’s top law enforcement officers, he has shown an immature penchant for showboating and posting inappropriately on social media during high-profile investigations and getting things wrong because of it.
He also has a penchant for flying the FBI jet to lavish social and entertainment events that few prior FBI directors would have attended. Some argue that Patel spends more time in nightclubs than at his office.
Last year alone, he was accused of using a government jet for a golfing trip in Scotland, a private hunting trip in Texas, and a “date night” in Pennsylvania with his girlfriend, as well as of taking steps to hide the FBI plane from open-source flight tracker Flight Aware. (RELATED: New Video: My Take On US Foreign Policy Priorities Under Trump)
So, this is now an established pattern of unseriousness and abuse of the job and FBI jet for personal boondoggles.
Patel has defended his travel. As FBI director, he is required to use a government jet for security purposes. But such travel uses taxpayer funds. It should be used judiciously. A prior FBI director, William Sessions, was fired in part for his use of the FBI jet for personal travel, including visiting his family.
Ironically, Patel previously bashed the FBI over its use of taxpayer money to fund executive travel.
On an episode of his podcast “Kash’s Corner” in 2023, he argued that Congress should limit funding for the FBI to force it to turn over subpoenaed documents:
“You ground [former FBI Director] Chris Wray’s private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country. You take away the fancy new fleet of cars from DOJ that they’re going to use to shuffle around executives.”
“I’m just saying Chris Wray doesn’t need a government-funded G5 jet to go on vacations. Maybe we ground that plane. $15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought,” Patel added.
But now those appear to be demands “for thee, not for me.”
Most recently, Patel was filmed in the locker room of the U.S. Olympic hockey team, parting with them after their upset victory against Canada. This, after taking the FBI jet to Milan, Italy, and watching the hockey finals.
Why an FBI director needs to be there at all, and especially in the locker room, and whether he was invited or invited himself, are good questions. But his frat boy behavior, chugging a beer, fist bumping, screaming, jumping, and pounding on tables, really looked bad to me.
Other conservatives, like Patel’s recent deputy, foul-mouthed podcaster Dan Bongino, defend it: “I don’t really give a s**t,” Bongino says. “Get the f**k over it.”
Sorry, Dan, that’s absolutely hypocritical.
Since Patel has been heavily criticized for his antics, a top FBI official came out to defend him, insisting that his trip was not “personal” and included official business, such as meetings with Italian police officials and the U.S. Ambassador to Italy.
A bureau spokesperson also said attendance at the Games was planned because “the FBI also has a major role in Olympic security.”
While the bureau maintains that those were the main purposes of the trip, let’s be clear, this is the way personal trips are always justified: by making brief, pro-forma official stops at some official locations with some officials.
To me, it is obvious that Patel, an avid hockey fan, flew all the way to Italy on the FBI jet primarily to work his way into the Olympic hockey match. And then he took over the team’s celebrations, as if he were actually a player on the winning team.
“Unity, Sacrifice, Attitude- what it takes to be the best in the world. These men live and breathe it. Now Team USA are gold medal champions, legends standing on the shoulders of giants. Thank you for representing the greatest country on earth, in the greatest game ever created,” he said in the X post.
No one can fault his enthusiasm or patriotism, but footage on X that showed him raucously celebrating with the team, including chugging a beer and splashing its contents around the locker room, and chanting while wearing a player’s gold medal, like a drunk frat boy. That’s not the public image an FBI director should be projecting.
Especially as serious domestic security concerns are exploding back home. For example, an armed man was shot and killed by law enforcement for breaching the perimeter of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort early on Sunday morning. Patel posted about the incident seemingly while at the game.
Meanwhile, as the nation prepares for strikes on Iran, the FBI director might want to be home preparing for possible Iranian-sponsored retaliation or terror attacks on the homeland.
And then there is the expanding cartel paramilitary battle against the Mexican Army after the killing of the country’s major narco leader, an operation that used U.S. intelligence, and led the State Department to issue a “shelter in place” alert for U.S. citizens in parts of Mexico.
And which could spill over into the United States. (RELATED: Cartels Clash With Mexico’s Army – What It Could Mean For The US)
All these serious issues would be better handled by a serious FBI director at home, fully focused on the mission, than an unserious one partying like a frat bro overseas.
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Apparently. Paul, you did not realize that the FBI aided the players with security. And they celebrated afterwards. What is the problem? Still upset that you supported the air-head Biden?
Patel didn’t take a vacation to Italy. Nearly 100 U.S. government personnel were deployed to the Milan Joint Operations Center in the weeks leading up to the Games – and the FBI Director showed up to inspect the operation personally.
The JOC ran around the clock, coordinating with international partners on intelligence sharing, private sector security, and threat assessment for every American who made the trip to Milan. Patel met with the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, toured the security infrastructure, and posted the receipts on X so no one could pretend it was a junket.
For the first time in 46 years – since the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980 – the U.S. men’s hockey team captured Olympic gold, beating Canada 2-1 in overtime in one of the greatest games in the sport’s history.
The team invited Kash Patel into the locker room to celebrate. He went.
Matthew Tkachuk draped his gold medal around Patel’s neck. The whole team belted out the late Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”
The FBI Director chugged a beer with the guys who just made history.
Sources:
Kash Patel, X (formerly Twitter), Feb. 22, 2026.
Kash Patel, X (formerly Twitter), Feb. 23, 2026.
“GOLDEN: U.S. Men Win Olympic Gold With 2-1 Overtime Victory Over Canada,” USA Hockey, Feb. 22, 2026.
“Kash Patel Responds to Olympics Backlash, Says He Was Invited to Locker Room After Hockey Game,” The Hill, Feb. 23, 2026.
“Jack Hughes Scores in OT, Team USA Wins Olympic Gold Medal Game Against Canada,” NHL.com, Feb. 22, 2026.