FBI Director Kash Patel was the subject of a scathing account of his daily activities at the helm of the law enforcement agency. In a following report from the same journalist, it was revealed that Kash Patel’s so-called calling card is a personalized bottle of bourbon.
The Atlantic‘s Sarah Fitzpatrick spoke to two dozen anonymous sources for her piece, “The FBI Director Is MIA,” prompting a lawsuit from Kash Patel and, reportedly, a wider investigation into leaks from within the agency, according to a recent MS Now report.
Fitzpatrick doubled back this week with another story about the personalized bourbon bottles, which can be viewed in the linked story. In the piece, Fitzpatrick says she was alerted to the bourbon bottles by someone close to the director.
From The Atlantic:
After my story appeared, I heard from people in Patel’s orbit and people he has met at public functions, who told me that it is not unusual for him to travel with a supply of personalized branded bourbon. The bottles bear the imprint of the Kentucky distillery Woodford Reserve, and are engraved with the words “Kash Patel FBI Director,” as well as a rendering of an FBI shield. Surrounding the shield is a band of text featuring Patel’s director title and his favored spelling of his first name: Ka$h.
An eagle holds the shield in its talons, along with the number 9, presumably a reference to Patel’s place in the history of FBI directors. In some cases, the 750-milliliter bottles bear Patel’s signature, with “#9” there as well. One such bottle popped up on an online auction site shortly after my story appeared, and The Atlantic later purchased it. (The person who sold it to us did not want to be named, but said that the bottle was a gift from Patel at an event in Las Vegas.)
An FBI spokesperson responded to Fitzpatrick’s report on the bottle, saying that “the bottles in question are part of a tradition in the FBI that started well over a decade ago, long before Director Patel arrived. Senior Bureau officials have long exchanged commemorative items in formal gift settings consistent with ethics rules. Director Patel has followed all applicable ethical guidelines and pays for any personal gift himself.”
Fitzpatrick says that while fact-checking whether the personalized bourbon bottles were indeed a practice of the FBI, she reached out to a former senior FBI official, who laughed at the question.
Kash Patel has been under scrutiny for several questionable moves, including claims he’s used the FBI jet meant for his travel to transport his girlfriend. Further, Patel’s appearance at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics with the U.S. Men’s gold medal-winning hockey team added further speculation to the rumors of widespread drinking.
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