House Democrats have launched an investigation into FBI Director Kash Patel after a scathing report about the top law enforcement official’s alleged excessive drinking.
Rep. Jamie Raskin called on the embattled bureau chief to submit to an alcohol assessment to determine if he has alcohol issues.
The probe comes just days after The Atlantic published a report that Patel, 46, was prone to heavy drinking. In the report, more than two dozen sources expressed concern over Patel’s “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences.” It detailed how the FBI had to reschedule early meetings “as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights.”
Patel denied the allegations and filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the publication and its reporter. But Rep. Jamie Raskin, top Democrat in the House Judiciary Committee, launched a probe on Wednesday looking into Patel’s alleged alcohol abuse.
“There are numerous accounts that you consume alcohol to the point of illness, direct profanity-laced outbursts at support staff, and pass out drunk behind locked doors in episodes making you so unreachable that agents have had to fetch SWAT-level breaching equipment to awaken you,” Raskin wrote to Patel.
Raskin called for Patel to complete the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), which is a ten-question screening test to assess harmful alcohol consumption.
He was asked to submit the results to Congress, along with a sworn statement certifying his answers under penalty of perjury by April 28.
“For the sake of our own security, we need to know, for example, ‘how many drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when you are drinking,’ ‘how often during the last year have you failed to do what was normally expected from you because of drinking,’ ‘how often during the last year have you needed a first drink in the morning to get yourself going after a heavy drinking session,’ and ‘how often during the last year have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking?’” the Maryland Democrat wrote.
He acknowledged Patel’s lawsuit, but claimed, “the American people deserve to hear the facts directly from you now—not your lawyers weeks or months from now—to determine for ourselves whether your continued leadership of the FBI in fact constitutes a severe ‘national security vulnerability.’"
Separately, Raskin sent a letter to committee Chairman Jim Jordan requesting that he compel Patel to testify under oath if he ignores the request, arguing Patel’s reported behavior is a matter of national security.
Since taking over as bureau chief, Patel has been caught on camera chugging beers in the locker room as he celebrated the U.S. men’s hockey team winning gold at the Olympics this year in Italy.
In light of the explosive report, other Democrats this week called for Patel to go to rehab. Rep. Ted Lieu said Patel should not be FBI director and encouraged him instead to seek treatment, saying he “appears to be a raging alcoholic.”
Patel’s team referred to his comments on X denying the Atlantic’s report when contacted for comment on Lieu’s allegations.
The probe into his alcohol consumption comes after Raskin also launched an investigation into President Donald Trump’s mental fitness and demanded he take a cognitive test and release the results publicly after the president fired off a series of expletive-riddled threats against Iran.
While Democrats’ inquiries are expected to get no cooperation from congressional Republicans at this time, they serve as a preview of the fights to come should Democrats reclaim the House majority come November.
Patel was confronted by a reporter about the report of his drinking on Tuesday, where he did not directly answer the question right away and instead attacked the media.
“Can you say definitively that you have not been intoxicated or absent during your tenure as FBI director?” a reporter asked.
“I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake news mafia, and when they get louder, it just means I’m doing my job,” Patel said. “This FBI director has been on the job twice as many days as every director before me.”
He went on to deliver a long-winded diatribe in which he eventually declared he was the “first one in” and the ”last one out" and claimed, “I’ve never been intoxicated on the job.”
The Daily Beast asked the White House and Justice Department for comment.
