A Jeffrey Epstein accuser called out the FBI’s top boss for boozing it up with hockey players instead of doing his job.
Dani Bensky, who accused the convicted sex offender of sexual abuse, coercion, and threats, torched FBI Director Kash Patel for his lack of professionalism during a Tuesday news conference hosted by the Democratic Women’s Caucus.
“Why is the FBI director out there partying like a college kid when he should be investigating the vast criminal enterprise?” Bensky said in the hours before President Donald Trump’s record-setting 108-minute State of the Union address.
“This administration needs to do better,” she added. “How can anybody feel safe in this country when our President’s sympathies are going to the former Prince Andrew and not to survivors?”
The Daily Beast reached out to the FBI for comment.
Patel, 46, caught flak this weekend after he was captured on video celebrating in the USA men’s Olympic hockey team locker room following their gold medal overtime win against Canada.
In multiple clips circulating on social media, the former federal prosecutor could be seen chugging beer, trying on the team’s gold medals, and singing along to Toby Keith’s post-9/11 anthem, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.”
A leaked itinerary of Patel’s activities in Italy during the Milano Cortina Winter Games showed that the FBI director had spent more time watching Olympic hockey than conducting official business, the stated purpose of the visit.
The schedule showed that though Patel attended six public meetings and two classified ones, the total time spent at those meetings amounted only to “several hours.”
Patel was spotted at Friday’s semi-finals match against Slovakia and Sunday’s finals against Canada, which lasted a total of six and a half hours.
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson told The New York Times, which reported the leaked schedule, that Patel’s work meetings focused on “strengthening joint counterterrorism coordination, transnational crime enforcement, the extradition of high value targets and Olympic security planning with our closest allies.”
Williamson added in a follow-up statement to the Times that the leaking of the schedule was a “criminal act that jeopardizes security and will not be taken lightly.”
Patel’s conduct as FBI director, including his frequent use of government jets for personal use, has come under intense scrutiny following the Justice Department’s release of thousands of Epstein files naming major U.S. figures in January.
The director’s Italy trip also coincided with a gunman breaching Mar-A-Lago, the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, and the Mexican government’s killing of a top cartel leader.
