FBI Director Kash Patel has reportedly become such a distraction for President Trump that he’s likely next in line to get the boot.
“It’s only a matter of time,” Politico quoted a top White House official as saying Saturday. The 79-year-old president is said to be sick of seeing him in the news for scandalous headlines that are “not a good look for a Cabinet secretary,” the official said.
Patel, 46, has spent the last several days talking up his “prolific” crime-fighting as head of the FBI after a bombshell report last week described the bureau in panic mode over his alleged erratic behavior and excessive drinking. He was already thought to be on thin ice with Trump after he was filmed boozing it up in the locker room of the USA men’s hockey team following their gold medal win at the Milan Olympics in February.
Current and former officials quoted by The Atlantic in an April 17 report said Patel’s own colleagues were alarmed by his behavior, with his alleged unexplained absences and heavy drinking leading some to fear it could have national security ramifications.
Patel reacted furiously to the accusations, calling them “hit piece lies,” and on Monday filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic.
But a string of other negative headlines soon followed.
On April 22, a retired 17-year veteran of the FBI told The New York Times podcast The Daily that Patel’s obsession with optics had led to him being branded “childish.”
“Kash Patel was putting out videos of him at Quantico kind of cosplaying as Rambo, being around explosions, and people rappelling from helicopters,” Former FBI intelligence Section Chief John Sullivan said.
“And, to many people, those videos, myself included, looked completely childish. The director, the leader of the FBI, is representing the organization in a juvenile manner. And the work that we do and did was supremely serious.”
That same day, The New York Times reported that the FBI had sought to investigate a reporter who wrote an article about Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, though officials at the Department of Justice put a stop to it.
Then came a report by The Intercept detailing two prior alcohol-related arrests that Patel himself apparently disclosed to the Florida Bar in 2005, one of which involved “public urination.”
Trump has reportedly been eyeing a wider shakeup of his Cabinet after recently firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, all of whom had featured prominently in negative news stories. Ditching appointees that won’t stay out of the news cycle would allow him to remake his Cabinet ahead of the midterm elections.
Current polls aren’t favorable for Trump, and he might be looking for ways to cut losses.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, told Politico that Patel is still a “critical player” on the Trump team.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
