Kash Patel Wouldn't Be the First FBI Boss to Go Down By Turning His Official Plane Into a Private Jet

Investigative reporter Ron Kessler recounts how another FBI boss's term was short circuited by his personal use of the bureau's executive jet.

FBI Director Kash Patel waits for an extradition flight that was carrying Muhammed Sharifullah, who is accused of helping plan the Kabul airport bombing in August 2021. .

In the early 1990s, veteran investigative reporter Ronald Kessler cut an unusual deal with the FBI, one that was blessed at the very top by its then-director William Sessions: Kessler would be given unfettered access to the J. Edgar Hoover building for a planned book that would provide an exclusive behind the scenes look at how the FBI really operates.

But Kessler’s book project didn’t work out exactly as he had planned— as Sessions much to his chagrin soon discovered. In the course of his reporting, Kessler told me this week he was “shocked” to learn—thanks to tips from agents on Sessions’ own security detail—about alleged ethical abuses by the director himself. Among them: On multiple occasions, Sessions, a former federal judge, had used an FBI jet for personal trips, including jaunts to San Francisco to see his daughter and flying with his wife to Atlantic City to attend a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet at the Sands Hotel & Casino (which comped him the tickets).

Kessler’s discoveries produced an uproar.