New in SpyWeek: Drunk Patel Bombshell, Gabbard’s Gambit, Record Russia Subversion in Europe
Also this week: Gorka’s NCTC quest, Loomer's new ODNI target, FBI's new antifa unit, Iran war preps, China’s cable cutters, Outlandish thriller plot
Kash Bar: Le tout Washington was rocked Friday by a deeply reported piece in The Atlantic describing FBI Director Kash Patel as a habitual drunk who’s often unfit for duty in the morning due to his late night carousing. “Several officials” told The Atlantic’s veteran investigative reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick that “Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights..” One morning, officials told Fitzpatrick, the FBI sent a SWAT-type team to bust down Patel’s apartment door because he wasn’t responding to calls and texts. The damning story follows on previous reports critical of Patel’s use of an FBI jet to visit his Nashville girlfriend and highly publicized misstatements on ongoing investigations. On April 10, a “paranoid” Patel, the story says, already believing his job was hanging by a thread, couldn’t log into his FBI account and “panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a ‘freak-out.’”
The persuasive report on Patel’s alleged alcohol problem comes, of course, amid escalating security challenges from Iran, Russia and China, a major responsibility of the FBI, which has lost several Iran experts due to Patel’s role in Trump’s retaliation campaign over his 2020 election loss.
