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Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has privately pressed FBI Director Kash Patel over whether he has reimbursed the government for his personal travel, according to new information obtained by Democrats and revealed on Thursday.
Patel was the subject of reports in May that he took a VIP snorkel trip in Hawaii around the wreckage of the USS Arizona. He also was previously under scrutiny for a trip to the Winter Olympics the bureau has said aligned with a preexisting work trip to Italy.
Lawmakers now say recreation while on trips was “not an isolated incident,” and the information overall raises questions about the purpose of his travel.
A joint letter from the ranking members on each chamber’s Judiciary Committee — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — says Patel has been on other excursions while on work travel, including a helicopter tour and jet skiing during a trip to multiple countries in Asia.
It also questions whether a new FBI office in New Zealand “may have been opened in part to justify a sightseeing trip” Patel took there.
In a lengthy statement, the FBI said allegations that he jet skied and took a helicopter tour during that trip are “both false.”
The Democrats also allege the FBI “demoted personnel in Brussels” because they failed to ensure Patel was “adequately entertained,” during a trip. This stoked fear among rank-and-file agents that they must provide the bureau director’s “demanded perks or face termination.”
“As FBI Director, you are a ‘required use’ traveler, and your use of government-owned aircraft is warranted for security reasons, even for personal travel. But you are also required to pay the taxpayer back for such personal travel, and there is no exception for personal trips where you add a cosmetic work meeting or two,” the two wrote in a letter to Patel, adding that ethics rules prohibit “perfunctory, pro forma meetings designed to cover the tracks of essentially personal travel.”
“While you are permitted to combine official and non-mission travel, you—not the taxpayers— are required to bear any excess costs. Thus far, there has been no indication that you have done what is required under the law.”
The correspondence revealed Grassley reached out to the director with a similar line of inquiry in May shortly before reports unearthed Patel’s snorkeling trip.
Grassley’s letter takes pains to note that it similarly requested flight logs from Patel’s predecessor, Christopher Wray, and the bulk of the letter focuses on prior inquires made under his leadership.
But the Iowa senator’s letter asks Patel point-blank whether he has reimbursed the government for the personal travel portion of any work trip.
“If yes, provide all records. If not, why not?” Grassley wrote in demanding receipts.
It also asks for a full accounting of all of Patel’s trips on the FBI jet, including destination.
The letter shows Grassley also wanted information on Patel’s decision to buy five BMW SUVs for his fleet, a departure from the Chevy Suburban traditionally used by the bureau.
Grassley did not respond to request for comment.
In a statement, the FBI defended the purchase of the armored BMWs, saying they had been purchased by the State Department and came at a lower price tag than armored Chevy Suburbans — saving $270,000 per vehicle.
The FBI said Patel has reimbursed the government for all of his personal travel, noting the bureau’s director is “fully complaint” with the law.
It sought to contrast Patel’s use of the jet with that of Wray, whose travels had been repeatedly criticized by Patel. However, the FBI provided details only of the number of times the FBI jet was used to take Patel to his home, despite repeated accusations of Patel using the jet for other personal travel.
It also refuted that any personnel in Brussels had been demoted for failure to entertain Patel.
“As the FBI has said repeatedly, personnel are only fired or reassigned based on performance or if they have found to have undermined the mission. Any suggestion otherwise is false,” the bureau said in a statement.
It also defended the opening of the New Zealand office, noting it is a “Five Eyes” partner and that the other four countries have an office with a legal attaché (LEGAT).
“The opening of the FBI’s legal attaché office in Wellington, New Zealand was an official event and the first new legal attaché office opening in a decade, New Zealand was our only Five Eyes partner where the FBI had no LEGAT office – Director Patel is the only person to address this partnership blunder from prior leadership,” the FBI said.
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