Dorothy

Several current and former FBI employees, including multiple senior leaders, told me that the director regularly handing out his own personally branded bourbon, including to civilians outside the bureau, was unheard-of. Current and former agents also told me they were concerned by Patel’s gifts of personalized bourbon. The FBI has traditionally had a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized use of alcohol on the job and for its misuse while off duty. But that standard is bending under Patel’s leadership, one former agent told me. “It is so weird and uncomfortable,” this person said. Another former agent described the bottles as “demoralizing,” because they suggest one set of standards for the director and another for the rest of the bureau.

The report was just the latest in a string of incidents that have landed Patel in hot water over the last several months. Those include an incident at the Winter Olympics where Patel was recorded chugging beer in a locker room with Team USA, a bombshell report in The Atlantic, which detailed incidents of excessive drinking and erratic behavior, and a subsequent report from The Atlantic that claimed Patel had distributed self-branded bourbon bottles to FBI staff and civilians while on official business.

Several current and former agents described the bottles as demoralizing, suggesting the director operates under a different standard than rank-and-file employees. The FBI maintains strict standards around alcohol use while on duty, and critics say the normalization of branded liquor as a directorial calling card cuts against that culture — even where no allegation has been made that Mr. Patel consumed alcohol while working. One former agent told The Atlantic he believed agents who failed to accept the bourbon enthusiastically would fear being “polygraphed for loyalty.”

The FBI has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into whether information was leaked to a reporter for The Atlantic, who wrote that FBI Director Kash Patel's quote "excessive drinking" was causing deep concern in the bureau. Carol Leonnig, a senior investigative reporter for MS NOW, joins Amna Nawaz to discuss.

The latest allegations come after another Atlantic report published last month that described Patel’s alleged excessive alcohol consumption and claimed members of his security team had, on multiple occasions, struggled to wake him. Patel denied those claims and shortly afterward followed through on a previous threat to sue both the publication and the article’s author, Sarah Fitzpatrick.

Multiple former FBI agents told The Post that the bureau has used branded bottles of whiskey to celebrate milestones such as retirements and handed them out as gifts long before Patel took the reins. One source recounted seeing FBI-branded shot glasses, which the bureau sells online.

Notably, however, it centers on Patel’s personal conduct in the role, and doesn’t contain any classified information. As MS NOW points out, that fact — as well as the investigation’s reported focus on Fitzpatrick rather than her sources — makes the investigation both abnormal and disturbing. (The FBI, for what it’s worth, has denied that any such investigation exists.)

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee mocked FBI Director Kash Patel after a new report that the Trump administration official occasionally travels with a “personalized branded bourbon” engraved with his name and title. “The Kash Patel bourbon: strong notes of insecurity, narcissism, incompetence and alcohol-fueled national security risk,” the lawmakers wrote in a snarky social…