Kash Patel’s Performative Deflections

May 12, 2026 · The Atlantic

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During a Senate subcommittee hearing today, Democrats tried a variety of avenues to pin down FBI Director Kash Patel on reports about the bureau—about politicization of law enforcement as well as his personal conduct—but it was a simple question from Senator Chris Van Hollen at the end that produced the most telling response.

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“Do you know that it is a crime to lie to Congress?” the Maryland Democrat asked.

Patel scowled and loudly reshuffled papers at his table. “I have not lied to Congress,” he said. He accused the senator of lying. He refused to look up. But as Van Hollen noted, Patel repeatedly sidestepped the actual question.

“The director of the FBI apparently does not want to answer the question about whether or not it’s a crime to lie to Congress, and I find that extremely troubling,” Van Hollen said. “You are a disgrace, Mr. Director.”

The exchange was a fiery end to a hearing that began with a bizarre exchange between Van Hollen and Patel but drifted into an odd stasis in the middle. The hearing, which also featured the leaders of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, might otherwise have been a drab budget discussion, except that it was also senators’ first chance to question Patel on a series of recent press reports.

In mid-April, my colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick reported on concerns inside the Trump administration about what FBI sources described as excessive drinking and unexplained absences. (In a follow-up story, Fitzpatrick also reported on the personalized bourbon bottles Patel has handed out as gifts.) Patel has denied the allegations in Fitzpatrick’s initial story and sued Fitzpatrick and The Atlantic for defamation, demanding $250 million; MS NOW also reported last week that Fitzpatrick was the focus of an FBI criminal-leak investigation, a development the FBI rejects as “completely false.” Earlier this spring, several outlets also reported that Patel had fired agents from a task force that monitored threats from Iran—just days before the Trump administration launched a war against Iran—because they’d been involved in an investigation into the president’s alleged removal of classified documents to Mar-a-Lago. (Patel has denied these reports, saying that the agents were fired for unspecified violations of "ethical obligations.")

“Director Patel, I don’t care one bit about your private life, and I don’t give a damn about what you do on your own time and on your own dime unless and until it interferes with your public responsibilities,” Van Hollen said in his opening statement. The allegations, if true, “demonstrate a gross dereliction of your duty,” he said.

The director responded with vitriol and scorn. “The only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gangbanging rapist was you,” Patel said. The director appeared to be referring to a visit that Van Hollen made to El Salvador, where he met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an imprisoned immigrant whom the administration acknowledged it had mistakenly deported. (He has since been returned to the United States, though the administration is now trying to deport him to Liberia.) Photos of the meeting released by the Salvadoran government showed glasses on a table with salt rims and cherries, but Van Hollen has said no one was drinking alcohol. The reference to “a convicted gangbanging rapist” is nonsensical; Abrego Garcia has been indicted for human smuggling (he has pleaded not guilty), but no evidence shows that he has ever been convicted of rape.

Other Democrats followed up with questions of their own. When Senator Chris Coons asked about the cost of Patel’s trip to Milan during the Olympics, when he was taped chugging beer in a locker room with the U.S. hockey team, Patel just didn’t answer. Coons also inquired about the firing of agents, but Patel said he didn’t believe the reporting. “Do you disagree that there were 10 Iran specialists dismissed right before the war began?” a perplexed Coons asked. “Yes,” Patel said. When Senator Patty Murray cited figures showing that FBI agents had been reassigned to immigration enforcement, Patel categorically denied that, too.

Committee Republicans, meanwhile, mostly opted to ignore the reports altogether, although Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana plied Patel with softballs such as “Is it important that you go out there and travel and talk to our line agents and try to maintain morale?”

Patel’s strategy of flat denials seemed to flummox Democrats. Only at the end did Van Hollen find some footing, noting that several statements Patel had made during the hearing were “provably false” and giving the director a chance to correct them. Patel declined—but he did offer some amendments. He allowed that some of the fired agents may have had Iran expertise, but denied they were Iran experts. He clarified that no FBI agents have been permanently reassigned to immigration. Patel’s evasive answers demonstrated his contempt for Congress and for oversight in general; surely he must realize that if Democrats regain control of Congress, they might produce formal charges of contempt too. But Patel seems unafraid of any repercussions and more interested in scoring partisan points that go viral.

Rarely if ever in the past have presidential appointees launched harsh personal attacks against members of Congress. In this administration, it’s routine. In one of the strangest moments of the hearing, Patel responded to Van Hollen’s questions about his drinking by claiming that a $7,000 bar expense could be found in the senator’s Federal Election Commission reports. Van Hollen said the tab was for a large party and noted that it had been paid for with private funds, and he challenged Patel to take the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, a screening tool for unhealthy drinking. Patel said he’d take the test if Van Hollen did, an offer the senator readily accepted. Who says Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything?

Here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

Today’s News

A top Pentagon budget official told Congress that the cost of the war with Iran has risen to about $29 billion, up from an estimated $25 billion two weeks ago. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to say when the administration would seek additional funding from Congress, or how much emergency funding would be needed.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is resigning after 13 months leading the agency. He had faced weeks of pressure to resign after a tenure marked by mass layoffs, leadership turnover, and clashes with lawmakers. Kyle Diamantas, the FDA’s top food regulator, will take over in an acting capacity.
The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh to the Federal Reserve Board in a 51–45 vote, clearing the way for a separate vote, expected tomorrow, on whether he will become Fed chair.

Evening Read

Sergio Amiti / Getty

How AI Killed a 133-Year-Old Princeton Tradition

By Rose Horowitch

In 1876, an editorial in Princeton’s newly founded campus newspaper, The Princetonian, argued against the use of proctors to monitor exams. Proctoring was “a means of bad moral education,” the author wrote. Treat students as presumptively dishonest, and some would become so; treat them as honorable, and they would learn to behave honorably …

The Honor Code had a good run. F. Scott Fitzgerald (who enrolled at Princeton in 1913 but did not graduate) once wrote that violating it “simply doesn’t occur to you, any more than it would occur to you to rifle your roommate’s pocketbook.” The code lasted through two world wars, the upheaval of the 1960s, the disillusionment of Watergate, and even the rise of search engines and SparkNotes. It finally met its match in generative AI. Yesterday, after the rise of AI-facilitated cheating became too obvious to ignore, Princeton’s faculty voted to begin proctoring exams again. Technically, the Honor Code is still in place. Students will still sign a pledge that they didn’t cheat. But now professors will be watching to make sure they’re telling the truth. The Honor Code can’t run on the honor system anymore.

Read the full article.