A new report says that Patel's firing is only a matter of time, but in the meantime, let's reacquaint ourselves with him and his achievements.
https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/kash-patel-russia-visit-us-fbi-qkp5wv6gm
He’s swigged beer with the US men’s ice hockey team in Italy, snorkelled next to an underwater tomb at Pearl Harbor and been accused of using a government jet to watch his girlfriend perform country music.
Now Kash Patel, the head of the FBI, is planning to visit Russia, where he is likely to be hosted by a Kremlin security service that tortures dissidents, a report has said. His trip is scheduled for October 13-14, according to Politico. It is unclear if he will hold talks with President Putin or other senior Kremlin officials.
Patel’s hosts for the “unusual and sensitive” visit to Moscow and St Petersburg will be the FSB security service, the heir to the notorious Soviet-era KGB, sources claimed. It was unclear what was on the agenda. The FSB has taken the leading role in crushing anti-war dissent in Russia since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In the US, politicians are pressing President Trump to approve a bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas. Trump says he wants the bill to include Iran, too. The bill was championed by Lindsey Graham, the senator who died earlier this month.
Patel faced scrutiny last year when he was revealed to have been paid $25,000 to appear in a 2024 documentary about an alleged anti-Trump conspiracy that was made by a dual US-Russian citizen who had previously received money from a Kremlin-linked fund. In the documentary, entitled All the President’s Men: The Conspiracy Against Trump, Patel said that he wanted to close down the FBI headquarters and reopen it “as a museum to the deep state”.
The FBI chief, who was appointed by Trump last year, has faced questions, including from within the administration, over what critics say is his inappropriate use of taxpayer-funded resources. He is said to have dispatched Swat teams at short notice to protect his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, an aspiring country music singer, during public appearances, raising concerns about the legality of such moves. He also faced criticism for allegedly using the FBI jet to fly to Pennsylvania to watch Wilkins perform at a university concert in October.
In February he flew to Milan on the FBI jet to watch the US men’s hockey team at the Winter Olympics. The trip cost a reported $1 million. Patel said it was necessary to extradite a Chinese hacker with alleged ties to the regime in Beijing. He is said to have angered Trump, however, when he was filmed drinking beer with the US team after their victory over Canada in the final.
During a trip last year to Pearl Harbor that involved navy Seals, Patel snorkelled next to the wreck of the USS Arizona, a battleship that contains the remains of more than 900 US sailors and marines who died during Japan’s surprise attack in 1941. The site is considered one of the US military’s most sacred sites and his trip drew criticism from US military veterans.
He also used a government jet to go on a golfing holiday with friends at a private resort in Scotland last summer, US media said, as well as to a hunting ranch in Texas.
Patel would be the first FBI chief to visit Russia since Robert Mueller travelled to Moscow in 2013, less than a year before the Kremlin ruptured relations with the West by annexing Crimea from Ukraine.
In 2017, Mueller was appointed as a US special counsel to investigate alleged collusion between President Trump’s first presidential campaign and Moscow. Patel has called the investigation the “Russiagate hoax”. He also authored a children’s book in 2022 called The Plot Against the King, mocking the investigation. It ends with Patel, who is depicted as a wizard, declaring: “King Donald … is innocent.”