FBI Director Kash Patel has reportedly ordered dozens of lie detector tests in a paranoid frenzy following an embarrassing report that claimed he’s alienating staff with wild boozing.
A new report from MS Now cites two sources “briefed on the development” who say more than two dozen former and current members of his security detail and other staff have been ordered to take polygraphs after the bombshell report came out late last month.
Patel is said to be desperately trying to smoke out leakers among his team as he frantically tries to save his job following a series of damning news stories about his leadership.
At the same time, according to the report, he has closed himself off to senior bureau leaders and dodged meetings this week.
Sources told MS Now he is focusing on staff members who accompany him on work trips or who have access to closely protected information about his decisions within the bureau, hoping to figure out if any of these people spoke to reporters.
The move appears to be a direct response to scathing reporting by The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick, who said more than two dozen sources—including current and former FBI officials—had warned of Patel’s behavior turning into a liability for the bureau, partly due to excessive drinking and unexplained absences.
Patel has denied the report’s claims and sued the Atlantic over them, alleging defamation. At the same time, the FBI reportedly opened an investigation focusing on Fitzpatrick after the article was published.
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said no such investigation has been opened into Fitzpatrick and called the claim “completely false.” In response to the latest claims of Patel being isolated and in panic mode, he said: “I’ve been in the usual operational leader meetings with him every day this week…it’s false.”
It does not appear to be the first time that Patel has ordered or threatened to put his staff through lie detector tests.
For the Atlantic, Fitzpatrick also reported this week about Patel’s habit of gifting personalized bottles of bourbon to FBI staff and civilians. In March, he reportedly brought an entire case of the personalized bourbon to the FBI’s training facility in Quantico, Virginia, for a “training seminar” with the UFC.
But while there, one of the bottles went missing, which caused Patel to “lose his mind,” according to Kurt Siuzdak, a retired agent who has aided FBI agents with legal problems.
After the apparent freakout, Siuzdak told Fitzpatrick that he was contacted by multiple FBI agents for legal help after Patel began threatening to put them to a polygraph test and prosecute them over the missing bourbon.
“It turned into a s---show,” Siuzdak told the outlet.
Other attorneys who were contacted by the Atlantic said they had heard similar things about polygraph tests from their clients.
President Donald Trump is also reportedly getting fed up with Patel’s behavior.
The president, who has abstained from drinking and watched his brother die after struggling with alcoholism, was not pleased with Patel chugging beers with the Team USA Men’s Hockey team after their gold medal Olympic win earlier this year. Trump reportedly did not like the optics of his officials drinking while claiming they were on official government business.
Patel has also been at the center of a string of other controversies, prompting scrutiny late last year over his country music singer girlfriend getting her own SWAT security detail and Patel himself allegedly using a government jet to go see her perform.
After he was roundly criticized for prematurely announcing major developments in high-profile FBI investigations that later turned out to be inaccurate, a 115-page dossier reportedly compiled by both retired and active-duty FBI agents accused him of being unfit to serve as FBI director. Among other things, the report, leaked to the press last winter, accused Patel of being “in over his head” and focused more on optics than the job.
