Kash's boozy boasts backfire as drinking questions follow him to another hearing

[0:00] Right now, FBI Director Cash Patel, the top federal investigator and domestic intelligence [0:05] chief in the country, is facing a massive and growing list of scandals about his alleged [0:10] alcohol abuse, absenteeism, paranoid abuses of power on the job. It's an incredibly embarrassing [0:16] look for the Trump administration and a genuine threat to American security. But Trump doesn't [0:23] seem to care about any of that as long as it puts his administration in the spotlight. [0:27] FBI Director Cash Patel, does he get enough publicity? If you could get a little more [0:34] publicity, it would be very... [0:36] It's almost like he's happy his FBI director is mired in scandal. All presses, not good press, [0:44] I don't think. There, Mr. Trump. Now, today, Cash Patel was on Capitol Hill facing questions from [0:49] lawmakers about his various scandals, and Senator Chris Van Hollen pressed him on the reporting [0:55] about Patel's alleged drinking habits. I cannot imagine ever having to worry about former FBI [1:02] directors Ray or Mueller spending multiple weekends drinking heavily at the poodle room in Las Vegas. [1:09] So there have been no occasions during your tenure when FBI personnel were unable to promptly reach you? [1:14] Absolutely not. You can ask my entire workforce. They hear from me at every single hour of the day. [1:18] It's been written and documented. [1:20] You are literally saying it. [1:22] No, I'm saying that these are reports, Director Patel. [1:25] No, unlike your baseless reports, the only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the [1:30] taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang-banging rapist was you. [1:34] In your response to me earlier, where you had a little bit of a blow-up, you made a couple provably [1:41] false statements. [1:42] So did you. [1:43] Do you know, Mr. Director, that it is a crime to lie to Congress? Do you know that? [1:47] I do not lie to Congress. [1:51] Okay, a couple of things to say about that. First off, when Patel accuses Senator Van [1:59] Holland of slinging margaritas on the taxpayer dime, he's referring to this photo. The photo I'm [2:03] going to show you, there it is. When Senator Van Holland traveled to El Salvador to check in on a [2:08] man the Trump administration wrongfully sent to a notorious mega prison. Senator Van Holland said at [2:13] the time that the drinks you see in the table were actually put there by the government of El Salvador to [2:19] make it seem like they were not abusing the prisoners at that facility. But more importantly, [2:24] it's notable that Kash Patel is categorically denying that the story about his drinking was [2:29] true. That story cited at least nine sources for its various allegations about Patel's behavior. [2:35] There were more people who came forward, according to the reporter, after the story was published. [2:39] And Patel was so outraged by the story that two people familiar with the matter told MSNOW that Patel [2:45] has ordered polygraphs for dozens of members of his team in a desperate search for the people who leaked [2:50] to that reporter. Now, it is hard to imagine why Patel would be hunting for leakers by using polygraph [2:59] tests when he says the story is completely made up. That makes no sense. Patel has spent a lot of time [3:06] and energy denying these specific stories about his alleged drinking. But we already know a good deal [3:11] about his drinking habits from public accounts and things he said publicly. I mean, we have all seen the [3:15] footage of Patel guzzling beer with members of the U.S. men's hockey team while on an official work trip. [3:20] And it's not like Kash Patel was ever shy about talking about his drinking habits [3:24] before he was the FBI director. Sunday nights would roll around and [3:30] the president would try to find me. I'd buy, sir, I am on call every day, including Sundays, [3:38] except the very late evening where Sundays are for God hockey and beer, not in that order. [3:44] And I will resurface back on very early Monday morning. It turned into flannel Fridays because I was [3:48] having this beer and I was wearing a flannel shirt and now it's this massive thing online. [3:53] I'm going to be on the sheet playing in the beer league, having a PBR, and then I'll return your [3:58] phone call. Obviously, I'm kidding, but it was funny. We had this tradition every night, [4:01] what he would call a final final. So we'd have dinner and then we'd go somewhere and have like [4:05] a final drink. Everybody should have a beer or three. It's going to be pretty, it's going to be [4:10] pretty lit. I might have some special apparel. We are, we're going to throw down, there's going to be [4:14] bourbon, there's going to be sparklers. We ended up in Northern Italy and we were slamming Negronis [4:20] at our like last night. And I was like, Devin, I need a subpoena. I went to Devin and I told him [4:26] that in the morning. He goes, dude, if you're going to start drinking at 9 a.m., get out of my office. [4:29] Can I be the first one to say that if I ever go before a Senate confirmation, [4:32] they're going to call me an alcoholic? His words, not my words. I mean, [4:38] the guy had enough foresight to joke that he might one day face questions about his drinking. [4:42] But now that he is actually in a big, important government job, he's very clearly outraged by [4:48] those very questions from the Senate. Kash Patel's tenure as FBI director has been [4:53] one embarrassing scandal after another from the very beginning. Tonight, just before we got an air, [4:59] a former top career FBI official spoke out for the first time about the chaos in Patel's FBI. And in [5:04] the early days of the Trump administration, FBI hostage negotiator Brian Driscoll was elevated to be [5:09] the interim FBI director while Patel was being confirmed. And he says that right from the [5:14] beginning, things were not going well. Patel told you that as long as you were [5:21] not prolific on social media, didn't donate to the Democratic Party, didn't vote for Kamala Harris [5:26] in the 2024 election, that the vet would not be an issue? Yes. Yeah, it's exactly. It's not funny, [5:31] but that's exactly what he said. He's like, OK, just tell me if you voted for a Democrat in the [5:36] last five elections. This conversation is over and concluded the phone call. It's just [5:43] disgusted and shocked. Why were you disgusted? Because now my fear that there was a political [5:51] wave coming towards the FBI with vitriol directed at the FBI, it was palpable. And there was a sense [6:00] of shock that, well, I'm really close to this thing. The Taliban's deputies were politicizing the FBI from [6:08] day one of this administration. That's what you just heard from Brian Driscoll. And every day we [6:12] learn more and more about how the FBI has been fundamentally changed under Patel's leadership. [6:17] Just tonight, the news outlet Notice reports that the FBI has created a so-called payback squad, [6:22] a team specifically comprised of agents who are willing to pursue Trump's political targets. [6:27] That's according to four people who spoke to Notice on condition of anonymity. [6:32] Everywhere you look in this administration, Trump is reshaping the government [6:36] to focus on his personal priorities, to target his enemies, to focus on things he cares about. [6:42] And he just doesn't care about what gets lost in the process. Michael Feinberg was an assistant [6:47] special agent in charge at the FBI before being pushed out by Kash Patel. And Tim Weiner is a [6:53] Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter. He's the author of the book Enemies, A History of the FBI. [6:58] And his latest book is called The Mission, The CIA in the 21st Century. Must read books in the moment. [7:03] We're living in. Thank you both for being here. Let me start with you, Michael. There's so much I [7:08] want to ask you about, but I want to start with what we learned today from Brian Driscoll and how [7:12] he described his job security at the FBI under Patel as being reliant on his willingness to purge [7:19] agents that investigated Trump. I mean, you not only worked under Driscoll, but you yourself were, [7:24] of course. I think everybody remembers this, even though you help explain government and law [7:27] enforcement to us every day. But you yourself were pushed out of the FBI for your [7:31] connection to an agent who investigated Trump. What was your reaction to seeing him talk about [7:37] all of that in the interview? This is going to sound a little weird. I'm glad to see it finally [7:43] coming out in the open because we all called them Driz. What Driz said in that interview [7:50] was something we all knew, not just intuitively, but from the very profligate rumor mill that goes on [7:57] at the Hoover building in the FBI's field offices. It was no big secret that there were going to be [8:03] political litmus tests for everyone. The weekend that I was informed I was under the radar shortly [8:11] before I resigned. One of my friends who is very high in the organization still gave me a heads up that [8:18] if I was put in a position where I had to speak to either then deputy director Dan Bongino or director [8:25] Cash Mattel, I should expect to be asked whom I voted for. So it's not surprising. And it seems like [8:31] it's kind of an unspoken thing that everybody knew that this had happened to him. And now he's finally [8:36] coming forward, which is certainly significant. I want to ask you about another story because today [8:40] House Judiciary Democrats accused the Justice Department of improperly paying out FBI agents [8:46] who were suspended for misconduct, but who appear to be political allies of Trump. I mean, [8:51] this taken together with Driscoll's account seems to paint a picture where people who signed up to be [8:59] career officials, nonpolitical, are being asked to do something that is certainly not what they signed [9:04] up for at the risk of termination, I guess. How do you see it? I think that's a very accurate way to put [9:10] it. In a different environment, I might put it a little more bluntly and a little more harshly. But what [9:17] we're seeing now runs fundamentally counter to the idea of an apolitical law enforcement or intelligence [9:24] community apparatus. And it's worth noting, many of the agents who have now received settlements or been [9:32] reinstated, when they were forced out to begin with, I believe a number of them received funding [9:38] from a foundation run by Cash Patel himself when he was outside of government. It's like bribery. [9:45] It's certainly some form of corruption, I think. Let me bring Tim into this conversation. Tim, [9:52] another part of Driscoll's interview that stuck out to me was when he said that Patel told him, [9:57] quote, the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn't forgotten it. I mean, [10:03] it's which seemed it's a very straightforward way of kind of calling out this obsession, I should call it. [10:10] In your view, does this does that fundamental disdain for the institution itself explain why [10:15] he doesn't seem to care if the integrity or effectiveness of the FBI is being jeopardized [10:19] under Patel? You know, Jen, back in 2020, in the first Trump administration, Trump's attorney general, [10:27] Bill Barr, who's not a woke snowflake, said that the idea of putting Cash Patel in charge of the FBI, [10:35] which was a very live idea back then, was the height of insanity that would happen over his dead body. [10:43] Things haven't improved very much. When Patel is a conspiracy theorist, he is conducting, [10:54] you know, an ideological purge at the FBI. He is he has decimated the ranks of national security, [11:03] intelligence, counterintelligence, counter and espionage people. And we're or and we're at war with Iran, [11:11] which has had terrorist proxies running around the world since the 1980s. Not an opportune time to [11:19] take out the Iran squad, as Patel did. All of this in the name of retribution, [11:26] all of this in the name of payback for investigating the crimes of Donald Trump.