The Conversation (0)
News
X/@WilliamTurton
FBI Director Kash Patel has been slammed for his attendance at the USA’s men’s ice hockey final at the Winter Olympics and for what he did afterward.
The USA’s men’s ice hockey team beat Canada to gold after scoring during overtime in a tense final at the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.
One person in attendance at the highly anticipated match was Patel, who flew to Europe on a reported “$75k taxpayer-funded” trip on the FBI’s jet. Patel has claimed the trip was made in an official capacity, rather than personal.
Footage leaked from the locker room showed Patel celebrating with the winning USA team where he appeared to be chugging bottled beer, cheering, jumping and singing with the team.
Notably, the celebrations occurred hours after an armed man was shot and killed after driving into Mar-a-Lago. From Milan, Patel tweeted that his organisation was “dedicating all necessary resources in the investigation”.
But, with the expectation that the FBI is busy working to hold those accused of wrongdoing in the Jeffrey Epstein files to account, and conducting other important investigations including into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, many people were deeply disappointed to see Patel there.
X/@WilliamTurton
In response to the backlash, Patel wrote: “For the very concerned media - yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth.”
In spite of his defence, the criticism rolled in.
“Our tax dollars paid for the FBI Director to fly to Italy on a private jet, attend the Gold Medal hockey match, and drink and celebrate with the team after the game.
“But we’re told the real waste of money is moms buying cookies for their kids with SNAP,” someone argued.
Another pointed out: “In any normal administration this stolen valor footage of Kash Patel would be an instant career ender for a FBI director.”
Someone else wrote: “You can only imagine the reaction from the GOP and Fox if this was a FBI director under Obama or Biden. What is he doing there? At taxpayer expense??”
Another wrote: “Nancy Guthrie has been missing for three weeks and the FBI botched the investigation. This is what our FBI Director is doing.”
One person added: “It’s really wild how things that would end careers in any other time are just normalized and defended when it comes to this administration and the losers that are in it. The FBI director flying across the world on a government jet to party should be a huge scandal. And yet.”
Similarly, another wrote: “Sorry, but this is ridiculous. The head of the top law enforcement agency in the U.S. should not be using taxpayer dollars to jet set across the world & get drunk with athletes. Can’t imagine the outrage if a Biden appointee did this.”
“3 million pages of evidence of a massive child sex trafficking ring and this is what the FBI director is doing right now,” said another.
Someone argued: “This is just further proof that the modern right, at their heart, are uncool losers who want to be seen as cool just once in their lives.”
Why not read…
- JD Vance booed at Winter Olympics opening ceremony - and the internet isn’t surprised
- Who is Nancy Guthrie? Everything we know about her disappearance
- Norwegian Olympian’s gf 'breaks silence' after cheating confession
Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
Top 100
