House Democrats are pressing FBI Director Kash Patel to complete a standardized screening assessment for hazardous drinking patterns, citing allegations published in The Atlantic about his personal conduct and work performance.
In a letter sent Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland and more than a dozen fellow Democrats asked Patel to fill out the screening tool, which includes questions about daily alcohol consumption, missed work obligations, and memory lapses related to drinking. The Democrats also requested that Patel sign a sworn statement under penalty of perjury attesting to the accuracy of his responses.
Raskin's letter framed the request as a national security matter, arguing that Patel's "purported drinking habits and erratic schedule have had demonstrably disastrous effects" on his performance as FBI director. The ranking member pointed specifically to The Atlantic's reporting about alleged excessive drinking and unexplained absences, suggesting such conduct could undermine high-stakes criminal investigations.
Patel has firmly denied the allegations. His spokesman, Ben Williamson, dismissed the Democrats' inquiry as "baseless and meritless," comparing it to other investigations led by Raskin. Patel's legal team filed a defamation suit against The Atlantic this week, seeking $250 million and characterizing the magazine's story as a "malicious" and false attack.
In a statement, Patel said The Atlantic was "given the truth before they published, and they chose to print falsehoods anyway." At a Tuesday press conference, he flatly denied being locked out of government systems, an incident The Atlantic had described in detail, saying anyone claiming otherwise was "lying."
The dispute centers partly on events from April 10, when The Atlantic reported Patel made frantic calls to aides after discovering he could not access an internal computer system. The Atlantic cited nine sources familiar with Patel's outreach. Patel's lawsuit characterizes the incident differently, claiming he experienced only "a routine technical problem" that was "quickly fixed." A communications strategist working with Patel later clarified on social media that his iPad briefly failed to load an attachment, requiring routine tech support, not a system lockout.
The request from House Democrats carries limited enforcement weight. Democrats hold no majority in the chamber and lack unilateral subpoena power, meaning Patel faces no legal obligation to comply. Republicans are unlikely to pressure him to respond if he declines.
The FBI director's history with alcohol-related incidents extends back decades. During his college years, Patel was arrested in 2001 on a charge of misdemeanor public intoxication at a basketball game in Richmond, Virginia. Court records show he was found guilty three days later. The incident resurfaced during his transition to the FBI role, prompting a Trump spokesman to characterize the disclosure as a media smear attempt.
More recently, videos circulated on social media in February showing Patel chugging beer, an activity that occurred following the use of a government plane to fly to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. NBC News reported that Trump had previously expressed displeasure with Patel over both the locker room behavior and the plane usage.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Patel's position this week, describing him as a critical player in the administration. Patel himself has said he intends to remain as FBI director as long as President Trump and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche want him in the role.
A separate defamation lawsuit filed by Patel against former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi, now an intelligence analyst, was dismissed Tuesday by a federal judge. Figliuzzi had made comments on MSNBC suggesting Patel was "visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building." The judge ruled that no reasonable viewer would interpret such remarks as factual statements rather than opinion.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The Democrats' demand reads as political theater when they have no power to enforce it, but Patel's legal aggression and contradictory accounts of the April 10 incident only amplify questions he could easily settle by just answering."
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