A top federal prosecutor asked a judge this week for two more weeks to respond to a lawsuit over FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged ‘drinking,’ citing a crush of emergency cases.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, whose office covers the District of Columbia, is the defendant in a public records lawsuit filed by the watchdog group Democracy Forward Foundation, which sued the FBI and the Justice Department after the agencies, according to the complaint, ignored or rejected its records requests about Patel’s alleged drinking and unexplained absences.
The group wants records searched for terms including “drunk,” “hungover,” “inebriated,” “passed out,” “won’t wake,” and “unresponsive,” according to the complaint — as well as any use of “breaching equipment” by Patel’s security detail.
In a motion filed Tuesday, Pirro’s office used the word “emergency” three times in less than two pages to justify the delay. Democracy Forward agreed to extend to July 23 — but not the July 30 date Pirro’s office wants.
The Atlantic reported in April that Patel “is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff” and at a private club in Las Vegas.
“Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights,” the outlet reported, citing six current and former officials.
“A request for ‘breaching equipment’ — normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings — was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors,” The Atlantic reported.
“We’re all just waiting for the word” that Patel is out, one FBI official told the outlet.
“That’s what keeps me up at night,” another official said, warning that Patel’s behavior had become a national security risk as the U.S. wages war with Iran.
The Justice Department’s own ethics rules state that “an employee is prohibited from habitually using alcohol or other intoxicants to excess,” The Atlantic noted.
The Intercept separately reported that Patel was twice arrested in alcohol-related incidents — once for public intoxication as a college student and once for public urination after leaving a bar — disclosures he made in a 2005 letter on his Florida Bar application.
Patel has specifically denied The Atlantic’s allegations. “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook,” he told the magazine, before suing it for $250 million.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) wrote to Patel and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche this week, calling Patel’s conduct “abuse of power of the highest order.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — who once called Patel “the right change agent for the FBI” — is now demanding answers too, calling for “an independent and objective review” of Patel’s conduct.
On Thursday, Judge Randolph D. Moss officially extended Pirro’s deadline to July 30.