FBI Director Kash Patel is facing a rare bipartisan reckoning over his taxpayer-funded travel, after it emerged this week that Republican Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley had privately joined Democrats in demanding he explain everything from armoured BMW purchases to a VIP snorkelling trip at Pearl Harbor. Grassley sent Patel a letter in May seeking flight reimbursement records and a justification for buying BMWs instead of the Chevrolet Suburbans FBI directors have traditionally used; the letter only became public this week.
His letter emerged alongside a separate one from Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Richard Durbin, citing whistleblower accounts of helicopter tours, jet ski excursions, and demoted staff who failed to keep Patel 'adequately entertained'. An FBI spokesman has called the Democrats' allegations 'completely false'.
