If FBI Director Kash Patel thought filing a lawsuit against The Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick would chill their interest in reporting about him, he was sorely mistaken, as a new exclusive dropped Wednesday afternoon detailing Patel’s reported penchant for gifting personalized bottles of bourbon.

Last month, Fitzpatrick published an article that reported how Patel “has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences,” citing two dozen anonymous sources who said he had been publicly drunk “to the point of obvious intoxication” on multiple occasions, the FBI has had to reschedule meetings “as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights,” and that once he was so intoxicated his security detail “had difficulty waking” him and had make a “request for ‘breaching equipment’—normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings…because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors.”

Patel vociferously denied the claims in the report and filed a lawsuit against The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick. The typo-riddled complaint faces substantial challenges to make it to trial, especially the discovery requests Patel would have to answer. Earlier in the day Wednesday, MS NOW reported that the FBI had launched a criminal investigation into the alleged leaks to Fitzpatrick; an FBI spokesperson denied the report.

In Fitzpatrick’s latest article, she describes how Patel has “a great deal of affection for swag,” with his website still selling his branded merchandise over a year into his tenure as FBI director, and this extends to a “personalized bourbon stash” he has been using as “an unusual calling card.”

According to Fitzpatrick, after her last story was posted, she “heard from people in Patel’s orbit and people he has met at public functions,” who described his habit of traveling “with a supply of personalized branded bourbon.”

The Atlantic examined some of these bottles from people who had received them and purchased one from an online auction site. “The person who sold it to us did not want to be named, but said that the bottle was a gift from Patel at an event in Las Vegas,” wrote Fitzpatrick.

Patel’s bourbon whiskey of choice is reported to be Woodford Reserve, a more than 200-year-old distillery in Kentucky, and he has the bottles engraved with his “Ka$h” branded spelling of his name and an FBI logo. Some of the bottles Fitzpatrick found had Patel’s autograph on them, along with “#9,” which is “presumably a reference to Patel’s place in the history of FBI directors.”

Eight sources, including current and former FBI and DOJ employees, told The Atlantic that Patel had given these personalized bottles to both FBI staff and civilians, sometimes while on official business and using DOJ aircraft to transport the cases of the alcohol.

When The Atlantic reached out for comment, an FBI spokesperson “portrayed the gifts as routine within the FBI and the broader government” and insisted that Patel “has followed all applicable ethical guidelines and pays for any personal gift himself,” wrote Fitzpatrick, but others viewed the boozy gifts as wildly out-of-step for the traditionalist agency.

“When I reached a former longtime senior FBI official to ask whether he’d ever seen personally branded liquor bottles distributed by a previous FBI director, he burst out laughing,” wrote Fitzpatrick, and several current and former FBI employees, including senior leadership, called a director giving out personally-branded alcohol “unheard-of,” and a departure from the FBI’s long-running views on alcohol use:

The FBI has traditionally had a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized use of alcohol on the job and for its misuse while off duty. But that standard is bending under Patel’s leadership, one former agent told me. “It is so weird and uncomfortable,” this person said. Another former agent described the bottles as “demoralizing,” because they suggest one set of standards for the director and another for the rest of the bureau. This person said he believes that many agents would worry that if the director offers you a bottle, and “you aren’t on board on receiving it enthusiastically, you are getting polygraphed for loyalty.” The fear of retribution has deterred some staff from reporting their concerns to supervisors or through channels reserved for whistleblowers.

…George Hill, a former FBI supervisory intelligence analyst, told me that Patel’s conduct represented a fundamental misunderstanding of the bureau’s history and of the culture of quiet professionalism that he had observed working under previous FBI directors. “Handing out bottles of liquor at the premier law-enforcement agency—it makes me frightened for the country,” he said. “Standards apply to everything and everyone—especially the boss.”

Hill and others described an organization struggling to uphold its mission amid purges of experienced staff and under a distracted leadership. “When you degrade the office like that, you degrade the impact,” Hill said, adding that he was particularly concerned about what would happen in a time of crisis. “It’s a failure to lead.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!