Two years ago, Kash Patel emerged as a vocal critic of then-FBI Director Christopher Wray for his exhaust of the government’s mercurial of private aircraft for non-public lag.
The FBI ought to “ground Chris Wray’s private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country,” Patel said one day of his “Kash’s Corner” podcast in 2023.
Now, Patel himself is the director, and questions grasp begun circulating within the FBI about the stage to which Patel is utilizing governmental airplanes for his private travels.
The FBI declined to half Patel’s flight schedule and would no longer confirm his presence on a replacement of flights to locations where he later appeared. All by the important thing weekend in April, shall we relate, a Boeing 757 owned by the Division of Justice made two spherical day out flights from Washington to Unusual York.
On Saturday, April 5, the slim-physique jet took a 57-minute flight to Stewart World Airport, a transient pressure from West Point, where Patel made an examine a charity hockey match hosted by the FBI. The following day, the jet used to be wait on within the air to JFK Airport, touchdown just proper hours sooner than Patel resurfaced in field seats subsequent to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and watched Capitals well-known person Alex Ovechkin fracture the NHL scoring myth.
Wayne Gretzky sits subsequent to his critical other Janet Gretzky, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and FBI director Kash Patel one day of a NHL game between the Washington Capitals and Unusual York Islanders at UBS Enviornment on April 6, 2025 in Elmont, Unusual York. Andrew Mordzynski/Icon Sportswire by Getty Images 
The Unusual York Instances first reported on Patel’s exhaust of FBI aircraft on Sunday.
It’s unclear if Patel used to be on these flights — and if he used to be, whether or not they had been purely private, work associated, or each. However on Monday, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee urged CBS News in an announcement that he wants the reply to those questions.
“The Judiciary Committee must investigate Director Patel’s apparent misuse of taxpayer dollars,” said U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois. “The American people expect an FBI Director who focuses on the security and safety of the nation, not someone wrapped up in the trappings of the spotlight.”
FBI administrators are required by government division coverage to make exhaust of government aircraft for air lag, whether reliable or private. That permits them to defend rep admission to to stable communications wherever they lag. And it affords the director the capacity to switch rapidly in an emergency.
If the lag is private, the director need to reimburse the government the tag of a industrial coach airfare. When traveling for non-public causes, the director could perhaps well merely carry family or chums, however visitor lag wants to be reimbursed to the government along with. Mates or relatives are by no manner allowed to flit on FBI aircraft unaccompanied by the director. It is unclear whether Patel has introduced chums or family aboard government jets.
However Durbin said the exhaust of the aircraft aloof has limits and wondered whether the exhaust of the aircraft lower towards the Trump administration’s professed dedication to rooting out government waste.
Patel’s exhaust of Gulfstream jets operated by the FBI appears to be like to lengthen to his frequent journeys to Las Vegas, where he has a dwelling, and to Nashville, where Patel’s lady friend, who is a country singer, lives. Sources unsleeping of Patel’s lag confirmed to CBS News that the director used to be on the aircraft for quite loads of journeys captured by FlightRadar24, including a weekend rush to Las Vegas on March 7 and a weekend in Nashville on March 14.
File: Unusual FBI director Kash Patel with actor Mel Gibson at UFC 313 within the T-Cell Enviornment on Saturday, March 8, 2025, in Las Vegas. L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images 
It is unclear if he used to be aboard on Feb. 24, when one of many FBI’s Gulfstream 5 jets flew from Manassas, Virginia, where the aircraft is basically basically basically based, to Nashville, stayed on the bottom for an hour and 27 minutes sooner than returning to Manassas.
On some times, Patel could perhaps well merely grasp traveled for every pleasure and industry. An FBI jet flew on March 21 from Washington to Nashville. That day, Patel attended a roundtable assembly with utter and native law enforcement officials in Tennessee, and furthermore visited the FBI discipline office in Nashville. The aircraft returned to Washington later that afternoon. It is unclear whether he saw Alexis Wilkins, his lady friend, whereas he used to be there.
In an announcement to CBS News, the FBI said it “does not comment on travel arrangements for security purposes. All ethical guidelines are followed rigorously.”
Some bureau veterans urged CBS News they’ve been nervous by the frequent exhaust of government aircraft by FBI executives, making the aircraft much less out there to again operations in response to the important thing mission of investigating crimes, chasing spies and combating terrorist assaults.
“Those aircraft have been procured or leased specifically to support operational needs,” said Christopher O’Leary, a worn senior counterterrorism reliable on the FBI who has old the planes dozens of times for quiet missions and extreme response. “The concern is that the routine use of them by the director and deputy director for personal travel could take a critical resource offline when they are sometimes needed at a moment’s notice.”
O’Leary and others said they furthermore dismay that the exhaust of the planes devices the contaminated tone.
“It’s a bad leadership example,” he urged CBS News. “All agents are provided an FBI vehicle, and they cannot be used for personal use. They can only be used for going to and from work, for official duties or to respond to a crisis and that is strictly enforced.”
Online fraud Congressional watchdog urged limits on private jet lag
In 2013, the Authorities Accountability Web snarl of enterprise probed the Justice Division’s and the FBI’s exhaust of the FBI G5 jets for “non-mission purposes.” The myth that followed laid out how usually and for what causes the planes had been old by the criminal reliable remarkable and the FBI director, the costs associated with the flights and the foundations and guidelines governing them. At the time, the GAO did no longer win any explicit circumstances of wrongdoing, though it did emphasize the importance of officials being accountable stewards of taxpayer funds when utilizing the planes.
Diana Maurer, a director at GAO and creator of the 2013 myth, urged CBS News that the equal principles that had been at play when the congressional watchdog company did its evaluation dwell relevant right this moment.
“I don’t know what the current FBI director did or didn’t do, and we haven’t updated our 2013 report,” Mauer said in an interview. “But just because you’re allowed to do something doesn’t necessarily mean you should.”
Maurer renowned that government officials ought to no longer abuse their privileges on the expense of the taxpayer.
“Using government aircraft, as FBI Directors are required to do for security reasons, costs significantly more than commercial flights. I hope the FBI and the Department of Justice are considering the implications for taxpayers when the Director uses government aircraft for non-mission purposes.”
Online fraud Previous FBI administrators confronted scrutiny
All by the years that Wray ran the FBI, his private exhaust of the jet turned a touchstone for conservative critics. Wray as soon as rapidly flew from Washington to his place of beginning of Atlanta, where his family maintained its set. He drew criticism from Republicans in Congress and some worn FBI brokers for summoning the G5s to Reagan National Airport from Manassas, a 15-minute flight, in set of being pushed 30 miles to the Virginia airport where it maintains a hangar.
FBI whistleblower Steven Ideal friend, a shut ally of Patel’s who used to be suspended by the bureau over issues that his views on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol affected his work, criticized Wray in bigger than a dozen social media posts for his exhaust of the jets. “Chris Wray abuses his @FBI jet privileges because he doesn’t like to sit in traffic,” Ideal friend wrote in a Dec. 14, 2023, tweet.
Wray used to be furthermore raked over the coals by Republican lawmakers for chopping speedy a Senate oversight hearing in 2023 to flit on an FBI aircraft to a family vacation within the Adirondacks. (Wray on the time pointed out that he had negotiated the dimensions of the hearing with committee workers.) The chairman of the committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, later wondered Wray’s exhaust of the FBI jets and whether it amounted to an abuse of taxpayer cash, a advice that Wray rejected, noting that he used to be a “required use traveler,” and that he reimbursed the government in every instance he old the planes for non-public functions.
A spokesperson for Grassley said the senator is “still waiting on the FBI” for data concerning Wray’s exhaust of the jets and criticized Democrats and the media, claiming they by no manner showed “any interest in scrutinizing FBI Directors’ travel logs until Kash Patel came on the scene.” Grassley’s office did no longer reply to a demand about whether the senator would continue his oversight of FBI administrators’ government jet lag whereas Patel is director.
FBI administrators grasp furthermore now and then been quiet about the functionality misuses of the FBI’s mercurial. In finally one case, a worn FBI director went to remarkable lengths to attach the taxpayer cash for his air lag.
Soon after he turned FBI director in 2013, James Comey traveled to Connecticut where his family used to be aloof living. At the time, Washington used to be within the course of a heated worth range battle with the likelihood that government workers could perhaps well be furloughed and grasp their paychecks withheld. So, in response to two worn law enforcement officials, Comey requested President Barack Obama for a special dispensation from the “required use” rule so that he could perhaps well flit industrial at a mighty more cost effective tag to the government.
