IN BRIEF
- US Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen and Kash Patel had a fiery exchange in the US Senate.
- However, he received a friendly reception from Republican senators at the hearing.
FBI director Kash Patel angrily lashed out at a Democratic politician at a budget hearing on Wednesday AEST, calling allegations that he drinks excessively on the job and has been unreachable to his staff at times "unequivocally, categorically false".
"I will not be tarnished by baseless allegations and fraudulent statements from the media," Patel told US senator Chris Van Hollen during a testy exchange that began when the Democrat confronted him about a recent article in The Atlantic magazine that painted an unflattering portrait of his leadership of the United States' premier federal law enforcement agency.
Patel has filed a US$250 million ($345 million) lawsuit over the story. The Atlantic has said it stands by its reporting and would vigorously defend against the "meritless lawsuit".
Patel shouted over Van Hollen and sought to turn the tables by accusing him of "slinging margaritas on the taxpayer dime" in El Salvador, a reference to a visit the senator paid last year to Kilmar Abrego Garcia while he was jailed there following his mistaken deportation to the country.
“The only person who has been drinking during the day on the taxpayer dime was you," Patel said.
“Director Patel, come on," Van Hollen said. "These are serious allegations that were made against you."
He at one point asked Patel if he was willing to take a test meant to measure whether a person has a drinking problem, prompting Patel to shoot back, "I’ll take any test you’re willing to take."
The senator called Patel's claims of drinking margaritas in El Salvador "provably false". After last year's meeting, Van Hollen publicly accused El Salvador’s government of having misrepresented the nature of his encounter with Abrego Garcia, saying officials there had staged the meeting with drinks appearing to be alcohol and angled to set the meeting by a hotel pool.
The testy exchange occurred at an annual US Senate subcommittee budget hearing featuring Patel and other senior law enforcement leaders.
The director used the forum to tout what he described as major crime-fighting achievements since he took the position and received a friendly reception from Republican senators who praised his leadership.
Democrats, by contrast, pressed Patel on headline-generating travel that has blended his professional duties with private leisure — including a trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy, where he partied with the US men's ice hockey team after their gold medal win — as well as the mass terminations of agents who worked on investigations into President Donald Trump.
"You attended the Olympics in Milan," said senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat. "How much did your trip cost, and to what extent did that help you carry out your mission as director of the FBI?"
Patel responded that the FBI was responsible for security at the Olympics and asserted that his trip to Italy helped facilitate the transfer of a Chinese cybercriminal to US custody, who had been detained by Italian authorities.
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