Kash Patel Fires Back at Senator, Claims He Was ‘Slinging Margaritas on the Taxpayer Dollar’

Kash Patel lost his cool with Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) during a senate hearing this week, after Van Hollen repeated claims that Patel had missed work due to excessive drinking.

“When your private actions make it impossible for you to perform your public duties, we have a big problem,” Van Hollen told Patel during the Tuesday, May 12, hearing. “You cannot perform those public duties if you’re incapacitated.”

The Maryland senator referred to allegations made in a report from The Atlantic, which Patel said were “unequivocally, categorically false.” Van Hollen then asked if there had been any “occasions when [Patel’s] security detail had difficulty waking or locating” him, to which Patel also denied.

“It’s a total farce,” Patel fired back. “I don’t even know where you get this stuff, but it doesn’t make it credible because you say so.”

From there, the two men began exchanging heated remarks.

“The only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gangbanging rapist was you,” the FBI director said angrily.

“You drinking margaritas with a gang banger is true and on video,” Patel continued, apparently referring to the senator’s April meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who is currently fighting deportation. The Trump administration has accused him of being a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies, per ABC 7.

“You running up a $7,000 bar tab at the lobby bar has been filed by your own office,” Patel added. “You drink during the day. That’s you. This is the ultimate example of hypocrisy.”

Van Hollen responded that Patel’s statement was “false” and after Patel posted the alleged bill on X later that day, he replied, “You got me, I catered a holiday reception for my staff with campaign — not taxpayer — dollars! Now let’s see your receipts. #ReleaseTheTab.”

During the hearing, Van Hollen also asked Patel, “Are you willing to take the audit test that members of our active duty military and others take to determine whether they have a drinking problem?”

The ex-Pentagon official replied that he would “take any test that [Van Hollen] was willing to take,” adding that he wanted both of them to take it “side by side.”

On Wednesday, May 13, Van Hollen posted his completed Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test: Self-Report Version on X.

“Yesterday, @FBIDirectorKash told me he’d take the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test if I did. Well, here’s mine,” he wrote. “Given all the lies he told yesterday, I imagine he’ll fudge the numbers here, but let’s see yours, Director Patel.”

In April, a report from The Atlantic included claims that Patel’s alleged excessive drinking could pose a national security risk. The publication cited more than two dozen sources, some of whom alleged that his “alcohol-fueled” nights led to early morning meetings being pushed back.

He has since filed a lawsuit over the article and called it a “sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece,” according to NBC News.

However, just last week, The Independent reported that some of Patel’s own agents are balking at orders to reveal who made the claims mentioned in The Atlantic‘s piece.

Two anonymous sources told the outlet that agents working on the investigation have voiced their concerns that the probe may be more of a retaliation effort as opposed to a legitimate investigation.

“They know they are not supposed to do this,” one source explained. “But if they don’t go forward, they could lose their jobs. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”