Since taking office on Feb. 20, Patel appears to have made three flights on FBI planes to Nashville, Tennessee, where his girlfriend, a country singer, lives; two flights to Las Vegas, where he has a home; and one flight to New York, where he attended a professional hockey game. FBI policy in recent years has mandated that directors fly on government aircraft for security reasons.
Ben Williamson, an FBI spokesman, confirmed the reduction in 8:30 a.m. director’s briefings but denied that Patel had arrived late at morning meetings. He said Patel still attends five morning meetings each week — including three that are smaller than the director’s brief.
“This change was based on feedback from people in the Bureau — NOT the Director’s schedule or attendance,” Williamson said. “He still has 5 morning meetings per week. These meetings are critical to keeping America safe.”
Williamson declined to comment on whether the six trips cited by NBC News involved work activities and said the new director is abiding by all FBI ethics rules.
“The FBI does not comment on travel arrangements for security purposes,” he said. “All ethical guidelines are followed rigorously.”
FBI officials said the director’s weekly teleconference with field office leaders was stopped after “attempted leaks” led to a spate of news stories. But Patel still regularly speaks to the field office leaders.
The two current FBI officials said Patel sometimes seemed uninterested in the material and his intelligence briefers are struggling to craft a briefing that captures his attention. Williamson, the FBI spokesman, denied that Patel was uninterested and said the new director has worked tirelessly since taking office.
“Director Patel is working day and night to lead the Bureau and protect the homeland,” he added. “The results so far speak for themselves — and we are just getting started.”
Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who co-founded Justice Connection, a group dedicated to supporting current and former DOJ employees, said current and former DOJ and FBI officials remain concerned about Patel’s approach.
“There’s a growing sense among the ranks that there’s a leadership void,” said Young. “And that the highest echelons of the bureau are more concerned about currying favor with the president, retribution and leaks than the actual work.”
Changes in meeting schedule
The team that prepares the director’s brief has tried to adapt to Patel’s schedule, said the two current and two former FBI and Justice Department officials familiar with the matter.
“They were struggling with trying to have the briefing run in the morning because Patel couldn’t make it in on time,” one official said. “So now they cut the briefing from five days a week to only two days, Tuesday and Thursday. And even that has been a struggle.”
Some former FBI officials — including some who are supporters of President Donald Trump — have questioned Patel’s dedication to the job.
“When you look at the things that people in America value about Donald Trump, if nothing else, it’s the incredible amount of work ethic that he has,” said Kyle Seraphin, a conservative former FBI special agent who had a close relationship with Patel but has since become a critic. “Then you’ve got Kash Patel, who’s apparently taking time doing sports events, doing lots of public appearances, popping up with FIFA, going to UFC, flying around in our private jet.”
A longtime Patel associate who asked not to be named defended the new director. “I’ve known Kash for a long time,” they said. “The only thing he’s doing late into the night is going to the gym.”
Past FBI directors
After Patel took office, the sources say, FBI staffers attempted to maintain the morning routine of his predecessor, Christopher Wray. Former officials say Wray began his day at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington by receiving an oral and written version of the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB, some of the most sensitive intelligence the U.S. government collects. They said Patel is given the PDB in written form each day.
At 8:30 a.m., the FBI officials presented to Wray and his deputy the director’s brief in what tended to be a large meeting full of senior officials that sets the agenda for the bureau, the sources say.
Wray would usually walk across the street to Justice Department headquarters to brief Attorney General Merrick Garland, former officials say. They said Patel occasionally briefs Attorney General Pam Bondi later in the morning.
FBI officials in charge of Patel’s two-day-a-week director’s brief are trying to adapt it to Patel’s interests, according to the two FBI officials directly familiar with the matter.
“So now they scramble trying to curate a briefing of things he may be interested in, which has them pulling products and switching things,” said one of the officials.
An FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said claims that Patel is not interested in the briefings were “not remotely true.”
“I myself am with him in many of these meetings. He asks tons of questions and pushes staff to get to the point and present solutions,” said the official. “To a bad-faith individual who loves to bloviate and gossip to NBC News, that might come off as lack of interest. It’s not. It’s being efficient with time and wanting to fix problems.”
Travel to pro sporting events
Patel — who plays defenseman each Sunday in a men’s hockey league in the Washington area — has attended at least three NHL games while leading the FBI, according to photos posted on social media.
On April 6, Patel was spotted in New York sitting next to hockey great Wayne Gretzky on the night Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin broke Gretzky’s record for career goals. Flight data shows that an FBI jet landed at New York’s Kennedy airport before the game and departed afterward.
Williamson said Patel is a longtime friend of Gretzky’s, adding, “Kash has and always will support his friends on and off the ice.”
Flight records for FBI jets do not include passengers’ names, but they show four landings in Nashville, where Patel’s girlfriend lives, since early February and two landings in Las Vegas, where Patel has a home.
On March 21, Patel posted on his X account about meeting with Tennessee’s senators and governor and visiting the FBI’s Nashville field office.
On April 26, Patel had dinner with poker champion Mike Matusow and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, according to a social media post by Matusow. Two days earlier, he was training at Ultimate Fighting Championship headquarters near Las Vegas with former bodybuilding champion Miloš Šarčev, according to a social media post by Šarčev. An FBI jet landed in Las Vegas on April 24 and returned to the Washington, D.C., area on April 27, according to flight data.
On April 12, Patel traveled to Miami with Trump on Air Force One to watch a UFC match, having already attended a UFC fight a few weeks earlier in Las Vegas, where he spent time with actor Mel Gibson.
Social media and budget cuts
Some of Patel’s predecessors, included Wray and former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and Louis Freeh, generally avoided the media and kept a low profile. Former FBI Director James Comey had a reputation for seeking the spotlight and gave speeches and interviews but had little presence online.
Patel, who is 44 and younger than many past directors, has a different approach. Active on social media, Patel has sometimes dressed in FBI gear and mingled with field agents, either in training or in some actual operations. Patel has then posted photos of himself on various social media platforms, including one of him firing a rifle at an FBI shooting range.
Recently, some FBI agents were dismayed to see that Patel was pictured wearing an FBI field agent’s badge, two current and three former FBI officials said. Some agents argued that Patel does not have a right to wear a badge because he has not undergone the months of training agents receive.
Williamson, his spokesperson, said Patel was entitled to do so. “Director Patel is honored to serve as FBI Director Number 9 and wear the badge,” Williamson said. “He’s working day and night to serve the American people and address the growing number of threats to the country.”
Patel came into the FBI as someone who has harshly criticized it as a corrupt and anti-Trump. But since he took the job, he has sought to be supportive of the workforce, touting its achievements. So far, he has not ushered in the kind of radical changes his background suggested he might.
Although a number of senior career FBI leaders were fired after Trump took office, there have so far not been the sort of widespread personnel purges at the FBI that have occurred in some divisions in the Justice Department.
Patel announced a reorganization that changed the FBI’s structure, but the changes do not seem to have fundamentally altered how it operates.
The bureau has shifted resources to reflect the Trump administration’s priorities of targeting Mexican drug cartels and Central American gangs, and FBI agents have had to help with immigration enforcement. But FBI agents are also still pursuing their traditional missions of countering terrorism, hunting spies and investigating various federal crimes.
On Thursday, though, in testimony to the Senate, Patel said he supported a White House budget proposal that includes a 5% cut in the FBI’s budget.
“My view is that we will make and agree with this budget as it stands,” he said, “and make it work for the operational necessity of the FBI.”
