Washington: Last summer, FBI director Kash Patel capped a whirlwind South Pacific excursion with a snorkel trip in Hawaii.
There, US Navy Seals used two boats to transport and escort Patel and nine other people on what a US Defence Department email called a “VIP Snorkel” next to one of the military’s most sacred sites, the underwater tomb of the USS Arizona that holds the remains of more than 900 navy sailors and marines who died at Pearl Harbour.
Patel swam in the vicinity of the tomb for 30 minutes, according to the navy.
Out of respect for the dead entombed in the wreck of the Arizona, rules bar visitors even from wearing swimwear at the memorial. With some exceptions over the years for dignitaries, the only people allowed in the water around the tomb are military and National Park Service divers interring the remains of the last Arizona survivors in the wreck, or conducting annual maintenance surveys, according to a former navy officer and a former National Park Service official familiar with restrictions at the site.
Officials from the navy and the Defence Department said VIP “tours” near the Arizona were common, but they declined to say how often they took people snorkelling. A navy spokesperson declined to identify the nine people who had joined Patel on the trip. The FBI said Admiral Samuel J. Paparo Jr, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, had invited Patel to Pearl Harbour.
The New York Times obtained details of the Pearl Harbour trip through a Freedom of Information Act request and via information from a former FBI official. Patel’s participation in the snorkelling trip was reported earlier by The Associated Press.
The idea of a high-ranking government official receiving an escort from Seals for a recreational swim near the tomb was “horrifying”, said William M. McBride, a navy veteran and professor emeritus of history at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
“This is a war grave with the same legal status as Arlington National Cemetery,” McBride said in an interview. “Snorkelling around Arizona is as disrespectful as playing kickball on top of the graves at Arlington.”
The Pearl Harbour trip was at the end of an itinerary in which Patel visited FBI facilities in Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. Disclosure of the snorkelling tour, and new details about other trips he has taken, comes as Patel is already under scrutiny for blending leisure travel with official business or instructing FBI employees to make accommodations for him and his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins.
This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former FBI and law enforcement agents, as well as people familiar with Patel’s travel plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from Patel or because they were not authorised to speak publicly. The article is also based on flight records and other documents.
Bipartisan scrutiny
Patel’s use of government jets and FBI agents for himself and Wilkins has drawn bipartisan criticism and led to growing questions even inside the Trump administration about whether it exceeds the bounds of standard practice.
“The badge is a responsibility, not a VIP pass,” said Rob D’Amico, a former FBI special agent and hostage rescue team operator. With Patel, he said, “the pattern was clear – exotic locations, exclusive access that no member of the public could ever get, and a support staff working overtime to make it happen”.
FBI policy requires its directors to use government planes for all air travel, personal as well as professional. The director is required to reimburse the government for private trips at the cost of economy travel, and the FBI said Patel had done so.
But in his travels on FBI aircraft, Patel has made time for side trips, including to VIP suites for events, leisure activities or nights out with his girlfriend. The FBI declined to say who paid for one of those evenings out, a previously unreported trip with Wilkins to a country music concert in Philadelphia, where they arrived on a Gulfstream V government jet and were spotted in a private suite that rents for more than $US35,000 ($48,900).
Before taking office, Patel repeatedly criticised his predecessor, Christopher Wray, for his use of government jets for private travel. “I’m just saying, Chris Wray doesn’t need a government-funded GV jet to go to vacation,” Patel told an interviewer in 2023. “Maybe we ground that plane.”
Without providing details, the FBI said Patel was averaging fewer personal trips per year than Wray.
As the Times reported in February, the FBI has justified Wilkins’ full-time security detail by citing death threats she has received. “Alexis receives constant, serious threats,” Patel said in a statement issued by his office.
Acting Attorney-General Todd Blanche said in his own statement on Thursday (US time) that “director Patel and his loved ones should not have their lives threatened”. The Justice Department, he said, “fully supports protecting director Patel’s partner given the constant threats against her”.
Previous FBI directors’ spouses and family members had not received full-time government security or transport, and neither do the families of other cabinet-level appointees and members of Congress.
Patel’s tenure as director has been marked by purges of agents deemed insufficiently loyal or to have participated in investigations of US President Donald Trump, leaving Patel facing lawsuits and widespread criticism from current and former employees. A dozen former and current FBI agents characterised Patel’s personal travel and protection and perks for his girlfriend as a breach of ethics rules and an embarrassing distraction as the agency works to thwart domestic threats, including ones related to the war in Iran.
Patel has responded to the criticism by working to identify leakers through polygraphs and other means. Last month, he filed a $US250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic for an article that claimed Patel was drinking to excess and prone to unexplained absences that were putting national security in jeopardy.
This northern spring, the FBI took steps to investigate a New York Times reporter for an article about Patel’s provision of government travel and security for Wilkins. The Justice Department determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Patel has also spurred an exodus of bureau employees. Field offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Albany, Tampa, New Orleans, Salt Lake City and several other cities are seeking to fill empty slots.
“Anybody who can retire has or is, and the rest are counting the days,” said Christopher O’Leary, a former senior executive in the FBI’s counterterrorism division.
Jetting to a concert
Last year on May 10, Patel and Wilkins travelled from Washington to Philadelphia to see George Strait and Chris Stapleton perform, a hot ticket among country music fans. Patel and Wilkins flew there on the FBI’s Gulfstream V jet.
Patel and Wilkins saw the show from a private suite at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, according to three people with knowledge of their trip, including an FBI employee who happened to be at the concert and saw them. The suite sold for $US35,000 to $US50,000 for that show, according to a person who has booked those accommodations in the past.
Through FBI spokesman Ben Williamson, Patel declined to respond to questions about who financed the outing for himself and Wilkins. Williamson said Wilkins was “an invited guest” of the performers, whose representatives did not respond to multiple inquiries seeking confirmation.
‘The badge is a responsibility, not a VIP pass.’
Rob D’Amico, former FBI special agent
The flight crew and detail waited for the couple, collecting overtime pay, until after 11pm, when they were flown on the jet back to Manassas, Virginia.
After his confirmation as FBI director last year, Patel began directing agents from field offices around the country to provide Wilkins with SWAT team security in her personal travels. He transferred agents from other field offices to Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives, and assigned four SWAT agents and two SUVs to guard and transport her on personal errands.
A former senior official who has hired such agents said Wilkins’ Nashville detail – two SUVs and four agents – cost about $US1 million a year, with additional overtime, vehicle and other expenses.
FBI officials recommended that Patel seek a legal review and a threat assessment to determine whether such a level of security for a girlfriend in another city was ethical and necessary. Patel berated one of them, saying his authority was all that was needed, according to three people briefed on the incident.
“The claim that director Patel ordered agents to do anything improper, or berated agents is completely false,” Williamson said.
A closed-door meeting
Since Patel took a government jet to Italy during the Winter Olympics in February and was criticised for drinking beer and partying in the locker room with the gold medal-winning US men’s hockey team, he has sought to bolster his standing with the president.
Posts from Patel’s official X account praise Trump and promote FBI achievements and Patel’s interviews with friendly media. In testimony last week at a Senate hearing, Patel displayed handouts that included statistics taking credit for developments such as declining urban murder rates and arrests of child predators, which are the responsibility of state and local police departments, not the FBI, according to an FBI agent involved in compiling the statistics.
He has continued to bring Wilkins on some of his recent travels.
In early April, Republican senator David McCormick invited Patel and top federal and state law enforcement officials to Allentown, Pennsylvania, for a closed-door meeting on combating the trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has killed tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians.
Patel brought along Wilkins, who sat at the head of the table with Patel and top FBI officials as they discussed strategy and heard emotional testimony from families whose children died from overdoses. Wilkins’ presence confused some attendees, one of whom asked the FBI what her role was. In an emailed statement, McCormick said he had invited Patel, but the FBI said he had invited Wilkins, too.
Informed that the Times had inquired about the meeting, Wilkins posted on X that she attended because “I work with fentanyl and angel families”. Wilkins is a spokeswoman for the American Border Story, a conservative group that, in support of the Trump administration’s deportation agenda, publicises fentanyl deaths and crimes committed by migrants.
The South Pacific tour last summer that ended with the Pearl Harbour swim had begun with a visit by Patel to the FBI’s Honolulu field office earlier in the week.
From Hawaii, Patel flew to Australia and New Zealand, where he opened an FBI satellite office. On his last morning in New Zealand, Patel went for a run and a swim in Wellington’s harbour with the police commissioner, Richard Chambers. The moment was later covered by local media. Reporting pointed out that the two were swimming during a tsunami advisory.
Patel then returned to Hawaii to snorkel near the Arizona.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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