The man Donald Trump chose to lock up criminals and himself enforce the nation’s laws just got exposed for having his own arrest record. FBI Director Kash Patel, the irony of whose situation has the internet in shambles, admitted in his own handwriting that he was once busted for drunk public urination and once for public intoxication. The up close details are exactly as embarrassing as they sound, and they could not have come at a worse time for the nation’s top cop.
The story broke through a 2005 letter that Patel himself wrote as part of his Florida Bar application disclosures. The Intercept obtained the document through a public records request to the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office, where Patel once worked after passing the bar. Written “per instructions of my employer,” the letter describes two alcohol-related arrests that Patel acknowledged openly and in his own words.
The more recent incident happened in early 2005, just four months before Patel wrote the letter. He was a law student at Pace University in New York at the time, celebrating a night out with friends. They visited several local bars and, by Patel’s own account, consumed alcoholic drinks throughout the evening.
When the group decided to walk home, things quickly took a turn.
“In a gross deviation from appropriate conduct, we attempted to relieve our bladders while walking home,” Patel wrote in the letter. “Before we could even do so, a police cruiser stopped the group. We were then arrested for public urination.”
Patel paid a fine and moved on. The letter containing this account had never been publicly reported before The Intercept published it this week.
The second incident goes further back, to 2001, when Patel was a student at the University of Richmond in Virginia and was not yet 21 years old. He was a member of the Richmond Rowdies, a student fan group, and attended a home basketball game to help lead the crowd in cheers. A school officer escorted him out of the arena for what was described as excessive cheering.
“Upon exiting the arena,” Patel wrote, “the officer placed me under arrest for public intoxication, as I was not yet of 21 years of age.”
Patel claimed he had consumed just two drinks and paid a fine after the arrest. NBC News, which had previously reported this 2001 incident, confirmed that Patel was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge within days of the arrest.
In closing the letter, Patel offered an apology that reads almost painfully straightforward now, given where he sits today.
“Both of these incidents are not representative of my usual conduct of behavior,” he wrote. “It is my hope that the Board views them as an anomaly. I dually apologize for my improper behavior both to the Board and the community at large.”
Patel’s office pushed back swiftly after The Intercept’s report went public. Spokesperson Erica Knight said that “Kash’s entire background was thoroughly examined and vetted prior to him assuming this role.” She called the story “nothing more than an attempt to undermine a process that has already deemed him suitable to serve.”
The timing of this revelation could not be more awkward. These newly surfaced arrests land in the middle of a growing national security controversy surrounding Patel’s current behavior as FBI director. His tenure has already been marked by the firing of agents who worked on investigations of President Donald Trump, questions about his government jet, and lawsuits filed by his girlfriend over false claims that she is a former Mossad agent.
Then in February, a viral video surfaced showing Patel chugging a beer inside the locker room with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team in Italy after their gold medal win. The clip spread fast and drew immediate criticism, especially given that the trip was paid for by taxpayers. According to The Atlantic, the moment even prompted Trump, who does not drink, to personally call Patel and express his displeasure.
That video was just the warm-up. A report in The Atlantic then published a bombshell investigation drawing on more than two dozen sources, alleging that Patel has been intoxicated at the private social club Ned’s in Washington and at the Poodle Room in Las Vegas. The report described his drinking as “a recurring source of concern across the government” and alleged that early in his tenure, morning meetings had to be rescheduled because of his alcohol-fueled nights before.
Patel denied every word of it and went on offense fast. He filed a defamation lawsuit worth $250 million against The Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick, calling every claim fabricated. His lawyer, Jesse R. Binnall, wrote in the complaint that “these claims about erratic behavior and excessive drinking are fabricated.”
“I have never been intoxicated on the job, and that is why we filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit,” Patel said at a press conference this week. “And any one of you who wants to participate, bring it on. I’ll see you in court.”
But the lawsuit may have made things worse, not better. More sources have reportedly come forward following its filing, and the resurfaced arrests from his own letter add a new layer of credibility to the broader pattern being described. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, have now formally launched an investigation into the allegations. They are demanding that Patel submit a completed alcohol screening test, a sworn statement, and relevant security clearance documents.
The Department of Justice ethics handbook is unambiguous on this point. It states that “an employee is prohibited from habitually using alcohol or other intoxicants to excess.” The man who is supposed to enforce that standard across the nation’s premier law enforcement agency is now being asked to prove he meets it himself.
The internet, for its part, has not been subtle about the irony. The party that made “Lock Him Up” a rallying cry is now watching its own FBI director answer questions about his own arrest record. Whatever happens next, the story Kash Patel wrote in his own hand two decades ago has followed him all the way to the top floor of FBI headquarters.
