FBI DirectorKash Patel’stestimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee got off to a fiery start on Tuesday afternoon when Sen.Chris Van Hollen(D-MD) peppered him with questions about reports on his alcohol consumption, includingThe Atlantic‘sreportingabout how Patel is prone to “excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”
Van Hollen asked whether that report was true and whether FBI employees ever had challenges contacting Patel due to drinking. Patel denied multiple allegations along those lines.
“Nope, it’s a total farce. I don’t even know where you get this stuff,” Patel said. “But it doesn’t make it credible because you say this stuff.”
“I’m not saying it, Director Patel, it’s been written and documented,” Van Hollen responded.
“You are literally saying it,” Patel punched back.
“No, I’m saying they’re reports,” Van Hollen said.
That’s when Patel went nuclear on the senator.
“Unlike those baseless reports, the only person that was slingin’ margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gangbanging rapist was you!” Patel told him.
He was referring toKilmar Abrego Garcia, who immigrated to the United States illegally from El Salvador and has been at the center of an immigration battle with the Trump administration. The Department of Homeland Securityhas accused Abrego Garcia ofbeing a wife-beater and MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia and his legal team have denied allegations of him being a member of MS-13.
Van Hollen visited Abrego Garcia last year in El Salvador, after he was wrongfully deported from the U.S. District JudgePaula Xinisruledlast April that not only did the Trump DOJ wrongfully deport Abrego Garcia, who another judge had granted protected status in the U.S., Xinis slammed the Trump administration for providing “no evidence” of any gang affiliations to her court before arresting and indefinitely incarcerating him in one of the world’s most notorious prisons.
Source: Drudge Report
