WASHINGTON — Democrats want FBI Director Kash Patel to prove he hasn’t got a drinking problem.
In a letter to Patel on Tuesday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said he should take the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, a short questionnaire used to screen for harmful or hazardous alcohol use.
“There are numerous accounts that you consume alcohol to the point of illness, direct profanity-laced outbursts at support staff, and pass out drunk behind locked doors in episodes making you so unreachable that agents have had to fetch SWAT-level breaching equipment to awaken you,” the letter says.
The letter is based primarily on a story published last week in The Atlantic reporting that two dozen unnamed sources inside and outside the FBI believe “the problems with his conduct go well beyond what has been previously known, and include both conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences.”
Patel denied the story and sued The Atlantic this week for $250 million in damages over its alleged defamation of his character, claiming the magazine published “false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.”
