On Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel appeared before Senate Appropriations Committee where he avoided numerous questions about his behavior, primarily alcohol consumption. Instead, he boasted of the bureau almost doubling its number of arrests under his tenure, and of capturing the world’s “Ten Most Wanted” villains at a record clip.
“This is what’s happened under my tenure at the FBI and the Trump administration,” Patel began. “Forty-five thousand violent offenders arrested last year, twice as many as 2024.”
But Patel’s FBI has imposed new policies that inflate these numbers and overstate the bureau’s progress in stemming crime, according to a half dozen law enforcement sources with knowledge of the changes.
For example, the FBI began counting thousands of arrests of immigrants that occurred when bureau agents accompanied the federal immigration officers who made the arrests as part of surges targeting the Minneapolis area, Memphis and other cities. Such cases are not ones the bureau had previously recorded as a bureau arrest, the people said.
MS NOW exposed J. Edgar Boozer’s his lies to Congress:
$$$ash Spars with Democratic Senators, Drink!:
Kash Patel tries to smooth things over with Senator Patty Murray by offering her one of his personalized bottles of bourbon.
— Missing The Point (@missingthept.bsky.social) May 12, 2026 at 12:30 PM
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It's not like Kash Patel was ever shy about talking about his drinking habits before he was the FBI director.
— The Briefing with Jen Psaki (@briefingwithpsaki.bsky.social) May 12, 2026 at 7:06 PM
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