FBI Director Kash Patel’s locker room celebration with the U.S. men’s hockey team at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics has landed him in hot water with President Donald Trump, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Videos of Patel celebrating in the locker room surfaced following Team USA’s 2-1 overtime victory against Canada which marked the first American men’s hockey gold medal since the legendary 1980 “Miracle on Ice.” The footage captured Patel chugging beer, banging on tables and joining in raucous celebrations with the players.
However, Trump has repeatedly expressed his disappointment to Patel about the incident, a person familiar with the conversation revealed to NBC News. The president was also displeased with Patel’s use of a government jet to travel to Italy for the Olympics.
“Trump — who does not drink — told Patel he was unhappy not only with that scene, but also with Patel’s use of government aircraft for the trip to Milan, Italy, according to the person familiar with the matter,” NBC News reported.
The timing of the trip raised eyebrows as it coincided with a shooting incident at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida where an armed individual breached the security perimeter. Though Trump was not present during the incident, critics questioned whether the FBI director should have been abroad during such a significant security event.
Kash Patel defended his Olympic attendance
Patel has defended his presence at the Olympics stating the trip served official purposes beyond athletic spectating. He maintained that he met with Italian law enforcement and U.S. agencies providing security for the international event as well as overseeing protection for the estimated 250,000 American citizens who traveled to Milan.
“For the very concerned media — yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys,” Patel wrote on X following the controversy.
The FBI declined to comment on Trump’s reported displeasure. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson issued a statement emphasizing the administration’s confidence in Patel and highlighting crime rates “dropping across the board” as evidence of successful implementation of the president’s law enforcement agenda.
This is not the first time Patel has faced scrutiny over his use of FBI aircraft. Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee previously requested that the Justice Department’s inspector general investigate what he characterized as Patel’s “misuse or mismanagement of government resources.”
Edited by Anjum Rajonno
