Kash Patel's Attention-Seeking Behavior Is Ruining His Reputation Behind Closed Doors

Most people likely imagine that Donald Trump is a bit of a diva behind the scenes. Apparently, though, he's far from the only person in his administration who's known to be a serious prima donna. Plenty of celebs have publicly slammed FBI Director Kash Patel for what they see as incompetence, and members of the public have wondered why a so-called "podcast bro" was leading the FBI. It's easy to criticize someone from the outside looking in, but from the sound of it, those who work closest to Patel have even more to complain about than the rest of us do.

While you probably couldn't tell by looking at him, Patel is seemingly very particular about what he wears. Time and time again, we've seen him sporting an FBI windbreaker, and he has apparently refused to wear just about anything else when making appearances. "You're the director of the FBI. Wear a f***ing suit," one former FBI agent told Axios, reflecting the general behind-the-scenes opinions regarding Patel's commitment to the infamous windbreaker. The FBI director's fashion fixation has supposedly gotten even worse.

A 115-page report on Patel's leadership of the FBI leaked to The New York Post at the end of November, and it described a very insecure man who seems overwhelmed by his position. One part of the report documented the 45-year-old's flight to Utah in the wake of podcaster Charlie Kirk's assassination in September. Patel purportedly caused a scene when he "would not disembark from the plane without an FBI raid jacket," with the report noting, "Patel apparently did not have his own FBI raid jacket with him and refused to step from the plane without wearing one." His behavior only got worse.

Special agents allegedly had to seek out a medium-sized jacket for Kash Patel when he landed in Utah, according to the report obtained by The New York Post. When they finally found one belonging to a female agent, Patel was angry that it lacked the particular Velcro shoulder patches that he preferred. "[M]embers of an FBI SWAT Team took patches off their uniforms and ran those patches over to [Patel] at the airport. The patches were then attached to the loaner FBI raid jacket," the report added. Talk about diva behavior.

Patel's obsessive commitment to FBI jackets may be particularly eyebrow-raising, but it's not the only behavior that has been totally tanking his reputation. He has reportedly been using the FBI's jet to go on dates with his girlfriend, singer Alexis Wilkins, and has demanded that the bureau's American-made Chevrolet Suburban SUVs be swapped out for armored BMW ones from Germany.

Patel has also ensured that staff notify him about any significant arrests so that he can be available for the media and get the attention he seems to desperately want. Patel clearly has very specific and high-end tastes, and, from the sound of it, he is strangely unwilling to compromise on them, even at the expense of the government. It is this penchant for special treatment that has inspired his rumored nickname, "Make-a-Wish director."

Suffice to say, this isn't the ideal behavior for the person leading the FBI. To make matters worse, though, Patel's diva behavior comes along with scathing reports about his actual leadership, as well as growing concerns about security under his seemingly unstable supervision. All in all, this definitely adds to the increasingly poor optics surrounding the Donald Trump administration.