Kash Patel's Shenanigans At The Winter Olympics Are Another Embarrassment For Trump

By Kristin Conard
Kash Patel at his senate nomination hearing Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock

The 2026 Olympics in Italy have come to a close, but the scandals are continuing. This time it's not with the athletes, but with FBI Director Kash Patel. Patel's attention-seeking behavior has caused problems behind closed doors, and now we've got another example of him making the Trump administration look bad. Patel was seen in the locker room with the U.S. men's hockey team after their dramatic overtime win over Canada for the gold medal. The livestreamed footage of Patel celebrating with the players, including drinking beer and spraying it while wearing a gold medal, has gone viral. And people weren't impressed with Patel's antics.

Former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin posted about it on X, and said that, "[Patel] appears to have abused his official position in violations of 5 CFR 2635 'Misuse of Official Position.”' Beyond any potential legal issues, it was just so awkward to watch Patel try and fit in. As someone on Instagram noted, "It's giving I was picked last my whole life."

And people had good questions about what Patel was doing there. One person asked, "Can someone explain to me why the FBI Director is partying in the locker room at the Olympics on the tax payer's dime?" This seemed to be in reference to Patel using a DOJ aircraft to travel to the Olympics. (Although he's unable to fly commercially due to his position, Patel is supposed to reimburse travel costs when using government planes for non-government reasons.) And Xochitl Hinojosa, former Director of the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice, noted on X all the issues currently happening in the U.S. that Patel should be more focused on and added, " ... and our FBI Director thinks he's a frat bro?!"

Kash Patel seemed to be mixing the professional and personal

Kash Patel at a committee hearing Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Kash Patel responded to the uproar over him being caught partying in the U.S. hockey team locker room on X: "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."

Not everyone was buying it. One person quipped, "I'm sure after winning the gold the first thought they had was 'we need to get Kash Patel in here.' Totally." And others pointed out the support that Patel was getting seems hypocritical: "The people claiming it's great for Kash Patel to constantly fly to parties, date nights, & the Olympics on taxpayer's dime are the same people who'd trash a democrat FBI Director if they did the same" (via X).

Despite Patel's locker room shenanigans, the FBI appears to be insisting that Patel was on official business and not a vacation (and, as mentioned previously, he can only fly in government planes no matter what). The FBI's Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson posted about Patel's trip on X before the gold medal hockey game: "No, it's not a personal trip. Director Patel is on a trip that was planned months ago." Interesting how that non-personal trip just so happened to coincide with the Olympic hockey schedule and that Patel just so happens to be a big hockey fan. Patel has previously been called to task for his overuse of FBI planes for personal reasons, including to visit his country singer girlfriend Alexis Wilkins.

Recommended