Kash Patel found himself embroiled in a sticky scandal that has his allies turning on him
FBI Director Kash Patel built his reputation attacking government abuse.
Some say that reputation is going up in flames.
And Kash Patel just found himself embroiled in a sticky scandal that has allies turning on him.
FBI Director caught using $60 million jet for wrestling date
Kash Patel spent years as one of the most vocal critics of FBI directors using taxpayer-funded jets for personal travel.
He hammered former FBI Director Chris Wray relentlessly for flying on government aircraft, calling him a "#GovernmentGangster" in 2023.¹
"Chris Wray doesn't need a government-funded G5 jet to go to vacation," Patel declared on Glenn Beck's podcast in December 2024. "Maybe we ground that plane — $15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought."²
On Steve Bannon's War Room in September 2023, Patel went even further suggesting the FBI should "ground Chris Wray's private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country."³
That aggressive stance made Patel a conservative hero when Trump nominated him to lead the FBI.
Now Patel's own jet usage has blown up in his face after publicly available flight records showed an FBI aircraft traveling from Virginia to State College, Pennsylvania on October 25.⁴
The timing wasn't coincidental.
Patel's girlfriend, 26-year-old country singer Alexis Wilkins, was performing the national anthem at a Real American Freestyle wrestling event at Penn State that same evening.⁵
Flight logs then showed the government jet departing Pennsylvania for Nashville, Tennessee — where Wilkins lives — creating an uproar among taxpayer watchdogs.⁶
Former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin broke the story on his podcast, noting the bitter irony of Patel's jet use during an ongoing government shutdown.
"We're in the middle of a government shutdown where they're not even gonna pay all of the employees that work for the agency that this guy heads," Seraphin said. "And this guy is jetting off to hang out with his girlfriend in Nashville on our dime?"⁷
Patel fires 27-year FBI veteran amid jet scandal
The scandal got worse when Bloomberg Law reported that Steven Palmer, a 27-year FBI veteran overseeing the bureau's aviation units, was forced out of his position on Friday.⁸
Three sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that Patel became enraged about media coverage of his jet usage and blamed Palmer for the leaked flight information.⁹
That firing made Palmer the third head of the FBI's critical incident response group to be removed during Patel's brief tenure as director.¹⁰
Sources were "baffled" as to why Patel would blame Palmer since the flight logs he used were publicly available — not leaked by anyone inside the FBI.¹¹
The irony wasn't lost on observers who noted Patel spent years demanding transparency about FBI directors' travel while now firing people over his own publicly available records becoming news.
FBI policy requires directors to use government aircraft for all travel — both official and personal — due to security and communications requirements.¹²
Directors must reimburse the government the cost of a commercial airline ticket for personal flights.¹³
For a flight from State College to Nashville, that commercial fare runs about $239 according to Expedia.¹⁴
But taxpayers remain on the hook for jet fuel, landing fees, and other operational costs that can total tens of thousands of dollars per flight.¹⁵
Patel's spokesman Ben Williamson defended the director by claiming he "pays a reimbursement in advance — strictly following OMB rules."¹⁶
Williamson also attempted to minimize costs by noting Patel uses government airports when possible to reduce landing fees.¹⁷
Critics quickly pointed out that State College Regional Airport and Nashville International Airport — where Patel's jet landed — are not government facilities and would have incurred standard commercial landing fees.¹⁸
Patel lashes out at critics over girlfriend coverage
Patel issued a lengthy statement on X attacking media coverage of his jet usage and defending Wilkins.
"The disgustingly baseless attacks against Alexis — a true patriot and the woman I'm proud to call my partner in life — are beyond pathetic," Patel wrote. "She is a rock-solid conservative and a country music sensation who has done more for this nation than most will in ten lifetimes."¹⁹
Patel then turned his fire on conservative allies who failed to publicly defend him.
"To our supposed allies staying silent — your silence is louder than the clickbait haters," he added.²⁰
A community note was quickly added to Patel's post pointing out that critics weren't attacking Wilkins — they were reacting to his firing of people who highlighted his use of government funds to travel to her shows.²¹
MSNBC's The Weekend program twisted the knife by airing a supercut of Patel's previous statements attacking Wray and former FBI Director James Comey for their jet usage.²²
"Somebody, maybe in Congress, should ask how many flights on a private jet Director Comey took, or my predecessor, Director Wray took, and how many personal trips they took," Patel said in a May 2025 Fox News interview.²³
Host Ayman Mohyeldin remarked after the clips that "there's always a tweet with the Republicans, especially with the Trump administration. There's always an element of projection when it comes to them."²⁴
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin called for an investigation into Patel's jet usage.
"The Judiciary Committee must investigate Director Patel's apparent misuse of taxpayer dollars," Durbin said. "The American people expect an FBI Director who focuses on the security and safety of the nation, not someone wrapped up in the trappings of the spotlight."²⁵
The scandal comes as the federal government remains shut down for more than 33 days — making it the second-longest closure in U.S. history.²⁶
Thousands of federal workers have gone weeks without pay while Patel defended using government jets to visit his girlfriend during a wrestling event.
Flight tracking services have since blocked public access to records for Patel's aircraft, preventing further scrutiny of the FBI director's travel patterns.²⁷
¹ Kash Patel, Truth Social post, 2023.
² Glenn Beck Podcast, December 2024.
³ Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, September 2023.
⁴ "FBI Ousts Leader as Patel Fumes Over Attention to Agency Jet Use," Bloomberg Law, November 1, 2025.
⁵ Real American Freestyle event, Penn State University, October 25, 2025.
⁶ Flight tracking data, State College Regional Airport and Nashville International Airport, October 25-26, 2025.
⁷ Kyle Seraphin, The Kyle Seraphin Show, October 27, 2025.
⁸ "FBI Ousts Leader as Patel Fumes Over Attention to Agency Jet Use," Bloomberg Law, November 1, 2025.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Department of Justice: Executives' Use of Aircraft for Nonmission Purposes," GAO-13-235, February 26, 2013.
¹³ Ibid.
¹⁴ "FBI Lackey Melts Down Defending Kash's $60M FBI Jet Date," The Daily Beast, October 30, 2025.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ Ben Williamson, X post, October 30, 2025.
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ "FBI Lackey Melts Down Defending Kash's $60M FBI Jet Date," The Daily Beast, October 30, 2025.
¹⁹ Kash Patel, X post, November 3, 2025.
²⁰ Ibid.
²¹ X Community Note, November 3, 2025.
²² MSNBC's The Weekend, November 3, 2025.
²³ Fox News interview, May 2025.
²⁴ MSNBC's The Weekend, November 3, 2025.
²⁵ Dick Durbin statement, November 3, 2025.
²⁶ "Kash Patel Snaps Over Reports He Ferried Girlfriend Around on FBI Jet," The New Republic, November 3, 2025.
²⁷ Flight Aware tracking records, accessed November 2025.
