Patel spars with top Democrat over allegations over excessive drinking while leading the FBI
During a heated exchange with Senator Chris Van Hollen, Kash Patel fired back at the top Democrat’s line of questioning about allegations of the FBI director’s excessive drinking and unexplained absences on the job.
“It’s a total farce. I don’t even know where you get this stuff,” Patel told Van Hollen, who explained that he was repeating claims reported by the Atlantic.
“The only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang banging rapist was you,” Patel shouted at Van Hollen, referring to a false claim about the Democratic senator’s visit to see Kilmar Ábrego García, following his wrongful deportation to the Cecot mega-prison in El Salvador.
“I will not be tarnished by baseless allegations,” the FBI director continued. When Van Hollen asked if Patel would be willing to take a test to determine whether he has a drinking problem, the FBI director snapped that he would if the senator takes it alongside him.
Key events
Evidence shows Kash Patel lied about Chris Van Hollen ‘drinking on taxpayer dime during the day’
There are hardly enough hours in the day to unpack all the false statements made by Trump administration officials, but it appears that the FBI director, Kash Patel, told a particularly egregious lie during his Senate testimony on Tuesday when he claimed that Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen has a documented drinking problem.
When Van Hollen asked the FBI director about reports that his drinking had interfered with his job performance, Patel tried to turn the tables by shouting a clearly prepared series of false allegations about the Maryland senator and alcohol.
Patel started by claiming the senator had been caught on camera drinking “margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar”, a reference to photographs Van Hollen has credibly described as a hoax staged by an aide to El Salvador’s far-right president, Nayib Bukele.
Patel then claimed that documents filed by the senator’s office showed that Van Hollen “ran up a $7,000 bar tab in Washington DC at the Lobby Bar”.
“The only individual in this room that has been drinking on taxpayer dime during the day is you,” Patel shouted.
“You drink during the day, that’s you,” Patel said, jabbing a finger in Van Hollen’s direction.
A Van Hollen spokesperson told the Guardian that the FBI director’s claim was a distortion of publicly available information, in the form of the senator’s most recent Federal Election Commission campaign spending report, which showed that he spent that money on event catering at the bar, which also offers a full dinner menu, on 12 December 2025.
The $7,128 payment to the Lobby Bar, the senator’s office explained, “was a catering charge at a local restaurant where the Senator hosted an after-hours holiday reception as a thank you to the 50+ members of our team, paid for by campaign funds – not taxpayer dollars.”
Dharna Noor
A slew of national green groups are throwing their support behind Graham Platner, the progressive populist challenging longtime Republican senator Susan Collins in Maine.
Oil Change Action, Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, Food and Water Action, and Friends of the Earth Action — each the political arms of the major US environmental nonprofits — were among the organizations who endorsed Platner on Tuesday.
“High energy bills are on the ballot in Maine and Graham Platner has a plan to deliver the relief communities need,” said Sam Bernhardt, political director of Food and Water Action. “Fossil fuel corporations have spent decades profiteering off pollution while driving families into debt, endangering critical natural resources, and threatening a livable climate.”
The announcement came days after Platner announced a sweeping energy plan that calls for a windfall profits tax on oil corporations amid the Iran War, the creation of a fund for clean energy projects, and a national freeze on electricity rate increases.
The groups also praised the candidate’s for supporting a temporary ban on data center buildout. Maine’s legislature last month passed a moratorium on new large data centers, citing their energy use and other impacts, but the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, who recently abandoned her primary campaign against Platner, vetoed the measure.
Florida reportedly plans to close punitive ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration jail
Detainees at the remote immigration jail in the Florida Everglades called “Alligator Alcatraz” by state officials will reportedly be removed from the facility next month before it shuts down, the New York Times reports, curing an unnamed federal official and people familiar with the jail’s operations.
According to the Times, officials at the jail, officially known as the South Florida Detention Facility, told vendors there on Tuesday that it was closing, and would be taken apart starting in June.
A federal judge rejected Florida’s argument that a prior order mandating better attorney access for detainees at Alligator Alcatraz forced “court-ordered” speech and was costly.
Following months of litigation over allegations that detainees were routinely subjected to human rights abuses and denied due process before being deported, a federal judge ordered Florida to allow them timely, unmonitored access to attorneys.
The same judge, Sheri Polster Chappell of the Middle District of Florida, issued a slew of rulings on Tuesday ordering the release of some detainees and prompt bond hearings for others.
Pressed on reports of his drinking, Kash Patel tries to smear Democratic senator with ‘Margarita-gate’ hoax
The Senate hearing with Kash Patel, the embattled FBI director, has just concluded.
Before we move on to other developments, it is worth pausing for a moment to explain that one part of Patel’s earlier testimony, when he accused the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen, of “slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar” with Kilmar Ábrego García, was a reference to an apparent hoax the Democrat said was staged by an aide to El Salvador’s far-right president, Nayib Bukele.
Last April, when Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to meet with Ábrego García, who had been wrongly deported to the Cecot mega-prison there, El Salvador’s president tried to make light of concerns about the deported man’s safety by sharing photographs on X of the meeting at a hotel, with a caption that claimed the two men were “sipping margaritas”.
When he returned to Washington, Van Hollen accused the government of El Salvador of creating the hoax he called “Margarita-gate”, by placing a pair of cocktail glasses on the table between himself and Ábrego García as they met the night before, to make it look as though they were enjoying drinks.
But the senator said the drinks were placed there during the meeting by someone from the Salvadoran government before the photographs were taken and that neither he nor Ábrego García had touched them.
Speaking to reporters on his return, Van Hollen pointed out that there was visual evidence for this in the photographs: the rims of both glasses were covered in salt or sugar, but it was clear from the images that neither glass had been drunk from, since the rims were undisturbed.
Van Hollen himself shared a photo of the meeting on X taken before the glasses were placed there, in which there were just cups of coffee and glasses of water on the table.
“This is a lesson into the lengths that president Bukele” will go to, Van Hollen said, “to deceive people about what’s going on”.
That did not, however, stop Trump administration officials, and partisan, pro-Trump news outlets from endlessly repeating Bukele’s false assertion that the men drank margaritas. The hoax was stated as fact at the time by a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, the House Republican conference and a correspondent for the pro-Trump outlet Newsmax, among others.
On Tuesday, after Patel falsely said that there was video of him drinking margaritas with Ábrego García in El Salvador, Van Hollen told Patel: “you made these provably false statements that I know are sort of like urban legend in rightwing media about margaritas in El Salvador, which is provably false. So, coming from the mouth of an FBI director, to make provably false statements in a hearing like this, is extremely troubling”.
As the Politico columnist Jonathan Martin noted on Tuesday, Patel repeating this false claim shows how “modern information silos” work. “Patel and everyone else in the biz knows the margarita thing was staged but assumes no penalty in saying it as fact,” since the rightwing media Trump supporters consume has treated the hoax as real for more than a year.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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FBI director Kash Patel is testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee about the 2027 budget for his agency. This comes as Patel battles reports about his frequent absences and alleged heavy drinking while on the job. He has already clashed with Senator Chris Van Hollen, when he fired back at the top Democrat’s line of questioning about the allegations. “It’s a total farce. I don’t even know where you get this stuff,” Patel told Van Hollen, who explained that he was repeating claims reported by the Atlantic. More here.
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Marty Makary resigned from his position as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday, concluding a 13-month tenure at the regulatory agency that frequently drew the ire of the White House, Congress, industry and the public, Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters at the White House that Makary is “a great guy” but “was having some difficulty”. Kyle Diamantas, who previously worked as the top food official at the agency setting the strategic direction and operations for food policy in the US, will be Makary’s acting replacement.
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A Democratic “field hearing” into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes has just wrapped up in Palm Beach, Florida, after three lively hours of testimony, including from several of his victims. During the hearing, Democrats attacked the Republican committee majority for refusing to hold formal hearings into a scandal that has dogged Donald Trump’s second term of office. Survivors spoke of how they were recruited as teenagers from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to provide sexual services for Epstein’s clients at his nearby estate, and elsewhere.
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The Senate earlier confirmed Kevin Warsh to a 14-year term as Federal Reserve governor, marking an important step toward Trump’s nominee succeeding Jerome Powell as the US central bank’s next chair. The upper chamber is now expected to immediately move forward with the confirmation process for Warsh’s concurrent four-year term as Fed chair, and could approve him for the leadership post as soon as tomorrow. Powell’s tenure as chair ends on Friday.
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During a House appropriations subcommittee hearing, Jules Hurst III, chief financial official for the Pentagon, said the cost of the Iran war has risen to “closer” to $29bn because of the “repair and replacement of equipment” and “general operational costs”. Previously, the Pentagon said the war had cost about $25bn for roughly two months of spending when Hegseth testified two weeks ago. Meanwhile, defense secretary Pete Hegseth said he has a plan to escalate or retrograde fighting as necessary, declining to give specific details on the next steps on the conflict in Iran.
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Backlash continues to grow after Representative Jen Kiggans, a Republican, agreed with a conservative talkshow host’s offensive comments on air. During Monday’s episode of “Richmond’s Morning News”, Rich Herrera said that House minority speaker Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black American to lead a party in Congress, should “get your cotton-picking hands off of Virginia”. In response, Kiggans said: “That’s right, ditto”. Following a deluge of calls to resign from national and state Democrats, the lawmaker, who represents Virginia’s second district, distanced herself from Herrera’s comments.
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US inflation jumped to 3.8% in April as conflict in the Middle East continued to drive energy prices and everyday costs for Americans. Prices rose 3.8% over the last year, according to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest jump since 2023. This is the second official measure of the consumer price index, which measures the price of a basket of goods and services, since the start of the war with Iran. In March, prices rose 3.3%, up from 2.4% in February.
While answering questions from Patty Murray, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate appropriations committee, Kash Patel said that no FBI resources have been used to investigate the negative press about him or his handling of the agency.
Murray then went on to repeat the allegations about Patel’s behavior while on the job.
“I am deeply concerned about the reports that your leadership has not been serious,” she said. “Your job is to be reachable … if you want to pass out liquor or pop bottles in a locker room, stick to podcasting. Leave Law and Order to people who really do care about justice and appearances.”
Earlier this year, Patel faced criticism after a ProPublica reporter shared a video the FBI director chugging a bottle and spraying beer in a locker room with the men’s USA hockey team in Milan, following their gold medal victory against Canada at the Winter Olympics.
When Van Hollen asked Patel whether he’s subjected team members to polygraph tests to determine leaks to the press, the FBI director denied personally ordering any tests.
“There’s an internal inspection review process for any and all leaks,” Patel added. “Those processes are followed by career intelligence and agents on the ground.”
This comes after the FBI said last year that it begun the process of using polygraph tests to aid investigations aimed at identifying the source of leaks emanating from within the law enforcement agency.
Patel spars with top Democrat over allegations over excessive drinking while leading the FBI
During a heated exchange with Senator Chris Van Hollen, Kash Patel fired back at the top Democrat’s line of questioning about allegations of the FBI director’s excessive drinking and unexplained absences on the job.
“It’s a total farce. I don’t even know where you get this stuff,” Patel told Van Hollen, who explained that he was repeating claims reported by the Atlantic.
“The only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang banging rapist was you,” Patel shouted at Van Hollen, referring to a false claim about the Democratic senator’s visit to see Kilmar Ábrego García, following his wrongful deportation to the Cecot mega-prison in El Salvador.
“I will not be tarnished by baseless allegations,” the FBI director continued. When Van Hollen asked if Patel would be willing to take a test to determine whether he has a drinking problem, the FBI director snapped that he would if the senator takes it alongside him.
Van Hollen also scolded Patel for carrying out Donald Trump’s ongoing retribution campaign against his political enemies. “You’re asking for more resources at a time that you’re misspending valuable resources on political revenge instead of focusing on defending our national security,” the senator said.
‘What’s happening at the FBI is anything but normal’: Democrats grill Patel during budget hearing
In his opening remarks, ranking member of the Senate appropriations subcommittee Chris Van Hollen expressed severe concern about Patel’s reported conduct as FBI director, as outlined by the Atlantic.
“What we are learning about what’s happening at the FBI is anything but normal,” the Maryland Democrat said of the allegations that Patel has denied. “When your private actions make it impossible for you to perform your public duties, we have a big problem … these reports about your conduct, including reports you’re being so drunk and hungover that your staff had to force entry into your home are extremely alarming, if true, they demonstrate a gross dereliction of your duty and a betrayal of public trust.”
A reminder that Patel filed a $250m defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic and the author of a story the magazine which includes claims of the FBI director’s “excessive drinking” as well as “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” while leading the agency.
Kash Patel to testify before Congress
FBI director Kash Patel is set to testify before a Senate appropriations subcommittee about the 2027 budget for his agency. This comes as Patel battles reports about his frequent absences and alleged heavy drinking while on the job.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as things get under way.
