Kash Patel's Personalized Bourbon Stash

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/kash-patel-fbi-bourbon/687066/

by petethomas • 3 months ago

64 28 3 months ago

themafia• 3 months ago

he believes that many agents would worry that if the director offers you a bottle, and “you aren’t on board on receiving it enthusiastically, you are getting polygraphed for loyalty.”

You work at a place that can polygraph you for loyalty? And you're defending anything about this?

tclancy2• 3 months ago

A. it shows you what deep thinkers the whole place is regardless of the person in charge right now (who is incredibly odious)

B. Of course _you_ would say that.

3eb7988a16632• 3 months ago

Can someone explain Patel's defamation lawsuit? I have no reason to doubt the Atlantic story about his drinking. If he sues and publicly loses, that is significantly more humiliating than quietly letting the story be forgotten.

tekla2• 3 months ago

Intimidation.

3eb7988a16632• 3 months ago

The calculus still fails for me. If this was a podunk Youtuber, sure, intimidate away. The Atlantic has been in the press business for a long time, and is not going to publish a piece against a vindictive administration without being confident in the reporting. They are prepared to defend themselves against a baseless suit.

bdangubic4• 3 months ago

Suing is highly publicized thing, the "he dropped the lawsuit" or "lawsuit was dismissed" will be Friday news dump not covered by anything or anyone (especially now when one party control most if not all media - including "social" media)

jandrese2• 3 months ago

Exactly right. The right wing media will be all over the lawsuit and the X crowd will take the opportunity to dunk on the "liebral media" and how this proves that journalists can't be trusted because they make stuff up like Kash Patel's drinking.

They will be silent months later when the lawsuit is quietly dropped. The only thing the readers will remember is how the evil liberals got what was coming to them. These are the people who still think the Muller report "totally exonerated" the Trump administration.

throwworhtthrow• 3 months ago

Context:

The FBI Director Is MIA - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47813001 (18 days ago)

F.B.I. Director Sues The Atlantic Over Article Claiming Excessive Drinking - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/us/politics/kash-patel-at... (15 days ago)

FBI investigating leaks to journalist who wrote explosive article on Kash Patel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48037332 (8 hours ago)

jcgrillo• 3 months ago

There's nothing wrong with Woodford but... idk if I was going to have a bottle engraved with my name maybe find something more interesting? Strange behavior though...

ugh123• 3 months ago

Guy is a fucking joke

arjie• 3 months ago

Isn't this just a strange form of Challenge Coin[0]? I always found those odd and this seems odd in the same vein as opposed to a new kind of odd. It being alcohol is perhaps mildly interesting.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin

tclancy2• 3 months ago

Oh he has those too. According to the article, his are comically oversized, even for the genre. Because of course they are. The poor dude just screams I WANT TO BELONG in a way the other children find repellent. Other than bullies who know the value of a useful fool. Weird.

malbs• 3 months ago

I love that Sarah Fitzpatrick has absolutely doubled down on this, gets sued, drops another article, "come at me bro"

anonymousiam• 3 months ago

None of Patel's actions cited in this article are a crime, but I'll bet this article of hers could become useful in Patel's defamation suit.

throw0101a4• 3 months ago

None of Patel's actions cited in this article are a crime, but I'll bet this article of hers could become useful in Patel's defamation suit.

It may not be a crime to be at your job own job too, anonymousiam, but if you regularly showed up for work drunk and other people had to pick up the slack, I would hazard to guess you would be fired.

But when you're the Director of the FBI, the two ways to be fired are (a) by the President, or (b) by Congress. Very (politically) difficult to do.

Is the US taxpayer entitled to know if their taxes are being used to pay the salary for someone who regularly goes on alcoholic benders?

travelalberta• 3 months ago

I think Tim Dillon said it best when he stated: “Kash Patel was hired to explicitly NOT run the FBI”

r0ckarong• 3 months ago

That country is such a clown show.

xtiansimon• 3 months ago

Paywall’d

Kash Patel's Personalized Bourbon Stash

Related Stories