FBI head Kash Patel celebrates with men’s hockey team amid major probes in U.S.
This referred to the Mar-a-Lago intrusion, which occurred while Trump was in the White House rather than in Florida; the violence that erupted in Mexico after its army killed the country’s most wanted drug lord; and the weeklong search for Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “TODAY” co-host Savannah Guthrie.
Former FBI Special Agent Michael Feinberg was another prominent critic of the scenes in Italy.
“One of the first things we were taught at Quantico was that there is never a time when you are not representing the Bureau,” he wrote on the social media platform Bluesky.
Patel went to X to defend himself.
“To the very concerned media – yes, I love America and was extremely touched when my friends, the new gold medalists of Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys – the greatest country in the world and the greatest sport in the world,” he wrote.
Asked for additional comment via email, the FBI referred NBC News to Patel’s statement on X.
Patel said he was not just traveling to Italy for the Games, but rather traveling to meet with his Italian law enforcement counterparts, as well as U.S. agencies helping to provide security at the event.
Protests erupted in Italy after it emerged that the ICE would play a role in these Games, as it has at these and other major international events in the past.
Patel this week posted photos from his visit to the Joint Operations Center in Milan, which he said was responsible for protecting the safety of U.S. athletes and all those who traveled to Milan for the Winter Games. He also posted a photo of his meeting with the American ambassador to Italy.
Last year, a dozen current and former FBI and Justice Department officials told NBC News that Patel’s relaxed briefing schedule had raised concerns that he was not taking his job seriously enough.
In the meantime, he has gained attention for his regular appearances with celebrities at professional sporting events across the country, according to flight logs and social media posts.
