A ‘total farce’: Kash Patel denies alcohol-related allegations, challenges Senator to drinking ‘audit’

FBI Director Kash Patel and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) traded sharp barbs during a Senate hearing Tuesday, which included accusations of alcohol abuse and unprofessional conduct.

The unusual exchange occurred during a formal Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing focused on the FBI’s budget request. 

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The confrontation concluded with FBI Director Kash Patel and Sen. Chris Van Hollen both agreeing to a mutual challenge to undergo a screening for alcohol use. 

The moment highlighted a rare breakdown in decorum, shifting the focus from federal spending to personal conduct and sobriety.

“Reports of you being so drunk and hungover that your staff had to force entry into your home are extremely alarming,” Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the panel, said in his opening statement. “If true, they represent a gross dereliction of your duty.”

Patel denied the reported allegations, saying: “It’s a total farce. I don’t even know where you get it from.”

FBI Director Kash Patel accused Senator Van Hollen of “slinging margaritas” on the taxpayer’s dime in E1 Salvador while meeting with a “convicted gang-banging rapist.” 

This referred to Van Hollen’s April 2025 visit to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was jailed in El Salvador following what the US government called an administrative error in his deportation. 

While Trump administration officials accused Abrego of being a member of the MS-13 gang, he has never been charged or convicted of gang membership or rape. 

The remarkable back-and-forth took place during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee discussion of the FBI’s budget and ended with the two agreeing to a challenge to undergo a drinking “audit.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele shared photos of the meeting showing drinks that appeared to be margaritas. Bukele used the images to mock the Senator, claiming Abrego was in a “tropical paradise.” 

The Senator maintained that the drinks were staged by Salvadoran officials to deceive the public about the prison conditions and that he never actually touched the drink. Patel further alleged that Van Hollen ran up a $7,000 bar tab. 

Van Hollen dismissed this as “provably false, after clarifying that a similar amount was spent by his campaign-not taxpayers-for a 50-member staff party in Washington, D.C.

Patel denied the reported allegations, saying: “It’s a total farce. I don’t even know where you get it from.”

“Drink during the day, that’s you,” Patel told Van Hollen. “This is the ultimate example of hypocrisy.”

Van Hollen told NBC News in a statement after Tuesday’s hearing: “If public reporting on his drinking were not enough to call into question his fitness to serve as FBI Director, his behavior today absolutely did. He’s a disgrace to the office he holds.”