Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Cash Patel notifying him that he was under investigation. The head of the FBI is suspected of involvement in a corruption schemein which more than $1 million in taxpayer funds was illegally funneled to a small group of agents who covered up his abuses.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who serves as vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Patel's office repeatedly paid significant bonuses to agents on his “advisory team” and security personnel, in some cases exceeding legal limits.
“Several people received regular payments totaling tens of thousands of dollars over a short period. Director's office [Пателя] paid these bonuses at such a speed that some payments could not be made due to depletion of accounts,” the committee’s statement clarified.
The director's “advisory group” refers to a group of loyal agents who “carried out Party directives while disregarding standard investigative precautions.” Some individuals received “five consecutive payments of $8,000, or nearly $40,000 per person” illegally, the committee said.
These amounts, among other things, “exceed federal wage limits.” The letter also separately mentions the connection of these expenses with US President Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.
“You [Каш Патель]”may be using a portion of the FBI budget as a personal reserve fund to make illegal 'bonus' payments of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to their MAGA loyalist cronies who commit unlawful acts,” the letter states.
Separately, Raskin reproached Patel for firing “for obvious political reasons” ten “highly effective professional FBI special agents.” All of them were involved in the investigation into the case of secret documents stored at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate after the end of his first presidential term. He was charged criminally in connection with this episode. The case was closed in July 2024, during Trump's next election campaign.
The letter also mentions other scandals involving Patel. For example, RTVI.US talked about his underwater VIP excursion to the sunken battleship USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, under the wreckage of which lie the remains of more than 900 military personnel. This site is considered an important memorial for US veterans.
The Atlantic also published an investigation according to which the director “alarmed colleagues with excessive drinking and unexplained absenteeism.” Unnamed sources claimed that he regularly relaxes in nightclubs, appears at work in a state of “visible intoxication”, and sometimes is completely absent without explanation. After this, the head of the FBI said that he had never been drunk on the job and filed a libel suit against the publication for $250 million.
Patel later allegedly ordered more than 20 current and former members of his own security force, including IT specialists, to take lie detector tests in an attempt to discover who he believed might have leaked information to the media.
In addition, the head of the FBI requested an armored BMW costing about $350,000 to be “less visible” on the roads, and insisted on purchasing a new bureau aircraft for “personal use” costing between $90 million and $115 million.
At the end of the letter, Raskin notes that in order to receive full information about the ongoing investigation into “waste, fraud, civil and criminal abuse,” Patel must provide the Committee with a report on all payments to FBI agents and employees no later than June 29, 2026. This includes information on the amount of payments made to personal consultants and assistants to the head of a law enforcement agency over the past five years.
There has been no official response from the FBI or its director to the letter at this time.
