Democrats slam Kash Patel over FBI team's lavish bonuses

WASHINGTON (CN) — FBI Director Kash Patel oversaw $1 million in bonus payments to a group of top agents serving on an executive advisory committee in possible violation of federal law, a senior House Democrat claimed on Tuesday.

And the side payments, which appeared to exceed legal pay caps for government employees, were reportedly so frequent that they drained FBI reserve accounts dedicated to bonus awards.

In a letter to Patel dated Tuesday, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin claimed that he’d been presented with evidence that the FBI director issued the bonus payments to a group of special agents serving on his Director’s Advisory Team, an internal committee organized last year that media reports have said is in the process of building a case against political enemies of President Donald Trump.

According to Raskin, the FBI has made roughly $8,000 payments to “multiple individuals” every two weeks on at least five separate occasions, a figure that totals roughly $40,000 per agent. And while the lawmaker said it was unclear exactly how much money each agent on the advisory committee received, the sum of payments totaled nearly $1 million.

The bonuses, Raskin added, appeared to sidestep government regulations capping the salaries of certain federal employees.

“By issuing these side payments, your office may be knowingly breaking federal law,” he told Patel.

Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, did not divulge the origin of the information he received. A source with knowledge of the matter declined to characterize further, saying that the information was provided to the panel’s Democratic minority by sources.

Beyond what he said was a questionable legal basis for the reported bonus payments, Raskin said that the “frenzied rate” of awards was so great that they depleted the FBI’s reserve account for bonuses, pointing out that some of the payments had “bounced back” from the parched accounts.

Raskin demanded that the FBI director turn over a full account of all bonuses, awards and other payments made to agents which supplemented their existing salary. He also requested a list of all individuals serving on Patel’s advisory team and their specific compensation over a five-year period.

“Why are these agents receiving extra pay simply for doing their jobs?” said the Maryland Democrat. “Are they, in fact, collecting bonus compensation for engaging in actions outside of their duties and outside of the law?”

The FBI and the Justice Department, which oversees federal law enforcement, did not immediately return requests for comment.

Patel, who served in the first Trump administration and built a platform as a conservative podcast host, has repeatedly come under scrutiny for his use of FBI resources. Whistleblower reports from earlier this year accused the agency head of using FBI aircraft for personal trips and other nonofficial travel, such as an excursion to a luxury hunting resort in Texas and a wrestling match at Penn State University. Patel was also heavily criticized for a video clip which circulated online during February’s Winter Olympics that showed him drinking beer in a locker room with the U.S. men’s hockey team.

Whistleblowers who came forward to Senate Democrats said the FBI director’s use of government jets hampered the agency’s response to major events, such as the September assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Patel and the FBI have denied reports that he used agency aircraft for personal travel.

Patel in May also faced sharp questions from Senate lawmakers about a bombshell report from The Atlantic in which current and former FBI employees said that the agency director drank excessively and that agents on several occasions had to wake him from behind locked doors after nights of drinking.

Democrats have called on Patel, who has vociferously denied The Atlantic’s reporting, to take an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, a standardized screening test used to identify alcoholism. He verbally agreed to take such a test during his May Senate hearing — though he challenged Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen to do the same.

Patel, meanwhile, has filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick, accusing the magazine of publishing false statements about the FBI director.

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