During a heated budget hearing on Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel found himself at odds with a U.S. Senator over allegations of excessive drinking.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, questioned Patel about claims in The Atlantic suggesting the FBI director has a reputation for heavy drinking.
“I don’t care what you do in your personal time, unless it affects your public duties,” Van Hollen stated emphatically.
The Atlantic’s report, which has led to a lawsuit, accused Patel of concerning behavior, including episodes of heavy drinking and unexplained absences.
Van Hollen pressed further, asserting that Patel “cannot fulfill public responsibilities if incapacitated.”
He also added that there were ‘reports of [Patel] being so drunk and so hungover that your staff had to force entry into your home.’Â
The FBI Director fired back, telling Van Hollen that the ‘only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador and the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang banging rapist’ was him, in reference to a trip the Senator took to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
The charge is in reference to a photograph of the meeting between Van Hollen and Abrego and Garcia showing alcoholic beverages. Van Hollen insisted at the time neither man touched the drinks, saying Salvadoran officials staged the photo by placing the glasses on the table mid-meeting in order to undermine the process.
FBI director Kash Patel testifies during a hearing on Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request for the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration; the United States Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Washington, DC
 Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Demcorat, speaks on Capitol Hill, Tuesday May 12, 2026, in Washington, DC
Van Hollen flew to El Salvador in April of 2025 to visit deported Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who crossed into the US illegally before settling down in Maryland and marrying an American woman. Â
The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March of 2025 because of his alleged ties to the violent gang MS-13, though the White House later admitted his removal came as a result of an ‘administrative error,’ and courts ordered that he be returned to the U.S.
Amid the controversy over whether Abrego Garcia’s deportation was lawful, documents revealing that he had beaten his American wife and was suspected by Maryland authorities to be an active MS-13 member surfaced.
Patel was also asked by Van Hollen if he would commit to taking ‘audit test that members of the military take to determine whether they have a drinking problem,’ to which he replied that he would if the Senator took it with him.
Regarding the ‘rapist’ accusation hurled by Patel, Abrego Garcia has no charge of rape against him, let alone a conviction.
Picture obtained from the X account of Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele, @nayibbukele, showing US Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, (R) holding a meeting with Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a US resident wrongfully deported to his home country, at a hotel in San Salvador on April 17, 2025
In April of 2025, the Daily Mail exclusively obtained a copy of a 2021 petition for protection from domestic violence filled out by Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez that the alleged MS-13 member beat his wife multiple times over the years.
In November 2020, Abrego Garcia hit Vasquez with his work boots, and in August 2020 he hit her in the eye, causing her to get a black eye, according to her petition.
That same day Abrego Garcia started driving quickly, scaring his wife, as their one-year-old was in the back seat. ‘In the recording you can hear him yelling, insulting me, driving extreme fast,’ Vasquez told authorities.
Later that day she left the residence they shared after being ‘afraid to be close to him,’ her request continued.
Then in May 2021, after an argument at a gas station, the Salvadorian migrant punched and scratched his wife, ‘leaving me bleeding,’ Vasquez wrote.
‘I have multiple photos/videos of how [violent] he can be and all the bruises he has left me,’ she wrote.
Despite her past testimony against her husband, Vasquez had been publicly supporting her husband amid his detention in El Salvador, calling for him to not be used in ‘political games.’