Kash Patel — Who Spent Years Attacking the Old FBI Director for Using a Jet — Now Has Two Government Jets, Wants an $80 Million Third, Bought Armored BMWs Instead of Suburbans, Put a $1M/Year SWAT Detail on His Country-Singer Girlfriend, and Demanded Snorkeling and Jet-Ski Perks — Until a Republican Who Defended Him Turned

Before Kash Patel ran the FBI, his signature complaint about the FBI was that its director flew too nicely. He spent years attacking Christopher Wray for using a government jet. His line, repeated often:

"Chris Wray doesn't need a government-funded GV jet to go to vacation."

Patel now has two government jets, wants a third that costs $80 million, and has been caught on camera bragging that he "has two." The man who built a brand on FBI excess has become the case study.

The Republican who turned

Democrats have raised Patel's spending for months. What changed in July 2026 is that a powerful Republican — one who had defended Patel — joined them. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent Patel a letter demanding answers:

• "For each trip where you used an FBI aircraft for personal travel, have you reimbursed the FBI as required by law? If yes, please provide the records."
• An explanation of "why you decided to purchase BMW vehicles instead of Chevy Suburbans."
• An "independent and objective review" of his travel, because the scrutiny had grown too large to ignore.

Grassley is not a reflexive critic of this administration. His letter is the sound of a defender deciding the story had become indefensible.

The jets

Patel's defense is procedural and, on its own terms, partly true: FBI directors are required to fly on the bureau's aircraft for security reasons. "They don't let me fly commercially," he said. He also says he reimburses the government for personal trips — at the cost of a commercial ticket.

That is the trick in the number. Operating an FBI Gulfstream costs tens of thousands of dollars per trip; the reimbursement is the price of a coach fare. The gap is the taxpayer subsidy for the lifestyle. And the trips, per reporting and House Democrats' records requests, include:

• "Date night" flights with his girlfriend
• Sporting events and a hunting retreat reportedly nicknamed "Boondoggle Ranch"
• An FBI Gulfstream to Philadelphia for a George Strait and Chris Stapleton concert, watched from a private suite estimated at $35,000–$50,000
• A winter trip to Italy to watch the U.S. men's hockey team win gold — where he chugged a beer in the locker-room celebration

And the bureau is now seeking a new $80 million jet for the director.

The perks

Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), citing whistleblower accounts given to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, describe a pattern of Patel demanding personal entertainment from bureau employees on "official" trips:

• A taxpayer-funded helicopter tour during a multi-country trip across East Asia
• Jet-ski excursions
• A "VIP snorkeling experience" in Hawaii — near the sunken USS Arizona

The lawmakers wrote that his conduct is "out of control" and "not the conduct of a committed and faithful public servant." They alleged he demoted personnel in Brussels because they "failed to ensure you were adequately entertained," and that the pressure to provide his perks may have driven out the head of the FBI's international operations. One source quoted Patel telling field offices:

"If you have golf, hockey, fishing, or hunting and beautiful sights, you're going to see a lot of me."

That is a director instructing the FBI's professionals that their proximity to his vacations depends on the recreation they can arrange — and that rank-and-file agents feared termination if they failed to deliver.

The girlfriend's SWAT team

Among the most striking allegations: Patel assigned four FBI SWAT agents and two SUVs to protect his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, in Nashville. A former official estimated the detail could cost taxpayers roughly $1 million a year before overtime. The FBI says Wilkins had received hundreds of death threats. Even granting that, a permanent SWAT detail for the director's partner in a city with no FBI operational reason is the kind of resource allocation the old Kash Patel would have made a documentary about.

The BMWs

FBI directors ride in armored Chevrolet Suburbans. Patel pressed the bureau to buy a fleet of armored BMW X5 SUVs instead. The FBI's explanations have shifted — that it saved money, that the BMWs had been bought earlier by the State Department and were "sitting idle" — while declining to release the documents that would substantiate any of it. It is a small thing that tells the whole story: the standard government vehicle was not luxurious enough.

The hypocrisy, itemized

Set Patel-the-director against Patel-the-critic:

• Then: Wray shouldn't use "a government-funded GV jet to go to vacation." Now: two jets, an $80 million request, and concert-and-hockey itineraries
• Then: the FBI is a bloated, self-dealing "deep state." Now: a $1M SWAT detail for his girlfriend and BMWs for himself
• Then: government officials abuse taxpayer resources. Now: "I'm entitled to a personal life"

The FBI's defense, from spokesman Ben Williamson, is that Patel's travel is "fully consistent with Executive Branch requirements and policies that extend over decades," and that Patel "reimbursed ALL personal travel and expenses" like "all previous FBI Directors." The bureau also notes a genuine official act mixed into the travel — the opening of a legal-attaché office in Wellington, New Zealand, the only Five Eyes partner without one.

The backdrop

All of this arrives as Patel asks Congress for a $12 billion FBI budget, and as Democrats separately allege he ran a bonus "slush fund" paying extra taxpayer money to political loyalists at the bureau. It arrives on top of a record already defined by using the FBI's power for the president's grievances rather than the country's security.

The man who promised to clean out the FBI's excesses installed himself at the top of them — two jets, a third on order, a foreign fleet of BMWs, a private SWAT detail, and a travel schedule built around golf, hockey, fishing, hunting, and "beautiful sights." It took a Republican who had defended him to say out loud that Congress needs the receipts. Kash Patel spent years demanding those receipts from someone else. Now they are being demanded from him.