FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly gives out self-branded bottles of bourbon, including some with facsimilies of his signature, at public events — even as he battles The Atlantic magazine over its reporting on his drinking habits.
The bottles bear the bureau’s official shield along with the words, “Kash Patel FBI Director.” The whiskey comes from Kentucky-based distillery Woodford Reserve, according to The Atlantic, which purchased a bottle online from a seller who claimed to have been gifted it by Patel in Las Vegas.
A bureau spokesperson didn’t deny the practice, but argued it is not unusual and noted an FBI division gave out a branded whiskey bottle three years ago, during the Biden administration.
“Your story is ‘dumb’ not ‘big,’” FBI rep Ben Williamson responded on X to Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson Wednesday night. “Personalized gifts like this are commonplace across government including the FBI.”
Multiple former FBI agents told The Post that the bureau has used branded bottles of whiskey to celebrate milestones such as retirements and handed them out as gifts long before Patel took the reins. One source recounted seeing FBI-branded shot glasses, which the bureau sells online.
“I got a bottle that looks exactly like that, of Woodford Reserve with an etching, ‘Congrats on your retirement,’” said John Gagliano, a former FBI agent who retired after 25 years in 2016.
“I’m not going to name names, but I’ve sat in a hotel room after a long day in a dangerous area with an FBI director and shared a beer. It’s not beyond the pale for that to happen.”
Some of the Patel-branded bottles in question were inscribed with the number 9 in an apparent nod to Patel being the ninth Senate-confirmed FBI director.
Eight sources told The Atlantic that Patel has given the self-branded bourbon bottles to staff and civilians alike throughout his tenure as FBI director, including on official trips.
One of the bottles was even left behind on a trip to Milan, where Patel chugged beer in the locker room of the gold medal-winning US Olympic men’s hockey team.
The following month, one of the bottles disappeared during a “training seminar” at Quantico, at which agents and top staff got tips from Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters — prompting Patel to “lose his mind,” claimed retired agent Kurt Siuzdak, who is repping others with complaints against the bureau.
Former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Steven Jensen, who oversaw the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot investigations and was fired last August, described seeing the bottles in a wrongful-termination lawsuit last year.
“Jensen … noticed a collection of whiskey bottles and cigars on Patel’s desk,” Jensen’s lawsuit claimed. “Patel explained that he used to produce his own brand of cigars, but they are not in production anymore.”
“The bottles in question are part of a tradition in the FBI that started well over a decade ago, long before Director Patel arrived,” an FBI spokesperson said.
“Senior Bureau officials have long exchanged commemorative items in formal gift settings consistent with ethics rules. Director Patel has followed all applicable ethical guidelines and pays for any personal gift himself.”
Patel is pursuing a $250 million defamation case against The Atlantic after it reported last month that his colleagues were alarmed by his drinking and his penchant for dropping out of contact.
The report described Patel as paranoid that President Trump may move to fire him, something that’s rumored to have been discussed in the White House.
The FBI honcho has adamantly disputed that report.
“We have to fight back against the fake news,” Patel told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” April 19. “I won’t tolerate their attacks on me because they’re indirect attacks on the men and women in the FBI that we’ve cleaned up.”
