FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly flies agency jet to Olympic hockey in Italy

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FBI Director Kash Patel takes agency jet to Italy, plans to attend Olympic hockey games, sources say cbsnews.com

FBI Director Kash Patel has reportedly traveled to Italy, where he's expected to meet with law enforcement and watch the men's USA Olympic Hockey team (Getty Images) Getty Images

Democratic lawmakers said they’re ‘demanding answers’ after Patel reportedly used government jets for ‘personal travel,’ including a ‘date night’ with his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins (Getty Images) Getty Images

FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a press conference on the tarmac at Ontario International Airport on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Da/MediaNews Group via Getty Images MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Da/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Keystone Kash is hyping himself up for some hockey. Screenshot//Screenshot/X Screenshot//Screenshot/X

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CBS News reports that FBI Director Kash Patel is expected to use an FBI aircraft to fly to Italy during the Winter Olympics, with the itinerary including attendance at Olympic ice hockey medal-round games. The detail that matters is not the sport; it’s the machinery. Federal agencies maintain aircraft for operational needs—moving personnel, equipment, and sometimes sensitive material. But the line between mission and perk is porous when “official travel” can be padded with high-status leisure.

According to CBS, sources described the trip as involving the use of an FBI jet and plans to watch the hockey finals. The FBI did not publicly provide a granular accounting of the travel justification, costs, or what portion of the itinerary is operational versus discretionary. That’s typical: the public gets broad assurances about policy compliance, not the receipts.

In theory, rules exist. Senior executive branch travel is governed by a thicket of internal policy, ethics guidance, and appropriations constraints. In practice, the enforcement mechanism is mostly internal review and after-the-fact inspector general attention—often years later, once the political moment has moved on. “National security” becomes the all-purpose solvent that dissolves ordinary standards of transparency: itineraries get redacted, cost breakdowns become “sensitive,” and the public is invited to trust the same institutions that insist they cannot be audited in real time.

The objection is not that public officials should never travel, or that senior law-enforcement leaders should fly commercial at all times. It’s that a monopoly agency with coercive powers should not also operate as a concierge service for its leadership, with taxpayers as the captive customer. If a trip is operationally necessary, show the operational necessity—at least in a form that can be meaningfully scrutinized.

The same CBS item also nods to a separate controversy in Fulton County, where a judge reportedly found the FBI’s seizure of election records violated the U.S. Constitution. Put together, it’s expansive federal power on the front end, minimal accountability on the back end. The state’s pitch is always “trust us”—whether it’s taking your documents or taking its executives to the Olympics.

If Patel’s trip is defensible, it should be easy to defend: publish the travel authorization basis, the incremental cost of using the FBI aircraft versus alternatives, who traveled, what meetings occurred, and what security rationale actually required an agency jet. Otherwise, it’s just another reminder that in Washington, “public service” often comes with a first-class boarding pass—issued by the public, redeemable by the powerful.