Earlier this week, we reported on the news that FBI Director Kash Patel is suing The Atlantic for $250 million for reporting that he’s frequently drunk.
In a furious press conference, Patel lashed out at the publication and alleged that he was being unlawfully defamed.
Now, Democrats are pushing back and demanding that Patel come clean about his drinking under penalty of perjury.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D, Md) and House Judiciary Democrats have requested that Patel complete a 10-question test designed to identify “hazardous drinking behaviors.”
Obviously, it would be easy for Patel to simply answer the questions untruthfully, so Raskin has also requested that Patel be sworn in and answer under the penalty of perjury.
“These glimpses of your relationship to alcohol would be alarming to see in an FBI agent; for us to see them in the FBI Director himself is shocking and indicative of a public emergency,” reads a letter that Raskin and his colleagues wrote to Patel earlier this week (Via Fox News).
The Atlantic report alleged that sources who have worked with Patel have strong concerns about his alcohol intake and his related job performance issues.
“Patel, according to multiple current officials, as well as former officials who have stayed close to him, is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy. He has good reasons to think so — including some having to do with what witnesses described to me as bouts of excessive drinking,” Atlantic staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick alleged at one point.
