Top Trump administration officers have made it abundantly clear from Day One simply how little regard they’ve for Congress, together with and presumably particularly its constitutional oversight duties.
Just take a look at former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “burn book” and her riff on the Dow at her February hearings, or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s over-the-top combative testimony of late. The normal technique appears to revolve round attacking lawmakers to keep away from answering even simple questions on dicey topics — even when the questioner is a fellow Republican.
But hardly ever has an look epitomized the administration’s utter disdain for accountability like FBI Director Kash Patel’s congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Members of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee pressed Patel on a quantity of questions on his stewardship of the FBI, together with a latest report in the Atlantic that he has alarmed colleagues along with his extreme consuming (he has denied these claims and sued the publication) and his exorbitant celebrating with the US hockey workforce after its Olympic win in Italy.
Things acquired significantly testy with Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who learn a gap assertion significantly important of Patel and his alleged consuming habits.
When Patel acquired the likelihood to reply, he wasn’t content material to disclaim the reporting. He tried to flip it again on the Maryland Democrat.
“The only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gangbanging rapist was you,” Patel informed Van Hollen. “The only person that ran up a $7,000 bar tab in Washington, DC, at the Lobby Bar was you. The only individual in this room that has been drinking on the taxpayer dime during the day is you.”
Allies of President Donald Trump’s administration devoured up the change and shared it far and broad on social media.
But there’s an issue with that Patel quote — 4 of them, actually, all of which the FBI director managed to squeeze into simply 20 seconds of testimony.
Patel’s allusion was to Van Hollen’s go to final 12 months to El Salvador to check on the welfare of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia is the undocumented immigrant from Van Hollen’s dwelling state whom the Trump administration illegally deported to a brutal El Salvador jail.
Except:
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Abrego Garcia has not been convicted of being in a gang.
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He has not been convicted of rape.
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The “margaritas” that have been positioned in entrance of Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia throughout a photograph op were apparently staged by El Salvador government officials. President Nayib Bukele is a detailed Trump ally.
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There’s no proof of Van Hollen day-drinking utilizing taxpayer funds in both the El Salvador or the Lobby Bar incident.
Patel on X quickly posted an image from Van Hollen’s marketing campaign finance studies exhibiting a $7,128 invoice from December 2025 at the Lobby Bar. But the invoice was for normal “catering,” which might imply meals in addition to alcohol, and Van Hollen mentioned Tuesday that it was for a employees vacation get together.
And regardless of what the cash was spent on, it wasn’t “on the taxpayer dime”; It was marketing campaign cash.
(Lawmakers generally host fundraising or employees occasions at eating places or bars that may rack up giant tabs and cost it to the marketing campaign. That is likely to be problematic, however not for the causes Patel steered.)
Even if Patel’s “taxpayer dime” reference was to the Abrego Garcia assembly moderately than the marketing campaign occasion, there is no such thing as a proof Van Hollen drank what was positioned in entrance of him in El Salvador. In truth, he mentioned again then, “Neither of us touched the drinks.”
Van Hollen at the listening to accused Patel of spreading an “urban legend in right-wing media.”
These are the varieties of information the administration has butchered many times over, as they’ve sought to argue Abrego Garcia is a nasty man and that Democrats have been too anxious to defend an undocumented immigrant. They’ve repeatedly steered it was confirmed that Abrego Garcia was in a gang and had dedicated non-immigration crimes, though it nonetheless hasn’t been.
(Abrego Garcia has been indicted for alleged human trafficking, however he hasn’t even been charged with alleged rape.)
But Patel isn’t simply any administration official on this context. He’s the FBI director, and he’s testifying to Congress below penalty of perjury. But he’s saying issues that might logically be understood to impugn others — each Abrego Garcia and Van Hollen.
All of which is contrary to Justice Department ethics, which state that officers aren’t purported to make false statements about folks or prejudge somebody’s guilt.
(Bondi, too, has fairly arguably violated these requirements. When Abrego Garcia was indicted in June, she in a press convention cited claims Abrego Garcia had dedicated different heinous crimes that weren’t even included in the indictment.)
And it’s fairly evident that Patel didn’t simply journey over his phrases in labeling Abrego Garcia a “convicted gangbanging rapist.” Later in his testimony, he once more cited Van Hollen supposedly “drinking margaritas with felons,” though Abrego Garcia, once more, has not been convicted of a felony.
In a typical administration, testimony like this may result in questions on Patel correcting the file and withdrawing his claims. Even shy of Patel fearing prison prosecution, Republicans may insist on it to say Congress’ function in overseeing the govt department.
But no one has any illusions about any sort of accountability for Patel. And the GOP-controlled Congress seemingly gave up on defending its prerogatives and standing as a strong, separate department of authorities when Trump was inaugurated a second time.
Indeed, Patel isn’t even the solely prime administration official to make false statements in congressional testimony over the previous week.
Hegseth did so final Wednesday and Thursday, when he claimed that the Biden administration had despatched the navy to polling locations in 15 states in 2024.
The authorities’s revered system of checks and balances has apparently damaged down a lot now that officers can say no matter they need in testimony, so long as it’s combative and pleases Trump.