The most recent and arguably most consequential incident. The ShinyHunters hacking group claimed it exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft to breach FBI systems on Monday night, then moved laterally into FBI-managed AWS GovCloud infrastructure. They claim to have stolen 2–3 TB of data including names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, assignments, and family members’ names of “nearly all” FBI employees and job applicants.
Reuters partially verified the sample data by cross-referencing Social Security numbers against credit bureau records, finding matches in at least 10 cases — including data associated with Patel himself. The FBI’s Special Agent Portal was taken offline. The group issued a statement addressed directly to Patel and Cyber Division Assistant Director Brett Leatherman, demanding the bureau retract a public FLASH warning about its tactics within one week, calling the report’s allegations “FALSE.”
This is the second major FBI breach this year: in March, Iran-linked hackers (the group “Handala”) accessed Patel’s personal email and published photos and documents, and earlier an unidentified group broke into a system managing real-time wiretaps and foreign intelligence warrants.
Patel was grilled for nearly five hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The most viral moment came when Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) pressed him on the FBI’s revised hiring guidance that no longer automatically disqualifies applicants with histories involving prostitution, bestiality, or trafficking.
Patel’s defense: the changes were meant to protect victims of human trafficking who were forced into such acts. “We are not into bestiality,” he told the committee, after first assuring senators they were “not going to disqualify” the FBI’s “great canines” for engaging in sexual activity with agents. A photographer exposed a cheat sheet of talking points Patel had brought to the hearing.
Senate Democrats’ letter framing the issue: “Having dangerously thinned the FBI’s experienced workforce… you are now asking the American people to accept, without explanation, that the resulting shortfall justifies admitting applicants with histories of employee theft, paying for sex, or bestiality.” The FBI lost over 1,000 special agents in 2025 under Patel’s leadership.
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, launched a formal investigation into Patel’s authorization of over $1 million in taxpayer-funded bonus payments to a small circle of loyalist agents and members of his personal security detail. Raskin’s office called it a “payback squad” of MAGA agents who “brazenly ignore the law in favor of pursuing political targets.” The payments allegedly violated federal law on unsanctioned bonus structures.
The Campaign Legal Center filed a formal complaint with the DOJ Office of the Inspector General in March 2026, documenting at least 10 trips where Patel used government aircraft for personal purposes without reimbursement:
The complaint noted the Clinton administration fired an FBI director for similar conduct.
The Atlantic published a report alleging Patel alarmed colleagues with excessive drinking episodes, unexplained absences from headquarters, and erratic behavior. Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the magazine and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick, calling the claims “categorically false.” The Atlantic called the suit “meritless” and stood by its reporting.
At a May 2026 Senate hearing, Patel engaged in “angry, insult-laden denials” when questioned about the drinking and about ordering polygraph tests on members of his team in a search for leaks about him.
After MS NOW reported that Patel was summoned to the White House as senior Trump officials grew frustrated with his travel and public behavior, Patel took to X to attack the reporters: “Yes, I called MS NOW dumbasses this morning and then later today they post an article only gold plated dumbasses like Ken and Carol would write.”
When pressed on his lavish lifestyle, he posted: “Nah, my jet ski is gold plated….dumbass. Your job is to lie. Mine is to protect the American people, and business is good!”
He reportedly canceled a flight to Chicago to see his girlfriend perform after the report.
Patel flew to Milan on a Justice Department plane for what his spokesman called official security meetings. After the U.S. men’s hockey team won the gold medal over Canada, videos showed Patel in the locker room chugging beer from a bottle, spraying it around, with a gold medal draped around his neck, as the team sang Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”
The FBI maintained he held six public events and two classified events related to Olympic security. Critics noted the trip muddled the line between official duties and personal fandom, and that the viral images landed just as the FBI was dealing with the fallout from a US-backed Mexican operation that killed a top cartel leader.
The New York Times reported that Patel temporarily halted some FBI cooperation with the RCMP after the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reminded its journalists of a longstanding policy not to refer to the 9/11 attacks as “terrorism” without expert attribution. FBI officials canceled meetings with Canadian counterparts.
The CBC reversed its guidance on August 28, allowing journalists to use “terrorism” without attribution, and the pause ended around the 25th anniversary of the attacks. Patel publicly posted on X that any Canadian agency failing to reject the memo would lose FBI support. The New Republic called it a “petty move”; the Jerusalem Post noted it had “no precedent in the US-Canada security relationship.”
FBI veterans alleged Patel flouted legal protocols by prematurely publicizing details of an alleged UFC attack plot targeting a bout at the White House, posting arrests on social media “to make himself look good.” The Guardian reported this could have compromised ongoing investigations and potentially led to wrongful arrests. Similar criticism followed his posts about the Charlie Kirk assassination investigation.
Senate Democrats also highlighted a pattern predating his directorship: a state court judge in Anderson v. Griswold found Patel “not a credible witness” and his testimony “completely devoid of any evidence in the record.” An NBC analysis of 79 episodes of his talk show Kash’s Corner found he made “detailed but unfounded claims of conspiracies” involving government officials, law enforcement, media, and tech companies.
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