{"id":925,"date":"2026-05-12T20:41:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnnglobalnews.com\/?p=925"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:41:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:41:29","slug":"kash-patel-denies-excessive-drinking-allegations-as-total-farce-in-senate-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/?p=925","title":{"rendered":"Kash Patel denies excessive drinking allegations as \u2018total farce\u2019 in Senate hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FBI director also dismisses allegations of unexplained absences as Democrats challenge him over Atlantic report<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/live\/2026\/may\/12\/donald-trump-china-iran-redistricting-jeffrey-epstein-latest-news-updates\">US politics live \u2013 latest updates<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Embattled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/fbi\">FBI<\/a> director Kash Patel has denied under oath recent allegations of excessive drinking and unexplained absences on the job, dismissing them as \u201cbaseless\u201d during a fiery congressional hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats challenged him over the \u201cextremely alarming\u201d reports, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/2026\/04\/kash-patel-fbi-director-drinking-absences\/686839\/\">first reported<\/a> in the Atlantic mid-April, which they argued would a mount to a \u201cgross dereliction\u201d of duty. The FBI director has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/20\/kash-patel-lawsuit-the-atlantic\">sued the magazine<\/a>, and the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/2026\/04\/kash-patel-fbi-director-drinking-absences\/686839\/\">a story it published<\/a>, filing a defamation lawsuit in US district court for the District of Columbia that seeks $250m in damages.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/may\/12\/kash-patel-congressional-hearing\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FBI director also dismisses allegations of unexplained absences as Democrats challenge him over Atlantic report US politics live \u2013 latest updates Embattled FBI director Kash Patel has denied under oath &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/?p=925\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}