Senate Democrats Obtain Whistleblower Report Alleging FBI Nominee Kash Patel Violated Protocol During Hostage Rescue Mission
Senate Democrats have obtained a whistleblower report claiming that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, violated protocol during a hostage rescue mission in October 2020. The report alleges that Patel leaked news that two Americans and the remains of a third were being transferred to U.S. custody from Yemen, where they had been held hostage by Houthi rebels, hours before the hostages were actually in U.S. custody.
The whistleblower claims that Patel’s actions potentially endangered the deal by revealing sensitive information too early, contradicting the protocol of the multi-agency group in charge of the mission. The protocol was to withhold information about hostage deals until the subjects were both in U.S. custody and their families had been notified.
A transition official has pushed back on the report, calling Patel a “public defender, decorated prosecutor, and accomplished national security official” with a “track record of success.”
The allegations come as Patel is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for an extensive confirmation hearing. Senate Democrats have delivered the whistleblower letter to various government officials, including Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Acting Treasury Secretary David Lebryk, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The report has drawn criticism from several high-ranking officials, including Alexander Gray, who served as Chief of Staff for the White House National Security Council under Trump’s first administration, and Robert C. Obrien, who served as National Security Advisor from 2019 to 2021. They have called the allegations “simply absurd” and argued that the whistleblower is jeopardizing decades of bipartisan work on hostage deals by coming forward.