Kash Patel defends against backlash to party with Olympic team

FBI Director Kash Patel defended himself towards on-line backlash to footage exhibiting him guzzling beer and celebrating with the U.S. males’s hockey crew of their locker room Sunday, following their last-minute gold medal victory towards Canada on the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

In a video that went viral, Patel is seen downing a beer and spraying it on gamers whereas enthusiastically banging a desk. He jumps up and down as ahead Matthew Tkachuk places the gold medal round his neck and the crew sings Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”

A supply despatched me this video of FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the US Males’s Olympic Hockey crew. pic.twitter.com/egjmdhOAF6

— William Turton (@WilliamTurton) February 22, 2026

Some social media customers took challenge with the optics of Patel’s look, particularly amid lingering outrage over remaining unreleased parts of the Epstein information and the shortage of arrests within the case.

NBC Information framed the story as Patel celebrating overseas regardless of “multiple urgent issues” in regards to the FBI at house, such because the Secret Service fatally capturing an armed man Sunday who allegedly entered Mar-a-Lago with a shotgun and a gasoline canister.

“There was a threat at the president’s residence at [Mar-a-Lago], Americans in Mexico are facing major threats by cartel members, Nancy Guthrie is still missing, and our FBI Director thinks he’s a frat bro?!,” tweeted an outraged Xochitl Hinojosa, spokeswoman for former Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland.

Patel, a hockey fanatic who performs the game himself, pushed again towards critics in a press release posted to X on Sunday night, claiming the crew invited him to have fun with them following their historic win as he was in Italy, the place he stated he additionally engaged in different official authorities enterprise.

“For the very concerned media — yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys. Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth,” he stated.

Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino additionally dismissed the controversy over the video, saying, “The media melting down about him being invited into the locker room and chugging a brewski? Whatever, man. I don’t really give a s—.”

Different footage confirmed Patel placing President Donald Trump on speakerphone within the locker room, the place he congratulated the crew and supplied to carry them to his State of the Union deal with this week on a army airplane.

“Unbelievable. You were all unbelievable. That team is pretty good you played,” Trump advised the excited gamers as Patel cracked one other beer. Trump joked that he would even have to ask the U.S. ladies’s hockey crew to keep away from impeachment, a remark that additionally prompted offense from customers on social media.

The U.S. males’s hockey crew defeated Canada 2-1 when 24-year-old ahead Jack Hughes scored the extra time game-winning purpose, regardless of dropping his entrance enamel after taking a excessive keep on with the mouth. The U.S. males’s hockey crew final gained the gold medal in 1980, defeating the Soviet Union and Finland through the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.

Hughes has since gone viral for publicly expressing his gratitude for being an American, an perspective that contrasted with another U.S. Olympians who expressed disgrace for his or her nation amid its political tensions.