On April 17, 2026, The Atlantic published an article alleging that FBI Director Kash Patel had a drinking problem.
In the days that followed, rumors spread across the internet about Patel's supposed drinking habits, both past and present. Among them was a claim that Patel had been arrested twice for drunken behavior, once in 2001 on a charge of public intoxication and again in 2005, on a charge of public urination.
Snopes readers searched the site looking for more information about Patel's alleged arrests.
We found that the claims originated with an NBC News report published April 22 and an article from The Intercept published April 24. The Intercept said it had obtained the information by filing a public records request with the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office, Patel's first workplace after graduating from law school.
In a statement to NBC News, Patel's spokesperson confirmed the 2001 incident was real, calling it a "25-year-old college incident that was disclosed to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation process."
While there is no reason to believe the 2005 arrest was fake or otherwise inaccurately reported, Snopes is currently unable to rate this claim because we could not obtain documents necessary to independently confirm it by the time of publication.
We submitted public records requests to the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office, the Federal Public Defender's Office for the Southern District of Florida, the Department of Justice and the FBI, all places Patel has worked. We also contacted a spokesperson for Patel for comment but did not hear back.
The Intercept story said Patel disclosed both incidents in a 2005 letter with the title "Florida Supreme Court Bar Disclosure Statements." That was the year Patel graduated from law school, and the letter's wording implied he was disclosing the events as part of his application for the Florida Bar.
In the 2001 incident first reported by NBC News, which Patel's spokesperson confirmed, Patel was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication after being kicked out of a college basketball game in Richmond, Virginia, where he earned his undergraduate degree. The following paragraph is from Patel's 2005 letter as published by The Intercept:
My friends and I are avid supporters of Richmond athletics, so much so that we founded the Student Athletic Club. While in attendance of a home basketball game, school officers regulated our cheering. During one of the timeouts, I was informed by a school officer that my cheering was excessive, after which point he escorted me out of the arena. Upon exiting the arena, the officer placed me under arrest for public intoxication, as I was not yet of 21 years of age. I had consumed two drinks prior to the game.
In the 2005 incident, which Patel described in the same letter as "a gross deviation from appropriate conduct," he and his friends were returning from a night out at the bars. They "attempted to relieve [their] bladders while walking home," but a police cruiser stopped and arrested them for public urination:
In February/March of 2005, some friends and I were out celebrating. We went to a few of the local bars and consumed some alcoholic beverages. At the end of the night, we decided to walk home. In a gross deviation from appropriate conduct, we attempted to relieve our bladders while walking home. Before we could even do so, a police cruiser stopped the group. We were then arrested for public urination.
Patel's past actions surfaced following The Atlantic's April 17 expose, which alleged "bouts of excessive drinking" and "unexplained absences."
In response, Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, seeking $250 million in damages. Because he is a public figure, Patel must prove not only that The Atlantic published falsehoods but that it did so knowingly or with "reckless disregard for the truth" — a legal standard called "actual malice."
If Patel hopes to take The Atlantic to trial, he will also have to go through a discovery phase, which could involve subpoenas for relevant evidence (in this case, evidence about his drinking habits) and giving a deposition under oath.
Sources:
Aaronson, Trevor. "Kash Patel Got Arrested for Public Urination After a Night of Drinking." The Intercept, 24 Apr. 2026, https://theintercept.com/2026/04/24/kash-patel-arrest-alcohol-drinking/.
Bertoni, Fabio. "Kash Patel's Implausible Lawsuit Against The Atlantic." The New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2026. www.newyorker.com, https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/kash-patels-implausible-lawsuit-against-the-atlantic.
"Defamation." LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation. Accessed 27 Apr. 2026.
"Democrats Want FBI Director Kash Patel to Fill out Alcohol Use Screening Test." NBC News, 22 Apr. 2026, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/democrats-want-fbi-director-kash-patel-fill-alcohol-use-screening-test-rcna341343.
Fitzpatrick, Sarah. "The FBI Director Is MIA." The Atlantic, 17 Apr. 2026, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/kash-patel-fbi-director-drinking-absences/686839/.
"Kash Patel Scandal Gets Worse With Confession of Drunken Arrests." The New Republic. The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/post/209501/kash-patel-arrest-peeing-public-drunk. Accessed 27 Apr. 2026.
"Patel Admits Two Past Arrests for Alcohol-Related Crimes as Trump Stands by Him." The Independent, 24 Apr. 2026, https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/kash-patel-arrests-drinking-trump-atlantic-b2964650.html.
Rice, Andrew. "Kash Patel's Enemies List." Intelligencer, 22 Feb. 2025, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fbi-director-kash-patel-purge-trump-retribution-revenge.html.
Rosin, Hanna. "The Kash Patel Fallout." The Atlantic, 23 Apr. 2026, https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/04/kash-patel-fallout/686907/.
