Senate Democrats seek inquiry into Kash Patel's use of FBI aircraft

Senate Democrats have asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to review the FBI Director Kash Patel's personal travel on government aircraft, according to GAO and congressional sources.

The review will examine Patel's use of the FBI's private fleet of jets, as well as every director's approach since 2013, when the GAO last studied the issue. Investigators at the congressional watchdog agency are expected to examine Patel's flight records to determine the purpose of his travel, how much the bureau spent and whether Patel reimbursed the government for personal trips.

Last week, both CBS News and the New York Times reported on questions swirling within the FBI about the degree to which Patel has used government aircraft for purely personal reasons, including trips to visit his girlfriend and attend hockey games and other sporting events.

Asked about the inquiry, the FBI declined to comment.

FBI directors are required by executive branch policy to use government aircraft for air travel, whether official or personal. That allows them to maintain access to secure communications wherever they travel and to move quickly in the event of an emergency. They must reimburse the government for personal flights at coach fare rates. Directors are permitted to take family or friends on personal trips, but the cost of their trips must be reimbursed to the government, as well.

The FBI wouldn't share Patel's flight schedule, citing security concerns, and officials declined to confirm his presence on a number of flights to destinations that matched his appearances in those same places. During the first week of April, for example, a Boeing 757 leased by the Justice Department made two round-trip flights to New York.

On April 5, the narrow-bodied jet took a 57-minute flight to Stewart International Airport, a short drive from West Point, where Patel participated in a charity hockey game hosted by the FBI. The next day, the 757 was back in the air to JFK Airport, landing just hours before Patel showed up in box seats next to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky to watch Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin break the NHL scoring record.

Patel also has apparently made use of the FBI's Gulfstream 5 jets to travel to Las Vegas, where he has a home, and to Nashville, where Patel's girlfriend, a country singer, lives. Sources familiar with Patel's travel confirmed to CBS News that the director was on the plane for several trips captured by public flight trackers, including a weekend jaunt to Las Vegas on March 7 and a weekend in Nashville on March 24.

On some occasions, Patel appeared to travel for both business and pleasure. An FBI jet flew on March 21 from Washington, D.C., to Nashville. That day, Patel participated in a roundtable meeting with state and local law enforcement there, and also visited the FBI field office. The plane returned to Washington later that afternoon. It is unclear whether Patel also visited his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins.

In a statement to CBS News after Patel's travel patterns became public last week, Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said "the Judiciary Committee must investigate Director Patel's apparent misuse of taxpayer dollars."

A spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not respond to a question about whether the committee would probe Patel's use of FBI planes for personal travel.

It is at the director's discretion how often to use government aircraft for personal travel and for what specific purposes. In 2013, the GAO last investigated the use of FBI planes for "non-mission" purposes and laid out a detailed accounting of how often the aircraft were being used by the director as well as the attorney general, who also has access to the planes. While the probe found little wrongdoing, the report cautioned against excessive use of the planes for personal travel.

Diana Maurer, a director at GAO and author of the 2013 report, told CBS News that the same principles that were at play when the government watchdog agency did its review, remain relevant today.

"I don't know what the current FBI director did or didn't do," Mauer said in an interview. "But just because you're allowed to do something doesn't mean you necessarily should."

She pointed out that operating government aircraft costs considerably more than commercial flights and that officials shouldn't abuse their privileges at the expense of taxpayers.

"I hope the FBI and the Department of Justice are considering the implications for taxpayers when the director uses government aircraft for non-mission purposes," Maurer said in the interview.

Use of the FBI's aircraft for personal travel has been a flashpoint between Congress and the bureau in recent years. When Christopher Wray, Patel's predecessor, ran the FBI, his personal use of the executive jets became a focus of Republicans on Capitol Hill and conservative critics.

Wray was hit for flying back and forth from Washington to his hometown of Atlanta, where his family maintained its residence. (Wray rejected the criticism at the time, noting that he was a "required-use traveler," and that he reimbursed the government in every instance he used the planes for personal purposes.)

Wray also drew criticism from GOP lawmakers and from some former FBI agents for summoning the G5s to Reagan National Airport from Manassas, a 15-mile flight, rather than being driven 30 miles to the Virginia airport where the FBI maintains a hangar.

Patel himself was a vocal critic of Wray's use of FBI aircraft for personal travel. Two years ago, on his podcast "Kash's Corner," he admonished the FBI to "ground Chris Wray's private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country." Now that he has replaced Wray at the top of the FBI, he is staying mum about his own use of the bureau's fleet of private aircraft for personal use.