WASHINGTON — The FBI hit back Thursday at an Associated Press report that Director Kash Patel participated in a “VIP snorkel” excursion at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii last year, noting that the trip was part of a “historical tour to honor heroes who died on the USS Arizona – not a party.”
“The AP is attempting to spin an invitation from the Commanding General of Indo Pacom [US Indo-Pacific Command] to a military base as a party or vacation, which is so stupid,” said FBI spokesman Ben Williamson in an X post.
“The DoW [Department of War] routinely does these engagements with interagency partners – to include this one – and when he was Chief of staff for [the Pentagon] in Trump 1, Patel offered the same event for many partners that came to visit,” he added.
Patel flew to Hawaii in July 2025 to meet with members of the Honolulu field office and other federal and local law enforcement partners, the agency previously disclosed in a press release.
The meeting focused on “crime trends and threats to the homeland,” the bureau’s release noted, including “violent crime initiatives and casework.”
The following month, Patel returned and participated in an underwater tour of the USS Arizona with members of the military — which the AP reported Thursday was considered a “VIP snorkel” by some government officials and seen as a potential use of official travel for personal leisure.
The participants learned about “the historic significance of the Memorial as the final resting place/tomb for hundreds of service members” who died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the AP noted.
An FBI spokesperson said the second trip “was part of the Director’s public national security engagements last August with counterparts in New Zealand, Australia, our Honolulu Field Office, and the Department of War.”
The August trip culminated in the opening of the first FBI field office in Wellington, New Zealand.
The founder of Justice Connection, a “support group” for Department of Justice personnel fired under the second Trump administration, panned the August trip to the AP.
“It fits a pattern of Director Patel getting tangled up in unseemly distractions — this time at a site commemorating the second deadliest attack in U.S. history — instead of staying laser-focused on keeping Americans safe,” ex-DOJ civil division attorney Stacey Young told the outlet.
The report also noted that the US Navy and National Park Service have allowed military and government officials “to swim at the [Arizona] site” as far back as the Obama administration.
“I have not heard of anyone who would object to these visits as they are very rare and there aren’t any survivors of the Arizona left alive,” wrote Deidre Kelley, national president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, in an email to the AP. “Their children might have some objections but I haven’t heard any.”
The site of the Japanese attack, which killed 2,403 Americans and propelled the US into World War II, is not open to public snorkeling or diving.
Patel’s trip to Milan, Italy, during the Winter Olympics this past February similarly drew scrutiny from some media outlets after viral video emerged of him celebrating with members of the gold medal-winning US men’s hockey team and chugging a beer.
He has said that the visit was “purposely planned” as part of an ongoing cybercrime investigation in coordination with Italian law enforcement officials.
The FBI director has harshly criticized reports of his trips abroad as well as his use of a private jet, noting that he pays out of pocket for all personal travel — including visits to Nashville to see his girlfriend, country music singer Alexis Wilkins — and cited official purposes for each excursion.
Patel has also denounced the “Fake News Mafia” reporting on him purportedly slacking on the job — touting a massive drop in murders, crackdown on drug traffickers and arrests of high-profile fugitives and terrorists, including the mastermind behind the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan that took the lives of 13 US service members.
“I’ve taken half as many days off as those before me,” Patel said at a DOJ press conference last month. “I’ve taken a third less vacation than those before me.”
“I’m the first one in; I’m the last one out,” he added.
Patel’s pugilistic stance toward combative press reports included a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic over a story headlined, “The FBI Director Is MIA,” which cited anonymous sources attesting his “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences.”
He dismissed the reporting in recent testimony before the US Senate as “unequivocally, categorically false.”
