MaddowBlog-Patel's new mess: Emails show his Hawaii trip included 'VIP snorkel' at Pearl Harbor memorial

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The beleaguered director didn’t need another embarrassing controversy. He apparently has one anyway.

As emails show Kash Patel’s Hawaii trip included “VIP snorkel” at the Pearl Harbor memorial, two things stand out:
- There are some folks at the FBI who are clearly eager to humiliate this guy
- The revelations are entirely unsurprising given everything we know about him
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-05-14T20:22:35.400Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/patel-snorkel-hawaii-emails-pearl-harbor

He might not have needed another mess, but the director appears to have one anyway. The Associated Press reported on Patel’s visit to Hawaii last summer, which the FBI insisted was not a vacation. There’s fresh evidence to the contrary:

Left out of FBI’s news releases was an exclusive excursion that Patel took days later when he participated in what government officials described as a “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona in an outing coordinated by the military. The sunken battleship entombs more than 900 sailors and Marines at Pearl Harbor.

The swim, revealed in government emails obtained by The Associated Press, comes to light amid criticism over Patel’s use of the FBI plane and his global travel that has blended professional responsibilities with leisure activities. The FBI did not disclose the snorkeling session or that Patel had returned to Hawaii for two days after his initial stopover on the island.

An FBI spokesman did not answer questions about the snorkeling session, according to the AP, though it acknowledged that regional commanders hosted Patel at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam “as they commonly do with US government officials on official travel.”...

A year ago this month, Patel attended a secret conference of U.S. intelligence allies, and ahead of the gathering, the FBI director’s team apparently made some unusual requests. The New York Times reported earlier this year:

Before the conference, his staff says he’s unhappy because he doesn’t like meetings in office settings. What he wants is social events. He wants Premier soccer games. He wants to go jet skiing. He’d like a helicopter tour. Everyone who heard about this was like: Hold on. Is he really going to ask the MI5 director to go jet skiing instead of meeting? … His staff only cared about three things: what his meals were, when his workouts would be and what his entertainment would be.

To know anything about Patel’s tenure is to know that work doesn’t appear to be this guy’s top priority. He seems far more interested in having a great time, which happens with great regularity.

The FBI Director, everyone. You paid for it.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2026-02-23T00:10:52.818Z

Time will tell what, if any, impact this will have on Patel’s professional future, but it’s worth noting that it was just a few weeks ago when Politico reported that things “aren’t looking great” for Patel, adding that he appears likely to be the next high-ranking official to exit the administration. This dovetailed with related observations about just how little the White House has done to defend Patel, or even to say his name out loud, in the face of multiple controversies.

The director started scrambling soon after to save his job, but between the latest reporting and the “Saturday Night Live” sketches that lampooned Patel as a national joke, no one should be too surprised if the president starts looking for some faraway land that needs a new ambassador. Watch this space.

SNL will have fun on Saturday

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Report: Kash Patel Was Desperate to Snorkel in a Graveyard

This is sick. This is a grave site that should be honored. Patel is a real asshole

Report: Kash Patel Was Desperate to Snorkel in a Graveyard The FBI director went on a VIP snorkeling trip at Pearl Harbor last summer. ...

— US Political Politics News 💙🌈🦋The Fighting Liberal (@us-political-news.bsky.social) 2026-05-14T22:00:22Z

https://newrepublic.com/post/210478/report-kash-patel-desperate-snorkel-graveyard-pearl-harbor

Kash Patel can’t stop living the good life.

The FBI director reportedly went on a VIP snorkeling trip while on a visit to Hawaii last summer that the bureau stressed was not a vacation. Patel was officially in the state to tour the FBI’s Honolulu branch and meet with local law enforcement, or at least that’s what the bureau’s news releases said.

But the Associated Press obtained government emails showing that Patel took part in the snorkeling excursion, coordinated by the military, near the USS Arizona, which was sunk in the World War II attack on Pearl Harbor. That wasn’t mentioned in the bureau’s public releases, nor was Patel’s return to Hawaii for two days after initially visiting the state.

Snorkeling and diving are usually prohibited around the sunken battleship, with rare exceptions. It’s essentially a military cemetery, as over 900 sailors and Marines died in the 1941 attack by Japan. Most dives either are done by Marine archaeologists or crews from the National Park Service to examine the wreck’s condition, or to inter the remains of survivors of the attack who wish to be laid to rest near their fellow shipmates.

Only a few dignitaries have been allowed to swim at the site since at least the Obama administration, but none of them were FBI chiefs, even though they have visited Pearl Harbor. Patel, yet again, appears to be using his job and access to a private FBI jet to get away with vacationing on the taxpayer’s dime.

[tanyev]

2. What was it that Speaker Johnson said a few days ago? Oh, right:

Mike Johnson: "I hope voters remember this in the fall. You've gotta keep the grownups in charge, and that's the Republicans."

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Snorkeling at Pearl Harbor: Kash Patel's Travels Add to Focus on Ethical Issues (New York Times Gift Article)

The F.B.I. director continues to come under scrutiny for mixing government business with dates, vacation and leisure time.

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/us/politics/patel-fbi-travel-snorkeling-pearl-harbor.html?unlocked_article_code=1.i1A._lyf.54Rq3Q4j2Q0Y&smid=bs-share

Last summer, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, capped a whirlwind South Pacific trip with a snorkel trip in Hawaii.

There, Navy SEALs used two boats to transport and escort Mr. Patel and nine other people on what a Defense Department email called a “V.I.P. Snorkel” next to one of the military’s most sacred sites, the underwater tomb of the U.S.S. Arizona that holds the remains of more than 900 Navy sailors and Marines who died at Pearl Harbor.

Mr. Patel swam in the vicinity of the tomb for 30 minutes, according to the Navy.

Out of respect for the dead entombed in the wreck of the Arizona, rules bar visitors even from wearing swimwear at the memorial. With some exceptions over the years for dignitaries, the only people allowed in the water around the tomb are military and National Park Service divers interring the remains of the last Arizona survivors in the wreck, or conducting annual maintenance surveys, according to a former Navy officer and a former National Park Service official familiar with restrictions at the site.....

The idea of a high-ranking government official receiving an escort from the SEALs for a recreational swim near the tomb is “horrifying,” said William M. McBride, a Navy veteran and professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.....

Last year on Saturday, May 10, Mr. Patel and Ms. Wilkins traveled from Washington to Philadelphia to see George Strait and Chris Stapleton perform, a hot ticket among country music fans. Mr. Patel and Ms. Wilkins flew there on the F.B.I.’s Gulfstream V jet.

Mr. Patel and Ms. Wilkins saw the show from a private suite at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, according to three people with knowledge of their trip, including an F.B.I. employee who happened to be at the concert and saw them. The suite sold for $35,000 to $50,000 for that show, according to a person who has booked those accommodations in the past......

In early April, Senator David McCormick, Republican of Pennsylvania, invited Mr. Patel and top federal and state law enforcement officials to Allentown, Pa., for a closed-door meeting on combating trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has killed tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians.

Mr. Patel brought along Ms. Wilkins, who sat at the head of the table with Mr. Patel and top F.B.I. officials as they discussed strategy and heard emotional testimony from families whose children died from overdoses. Ms. Wilkins’s presence confused some attendees, one of whom asked the F.B.I. what her role was. In an emailed statement, Mr. McCormick said he had invited Mr. Patel, but the F.B.I. said he invited Ms. Wilkins, too.

Patel is really pushing it.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Patel needs to be fired after he thought it was a good idea to use his title as the FBI Director to snorkel at this sit

Link to tweet