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

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

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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.