Kash Patel reportedly can’t stop taking taxpayer-funded jets to visit his 27-year-old girlfriend in Nashville.
News broke last week that Patel, 45, took a $60 million private jet to see his country singer girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, perform at a Real American Freestyle (RAF) wrestling event in Pennsylvania on Oct. 25, before flying to Nashville, Wilkins’ home city, later that same day.
Patel’s rendezvous was first spotted by former FBI agent turned FBI-critical podcaster Kyle Seraphin, who reported the news and then asked his listeners, “Is that gross to anybody else?”
After receiving criticism for his hypocrisy, Patel, who had previously been openly critical of former directors that used government funds for private trips, addressed his own flying in a lengthy post on X, fired an FBI aviation official, and allegedly instructed a flight-tracking website to stop sharing data about his private jet publicly.
“The disgustingly baseless attacks against Alexis—a true patriot and the woman I’m proud to call my partner in life—are beyond pathetic," Patel wrote on X, reframing criticism of his use of taxpayer-funded private jets for personal trips as attacks on his “country music sensation” girlfriend.
On Thursday, The Bulwark revealed that Patel’s trips to Nashville date back to February when he took his first trip just three days after being sworn in as FBI director. His jet then made two round-trip flights on March 14 and 16, traveling from Manassas, a regional airport near Washington, to Nashville.
On March 21, the jet returned to Nashville for the fourth time in a month.
Some of the trips Patel took at the beginning of his tenure lasted only a few hours. On his first trip in February, the jet landed in Nashville at 9:40 a.m. and departed for Manassas at 10:50 a.m.
On March 14, Patel took an evening trip, landing in Nashville at 6:40 p.m. and departing at 8:28 p.m. Two days later, the plane landed in Nashville again, this time in the morning at 8:16 a.m., only to leave for Manassas at 10:55 a.m.
In April, The New York Times reported on Patel’s trips, noting that it is not unusual for the FBI director to use the private jet for personal reasons, as long as the director reimburses the government the price of a commercial ticket for the trip.
Following the article, Patel’s frequent trips to Nashville ceased for several months, only to resume in August, and eventually made headlines with the widely reported trip on Oct. 25.
FBI private jet-watcher Seraphin posted on Sunday that Patel had blocked access to tracking information for the private jet, and shared the plane’s route, noting that he “paid extra to keep tracking it.”
On Friday, Oct. 31, the private jet reportedly flew to Florida, where President Donald Trump, 79, held a Great Gatsby–themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago. Patel left Florida the following day, heading once again to Nashville, where he stayed until Nov. 3—coinciding with his girlfriend’s 27th birthday.
Appearing in an interview on Prime Time with Alex Stein, Wilkins opened up about her long-distance relationship with Patel, noting that the two “go back and forth between, you know, D.C.—he’s in D.C., I spend half-and-half D.C. and Nashville."
“We’ve always been traveling the entire time we’ve been together,” she added.
It is unknown how many of Patel’s trips to Nashville were personal or professional, or how the director will reimburse the costs.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the FBI for comment.
