Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, offered a series of angry, insult-laden denials to Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday in response to questions about his conduct, including whether he drank to excess, forced subordinates to take polygraph exams and made false statements to Congress.
The remarks, delivered at a hearing ostensibly about the coming budget for the F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies, veered from sedate exchanges about operational matters to ugly personal confrontations, particularly between Mr. Patel and Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.
“You are a disgrace, Mr. Director,” the senator declared toward the end of the hearing.
Mr. Van Hollen had pressed Mr. Patel about an article in The Atlantic that asserted that the F.B.I. director drank so much that it raised concerns about his ability to do his job or be reached quickly in a crisis. Mr. Patel has vehemently denied those claims, filing a defamation suit over the article.
“I will not be tarnished by baseless allegations,” Mr. Patel said angrily. The director went on to accuse Mr. Van Hollen of inappropriate drinking, pointing to a visit the senator made to El Salvador last April to meet Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an immigrant the Trump administration mistakenly sent from Maryland to a high-security foreign prison.
“The only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang-banging rapist was you,” Mr. Patel charged.
Photographs from the meeting...
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