Agents with the FBI’s elite evidence response team were delayed in reaching the scene of a mass shooting at Brown University in December because there was no FBI plane available to take them to Rhode Island, according to three sources and a whistleblower’s account newly provided to Congress.

FBI Director Kash Patel was in south Florida at the time with one of the FBI’s two available jets and had given an order to hold the other for another team that would not normally respond to the scene, according to the whistleblower and the sources. The evidence response team instead had to drive through the night amid a snowstorm to reach the university in Providence, Rhode Island, by 9 o’clock the next morning, according to the whistleblower’s account..

An FBI spokesperson told MS NOW Tuesday he disputed the allegation that there were delays because of the director’s travels but said he would check into the matter more deeply to gather information.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, obtained the whistleblower’s account. In a letter sent Tuesday to the Government Accountability Office and the Justice Department’s inspector general, Durbin accused Patel of harming the FBI’s critical investigations due to his misuse of FBI resources and aircraft and his inexperience.

“The Director’s misplaced priorities and poor management of the FBI’s resources — including its aircraft — also harmed the FBI’s ability to respond to the shooting at Brown...

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