Patel Says Multiple Threats on Girlfriend’s Life Prompted Security Detail Assignment

FBI Director Kash Patel said that multiple threats against his girlfriend’s life have caused the agency to assign her a security detail.

The director’s comments were made following recent reports that the country music singer and songwriter had arrived at a performance with a SWAT team at her side.

In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek for the “American Thought Leaders” program, Patel said the life of his partner, Alexis Wilkins, is “continuously being threatened” and that the FBI treats her like the partners or spouses of other agency heads while “following all the rules and regulations.”

“When any individual across any agency head and their respective spouse or partner has a threat to their life, we come in hard. And unfortunately, there are multiple threats against Alexis’s life that have caused us to properly secure her safety, and that is done independently by career FBI agents,” Patel said in the interview airing at 5 p.m. ET on Nov. 29.

“I don’t have any part in that. They make those decisions. They are the ones doing the security backgrounds and security analysis,” Patel said.

The New York Times reported on Nov. 23 that Wilkins had arrived to perform at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Atlanta earlier this year with a SWAT team protective detail that eventually departed before the event ended.

The bureau’s decision was met with criticism from some political commentators and a former FBI agent, who described the detail as a misuse of government resources.

A spokesperson for the FBI confirmed in a statement published on Nov. 17 that Wilkins is receiving a security detail because she has received hundreds of death threats related to being in a relationship with Patel.

Patel has also received scrutiny for his use of an FBI jet. FBI directors are among the officials who must use government aircraft—equipped with secure communication methods—for all of their travel, including personal travel, but must reimburse the government for political or personal travel.

The FBI director said in the interview that the bureau puts out “the flight information for the American public.”

“No other director did; we put it all out. I’m using the plane less than my prior two predecessors,” Patel said.

“I don’t have the option of flying commercial. … The U.S. government has said the FBI director, not just me, any of them, cannot use commercial air.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked the Government Accountability Office to review the use of government aircraft by senior Department of Justice officials, including Patel, and questioned whether all of the FBI director’s flights were “mission-related.”

Patel also said that his two predecessors frequently used Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to depart from Washington, while he uses government airfields instead, requiring fewer taxpayer dollars for operating expenses.

Ben Williamson, a spokesman for the FBI, said in an X post on Oct. 30 that using government airfields is two-and-a-half times cheaper than departing from Reagan National Airport.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.