MS NOW's Chris Hayes unveils mocking nickname as Kash Patel scandal deepens
April 23, 2026
MS NOW's Chris Hayes took a deep look at scandal-plagued FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday evening, opening up his segment with a brutal nickname that references reports he has been drinking heavily.
"As scrutiny mounts on Donald Trump's handpicked FBI director, Kash Patel, some people have started calling him — not me — J. Edgar Boozer," said Hayes. "We're getting stunning new reporting in The New York Times. The Bureau launched an investigation into one of The Times' reporters last month after she broke a story about Patel, quote, 'using Bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation.' The FBI told The Times in response, quote, 'While investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking, the FBI is not pursuing a case.'"
"After the story broke, Kash Patel went on Fox News to get himself Hannitized," said Hayes, adding mockingly, "Well, that suredoesn't 'sound like you.'" He played the clip.
"I'm reading that they'regoing after you, that you usedthe FBI because you didn't likea story about your girlfriend," said Sean Hannity in the segment. "And is there any truth to that?Because I've known you a longtime. It just doesn't soundlike you."
"Absolutely not," said Patel. "The reality is ... the same reporter delivered a baseless story which caused a direct threat of life to my girlfriend. We are going to protect not only me and my loved ones, but every American that is threatened."
Hayes then turned to MS NOW national security analyst and former FBI Special Agent Christopher O'Leary.
"So first, just the sort of substantive reporting here is there's reporting on the fact that that Patel is using Bureau resources and the plane, right, to have his girlfriend travel, to travel to, to be with [him]," said Hayes. "And then The New York Times reports that the reporter who wrote that was then investigated within the FBI for possible criminal stalking charges, until people either inside the DOJ or FBI were like, you can't do this. What's your reaction to that?"
"The reaction is this was most certainly a directive from FBI headquarters," said O'Leary. "There's no special agent in the field that's going to initiate this investigation on their own. Number one, special agents who joined the FBI join it because it's a vocation. It's not a profession. It's a calling. It's something that they do for the country. And they swear to protect and defend the Constitution, not violate some basic concepts of freedom of the press or freedom of speech, which Director Patel seems to do comfortably."
"The other issue is if an agent, a field office, would have opened this investigation, it would not have gotten past their chief division counsel. It never would have gotten to DOJ, right?" he added.
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