FBI Director Kash Patel offered an enigmatic response when a reporter sent him detailed questions about the bureau's election investigations.
The Atlantic's Sarah Fitzpatrick sent Patel a three-page memo with 17 questions about the FBI's push to investigate President Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 election, but Patel didn't answer any of them and instead responded with an inscrutable quip.
"I'm still looking for my gold-plated jet ski in the English Channel; you all know where it is. Free ride if you help me find it," Patel wrote.
"I did not understand this response," Fitzpatrick reported, noting she had never written about or asked Patel about "anything having to do with Jet Skis or the English Channel."
A Google search showed the quip appears to trace back to a July story by MS NOW, a different outlet, about Patel's political troubles, Fitzpatrick determined. That story included a graphic showing a white jet ski, golf clubs and a private jet, and Patel responded on X at the time: "Nah, my jet ski is gold plated… dumba--."
"Put simply, Patel responded to The Atlantic's questions about the FBI's election investigations by referring to a graphic that appeared on an unrelated news story on another media company's website," Fitzpatrick wrote.
Patel has filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against Fitzpatrick and her employer over her earlier reporting on colleagues' concerns about episodes of Patel's alleged excessive drinking and unexplained absences.
The bureau's press office sent statements to Fitzpatrick from five named officials, who called the reporting "false" and insisted the FBI was "united." The FBI also posted the questions and its answers on X before the story ran.
The new report, based on interviews with more than 40 sources, describes Patel pushing staff to "look harder" for evidence of 2020 election fraud that has not materialized.