'Week from hell' spells the end for Kash Patel — and he knows it: analysis
FBI Director Kash Patel looks on, as he testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 18, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Following The Atlantic’s bombshell report last month about FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged excessive drinking habits, the FBI director has been hit with a wave of negative press coverage over the past seven days, which Zeteo’s Andrew Perez described Friday as a “week from hell.”

And the reported suspected that it may be one of the Cabinet member's last in the Trump administration.

“He appears to know his time as FBI director is coming to a close,” Perez wrote in an analysis published Friday in Zeteo. “His departure can’t come soon enough.”

Patel has fiercely denied the allegations of excessive drinking, filing a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic for defamation.

Over the past week, however, reports have surfaced that Patel has now “walled himself off from some senior bureau leaders,” that his agency has launched a probe into The Atlantic reporter who penned the report exposing his alleged drinking habits, and that Patel often carries “a supply of personalized branded bourbon” to give out as gifts.

Given the increasingly negative press coverage Patel has received over the past seven days, Perez suspects that Patel’s time serving in the Trump administration may be coming to a close.

“Kash Patel never had any business being the FBI director, and never would have filled the job if Donald Trump hadn’t been elected president again,” Perez wrote.

“It’s hard to believe the paranoid, self-promoting conspiracy theorist will hold the role much longer, not with all of the alternately humiliating and horrifying news stories coming out about his management of America’s domestic spying agency. Patel seems to know the walls are closing in.”