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MSNBC broadcast an embarrassing supercut of FBI Director Kash Patel complaining about his predecessor’s private plane use while he himself is accused of using a government jet for date nights. The consistently embattled Patel is facing waves of criticism for allegedly using an FBI jet to see his girlfriend perform at a wrestling event in Pennsylvania and other ventures. To rub salt in the wound, MSNBC’s The Weekend aired a highlight reel showing multiple examples of Patel criticizing previous FBI directors for what he claimed was excessive personal use of government aircraft. “Chris Wray doesn’t need a government-funded G5 jet to go to vacation. Maybe we ground that plane,” Patel told Glenn Beck’s podcast in December 2024. “$15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought.” Patel also told Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast in September 2023 that Wray “doesn’t need a private jet.” He further attacked Wray and his predecessor, James Comey, for “running around in private jets” during a May 2025 appearance on Fox News. “Somebody, maybe in Congress, should ask how many flights on a private jet Director Comey took, or my predecessor, Director Wray, took, and how many personal trips they took,” Patel said. The Daily Beast has contacted the FBI for comment. Publicly available flight logs revealed that Patel’s plane, N708JH, took a short flight from Virginia to an airport near Penn State on Oct. 25 before later flying to Wilkins’ hometown of Nashville. Wilkins shared a photo on social media showing herself and Patel on Oct. 25 at a Real American Freestyle wrestling event at Penn State, where Wilkins performed the national anthem. A three-decade FBI veteran who oversaw the agency’s aviation operations was fired last week after Patel became irate about reporting on his jet usage. Sources were said to be “baffled” as to why Patel was trying to blame Steven Palmer, head of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, for the travel details becoming public, Bloomberg reported. Patel’s plane journey records were publicly available and first highlighted by Kyle Seraphin, a conservative former FBI agent turned critic of the agency. “We’re in the middle of a government shutdown where they’re not even gonna pay all of the employees that work for the agency this guy heads,” Seraphin said on The Kyle Seraphin Show on Oct. 27. “And this guy is jetting off to hang out with his girlfriend in Nashville on our dime?” There are several other examples of Patel criticizing former FBI directors for their use of government jets that did not appear in the MSNBC supercut. In a 2023 Truth Social post, Patel dubbed Wray “#GovernmentGangster” and accused him of “jetting off on taxpayer dollars while dodging accountability for the implosion of the FBI on his watch.” Patel also suggested the government should “ground Chris Wray’s private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country” in a 2023 episode of his podcast Kash’s Corner. After playing the supercut, The Weekend host Ayman Mohyeldin remarked that “there’s always a soundbite” that can be used to highlight Republican hypocrisy. “There’s always a tweet with the Republicans, especially with the Trump administration. There’s always an element of projection when it comes to them,” Mohyeldin said.
