Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe knocked video of FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the USA men’s Olympic hockey team and called the decision to fly to Italy using the bureau’s jet “completely inappropriate.”

On Monday’s episode of CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jack Tapper said that he knows “Republicans on Capitol Hill are embarrassed” about Patel’s controversial trip to the Winter Olympics.

Although spokespeople for the FBI have maintained that Patel was in Milan for security meetings, McCabe wasn’t buying it.

“I mean, the video is ridiculous, and it was completely inappropriate for him to be engaging, to go at all,” McCabe told Tapper. “Let’s be honest. The excuse that he had to go for security meetings the day before the games are over is patently ridiculous.”

McCabe then recalled how former FBI Director Robert Mueller had visited Greece to make security arrangements for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens a full eight months before the event.

“That’s when the sort of details and arrangements are made that an FBI director needs to weigh in on to make sure that others understand the role of the bureau and those sorts of things,” he said. “It’s not the day of the final hockey game.”

McCabe said Patel’s trip sent a “horrible, horrible message to the FBI rank and file” at a time when the bureau had its plate full with a high-profile investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping and potential military action against Iran.

“Now, I can tell you from having been in that position before, when you are on the brink of hostilities with a country that is a sponsor of terrorism, the FBI is right now using a microscope – or they should be – to go through all of their records to find Iranian sleeper agents in the United States,” McCabe said.

In a message posted on X Sunday, Patel defended his time chugging beer and partying with Team USA’s hockey brigade.

“...Yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys,” he wrote. “Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth.”

According to a report from MS NOW, Patel’s trip cost taxpayers as much as $75,000.

Patel’s use of FBI resources for what appear to be personal matters has previously been cause for concern. Last year, he raised eyebrows for using the bureau’s jet to travel to Pennsylvania to see his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, perform at a wrestling event.

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