WASHINGTON — FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday questioned why Sen. Chris Van Hollen would have “margaritas with a felon” and run up a $7,000 bar tab in Washington, DC — before daring the Maryland Democrat to take an alcohol dependency test alongside him.
“The only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted, gang-banging rapist, was you,” Patel erupted in a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing.
“The only person that ran up a $7,000 bar tab in Washington, DC, at the Lobby Bar was you,” he thundered. “So the only person in this room that has been drinking on taxpayer dime during the day was you.”
Van Hollen insisted that the FBI boss faced “serious allegations” based on reporting from The Atlantic magazine about “alleged episodes of excessive drinking” and “unexplained absences” from the job.
“Are you willing to take the test … it’s called the audit test that members of our active duty military and others take to determine whether they have a drinking problem?” the Democratic senator pressed.
“I’ll take any tests you’re willing to take,” Patel fired back.
“I will take it. Director Patel, I’ll take it,” Van Hollen agreed. “You’re ready to take it?”
“Let’s go side by side,” said the FBI director, who has sued The Atlantic for $250 million over the article and dismissed it in Tuesday’s hearing as “unequivocally, categorically false.”
Van Hollen rejected Patel’s “provably false statements” regarding his April 16 meeting with alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia as well as the more than $7,000 bar tab.
“Do you know, Mr. Director, that it is a crime to lie to Congress?” he fumed.
“I do not lie to Congress,” Patel replied. “You got steamrolled by the facts.”
“You are a disgrace, Mr. Director,” Van Hollen concluded.
The Democrat noted that it was not “public” funding that paid for the bar tab. His campaign shelled out $7,128 for Lobby Bar catering at a fundraiser in December 2025, Federal Election Commission filings show.
The senator previously claimed that photos of his visit to El Salvador were framed to make it appear as if he and Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident, were sharing boozy drinks at his hotel, as the Salvadoran migrant challenged his deportation to a mega-prison there.
“Let me just be very clear: Neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us,” he told reporters of his sitdown with Abrego Garcia in April.
“Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is. But this is the lesson in the lengths that [El Salvador’s] President Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on.”
A US immigration judge ruled against his return to his home country in 2019 based on threats from a rival gang against him and his family.
CECOT, the notorious Salvadoran megaprison, took in Abrego Garcia and around 250 additional suspected gang members that the Trump administration deported on March 15, 2025.
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Abrego Garcia, who entered the US illegally in 2011, was later extradited to Tennessee in June 2025 to face federal human trafficking charges. His deportation has since been the subject of multiple court proceedings.
Van Hollen was among several Democrats who traveled to meet with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador amid the legal battles surrounding his deportation.
Five House Democrats also dropped more than $7,000 in campaign funds combined on their trip to a posh Hilton hotel in San Salvador to visit him in mid-April.
