The other shoe has dropped on the ongoing wrap-up smear of FBI Director Kash Patel. The original item published in The Atlantic drew its initial round of Elitist Media coverage. Now, an additional round due to Congressional hearings on the article, setting Patel up to be grilled regarding the allegations.
With anchor Tom Llamas being the first to arrive to China to cover the Trump-Xi summit, there was related coverage that bumped the hearings off the Nightly News. ABC and CBS, anchored by fill-ins as David Muir and Tony Dokoupil make their way to Beijing, were all too eager to wallow in the mud.
ABC’s Jay O’Brien literally worked “pounding beers” into his coverage of the hearing:
DRINKING GAME: Part II of the wrap-up smear of Kash Patel ran today. Here's ABC's Jay O'Brien, literally working "pounding beers" into his report on today's hearing pic.twitter.com/Q7dDFcs2fH
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) May 13, 2026
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
5/12/26
6:41 PM
JAY O’BRIEN (shouted at Kash Patel): Do you still have the confidence of the president?
Tonight, the fireworks on Capitol Hill. FBI Director Kash Patel grilled by Democrats about reports he has a drinking problem.
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Episodes of excessive drinking, unexplained absences, and behavior that concerned current and former FBI and DoJ officials. (VIDEO SWIPE) Is it your testimony that those allegations are categorically false?
KASH PATEL: Unequivocally, categorically false.
(VIDEO SWIPE)
VAN HOLLEN: And so there have been no occasions when your security detail had difficulty waking or locating you. Is that right?
PATEL: Nope. It's a total farce. I don't even know where you get this stuff but it doesn't make it credible because you say so.
VAN HOLLEN: I'm not saying it, Director Patel, it's been written and documented.
PATEL: You are literally saying it.
VAN HOLLEN: No, I’m saying that these are reports, Director Patel.
O’BRIEN: Patel drawing scrutiny after he was seen celebrating and pounding beers at the Olympics with the USA men's hockey team. The director insists he was in Milan on separate official business. He's now suing The Atlantic magazine after it reported on alleged bouts of excessive drinking.
The CBS Evening News wasn’t much better than ABC, dutifully pushing out the smear:
CBS runs Part II of the wrap-up smear against Kash Patel. Here's Chris Van Hollen saying "it's written...", a key element of the wrap-up smear (originally published in The Atlantic) pic.twitter.com/gKLAaiqToA
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) May 13, 2026
CBS EVENING NEWS
5/12/26
6:41 PM
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: You cannot perform those public duties if you are incapacitated.
CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: Democrats grilled FBI Director Kash Patel about claims made in a recent "Atlantic" magazine article, including allegations of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.
VAN HOLLEN: And so there have been no occasions when your security detail had difficulty waking or locating you, is that right?
KASH PATEL: Nope. It's a total farce. I don't even know where you get this stuff but it doesn't make it credible because you say so.
VAN HOLLEN: I'm not saying it, Director Patel, it's been written and documented.
PATEL: You are literally saying it.
HUEY-BURNS: Patel denies the claims. His personal behavior has been heavily scrutinized since he was seen drinking with the men's Olympic hockey team in Italy, and after a report that he gives out personalized bourbon bottles engraved with his name and title.
As we noted when the networks initially jumped all over the unproven allegations published in The Atlantic:
The Atlantic has a history of running Trump-deranged fiction that won’t play anywhere else. The most notorious example of this genre is the despicable Suckers and Losers Hoax.
Patel’s defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic will endure as a story long after this operation fades from the headlines. Meanwhile, the Elitist Media continue to remind us why trust in media is at an all-time low.
The fiction remains unproven, but it still has political use, as is demonstrated here by ABC and CBS.
