People Are Questioning Kash Patel’s Snorkeling Trip at Pearl Harbor

Over the course of his time as FBI director, Kash Patel has made headlines for occasionally seeming more focused on having fun than on doing the job. During foreign trips, reports suggest he's often looking for various perks or excursions that he can have.

Even though he insisted at the time that his trip to Hawaii in the summer of 2025 was not a vacation, it turns out that he did make some time to have fun during the trip.

Emails have confirmed that Patel also took a "VIP snorkel" as part of the trip, and did so at a pretty sensitive location. Here's what we know.

According to reporting from The Associated Press, Patel took advantage of his time in Hawaii to do a "VIP snorkel" at the site where the USS Arizona was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The sunken battleship is the final resting place of more than 900 sailors and marines who were on board the vessel at the time of the attack. The snorkeling excursion was revealed in emails obtained by the outlet.

The reports of this excursion come as Patel continues to face scrutiny for blurring the lines between his professional responsibilities and his personal life.

Patel has yet to respond to this latest story, which comes after reports that suggest he is sometimes drunk while at work, and one that suggests he has a personalized stash of bourbon that he hands out to FBI employees and other people he meets with.

What's more, snorkeling and scuba diving around the USS Arizona is pretty strictly forbidden outside of very narrow circumstances precisely because it is such a significant historical landmark.

Marine archaeologists and crews from the National Park Service make occasional dives at the memorial to survey the condition of the wreck, and survivors of the attack on the Arizona have sometimes had their remains placed there so they could rest with their crewmates.

The Associated Press acknowledged, though, that some dignitaries have been allowed to swim at the site for at least a decade. That means that, while it seems Patel did not want his snorkeling to become public, he was not the first person to have done something similar at the site.

The news that he did this is most significant not because of this one incident, but because it's part of a broader pattern that seems to indicate that Patel does not take the work of the FBI seriously, and instead finds his time looking for ways to goof off and have fun.

For now, the scrutiny around his work has not led to any sort of reprimand or threats of firing from the White House. Given the way Patel has continued to make headlines for his conduct, though, there's plenty of reason to speculate about whether he'll be leading the FBI for much longer, or whether his days are numbered.