FBI Director Kash Patel issued first statement after viral locker room celebration with USA ice hockey team following Winter Olympics gold medal.
According to The Hill, Patel dismissed critics of his presence in the locker room during the US men’s hockey team’s celebration of their gold medal game victory over Canada on Sunday, February 22.
Patel, who was in attendance in Milan, Italy, was captured on camera in Team USA’s locker room on the final day of the Winter Olympics.
At one point, the FBI director drinks a beer and bangs on a table, before forward Matthew Tkachuk drapes his gold medal around Patel and the group loudly sings “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” by the late Toby Keith.
Addressing those questioning why he was in the locker room, Patel wrote on X, “For the very concerned media – 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- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth.”
The US men defeated Canada 2-1, as forward Jack Hughes’s sudden-death goal gave the country its first gold medal in the sport since 1980, when it defeated the Soviet Union in the famed “Miracle on Ice” and Finland in Lake Placid.
