{"id":12745,"date":"2026-07-21T17:13:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T12:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12745"},"modified":"2026-07-21T17:13:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T12:13:58","slug":"fbi-director-kash-patel-planning-unusual-and-sensitive-trip-to-russia-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12745","title":{"rendered":"FBI Director Kash Patel Planning \u2018Unusual and Sensitive\u2019 Trip to Russia: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5664723\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5664723\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5664723\" src=\"https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Patel-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"FBI Director Kash Patel\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5664723\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tom Williams\/CQ Roll Call via AP Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>FBI Director <strong>Kash Patel\u00a0<\/strong>is heading to Russia later this year in what will be an &#8220;unusual and sensitive trip&#8221; for the bureau&#8217;s boss to make, according to a Monday report from Politico.<\/p>\n<p>The trip will take place in mid-October, with Patel stopping in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. &#8220;His host is likely to be the FSB, the Russian security service that is heir to the Soviet-era KGB,&#8221; a U.S. official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/20\/kash-patel-fbi-russia-trip-01005078\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told the outlet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Reporters <strong>John Sakellariadis<\/strong>, <strong>Nahal Toosi<\/strong>, and <strong>Kyle Cheney<\/strong> shared the byline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Patel has a history of involvement in controversial Russia-related matters dating back to President <strong>Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong> first term, including trying to cast doubt on investigations into whether Trump colluded with Russia to help him win the 2016 election \u2014 an episode he now calls the &#8216;Russiagate hoax,&#8217;&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;Patel also is developing a track record of taking eye-catching trips in his role atop the FBI, drawing scrutiny from Congress.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robert Mueller<\/strong> was the last FBI director to visit Russia while in office in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The report comes at a tense moment in the U.S.-Russia relationship. Fox News correspondent <strong>Lucas Tomlinson<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/trump-will-likely-ramp-up-iran-strikes-to-avenge-two-dead-troops-fox-news-reporter-reveals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> last weekend that Trump officials believe there&#8217;s \u201cno question that China and Russia are helping&#8221; Iran target military bases in the Middle East, including helping with the attack where two American soldiers were killed, and several troops were injured.<\/p>\n<p>Trump also met with Ukrainian President <strong>Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> at the NATO Summit in Turkey earlier this month. He told Zelensky during the televised meeting that the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/trump-tells-zelensky-the-us-will-teach-ukraine-to-build-elite-weapons-this-way-he-cant-complain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">will teach Ukraine<\/a> how to build \u201celite\u201d military weapons like the MM-104 Patriot missile defense system \u2014 giving the nation a boost in its war with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things I think we\u2019re going be talking about today \u2014 just a little birdie told me this \u2014 about the fact that we\u2019ll give them the right to make Patriots,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019ll show them how to do it. It\u2019s very complex, actually. But you will figure out the complexity quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump continued, \u201cWe\u2019ll give a license to you to make Patriots. That\u2019s pretty cool, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"flex flex-col mb-5 pt-[1.25rem] md:mb-[1.875rem] md:pt-[1.875rem]\">\n<div id=\"mrec5-wrap\" class=\"content-group ad relative flex min-h-0 flex-1 flex-col before:inset-0 before:right-0 before:z-10 before:block before:w-full before:pb-2.5 before:text-center before:text-sm before:leading-[1.05rem] before:text-gray-vulcan-44 before:content-[attr(data-ad-label)] is-loaded\" role=\"group\" data-ad-label=\"Advertisement\" aria-label=\"Advertisement\">\n<div id=\"mrec5_rlWr\" class=\"relative addelivered\" data-ad-refresh=\"30\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-target=\"pos=5\">\n<div id=\"mrec5_rlSlot\" class=\"\">\n<div id=\"div_utif_mrec5_rlSlot\">Politico reported that it&#8217;s unclear whether Patel will meet with Russian <strong>Vladimir Putin\u00a0<\/strong>during his trip.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/fbi-director-kash-patel-planning-unusual-and-sensitive-trip-to-russia-report\/\">FBI Director Kash Patel Planning \u2018Unusual and Sensitive\u2019 Trip to Russia: Report<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Williams\/CQ Roll Call via AP Images FBI Director Kash Patel\u00a0is heading to Russia later this year in what will be an &#8220;unusual and sensitive trip&#8221; for the bureau&#8217;s boss to make, according to a Monday report from Politico. The trip will take place in mid-October, with Patel stopping in both Moscow and St. Petersburg&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Patel-scaled.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}