Alexis Wilkins Assigned Full-Time SWAT Detail as Questions Mount Over FBI Resources
alexis wilkins, a 27-year-old aspiring country singer and the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, has been assigned a full-time SWAT team, a move that has raised questions about the bureau’s use of its tactical resources. The detail and related travel by the FBI director have become focal points in broader scrutiny of how agency assets are being deployed.
Alexis Wilkins protected by four agents and two cars
The protection detail attached to Wilkins comprises four agents and two cars, and officials say the agents assigned are SWAT personnel. The FBI says SWAT teams are tapped for "extremely high-risk situations, " including "a special mission, a dangerous takedown, [or] a dignitary that needs protection. " Partners of the bureau’s directors do not typically receive their own personal security detail, especially when they live in different cities.
Agents trailed appearances, trips and routine errands
FBI resources have been used to follow Wilkins during trips, hair appointments and performances, and Ben Williamson, an FBI spokesman, said the singer has been in need of protection because of death threats made against her stemming from her relationship to Patel. Those routine activities being shadowed by SWAT agents are central to criticism from former bureau officials.
Critics point to jet trips and locker-room footage
The debate over security perks comes amid separate controversy over Patel’s travel. The FBI director faced criticism after flying to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on an agency jet and attending the men’s ice hockey gold medal game; the director was filmed in the Team USA locker room after the men’s team won. Patel has previously been chastised in public for using the bureau plane to attend hockey games and to visit Wilkins in Nashville.
Former senior FBI counterterrorism executive Christopher O’Leary said the arrangement crossed a line: "If you want to be a celebrity or a social media star, get your own security, " he said, calling the situation "inappropriate. "
The director, 46, has also criticized a predecessor for using the bureau’s private plane, writing that the plane’s departures cost roughly $15, 000 each time and suggesting it be grounded — a comment he made before taking the leadership role and before the travel controversies that followed.
An outlet reached out to the FBI and to Wilkins for comment. The Bureau has maintained that Patel’s trip to the Olympics was for official business; the director defended his presence at the Team USA celebration on social media, saying he was "extremely humbled" to be invited into the locker room.
Officials have not announced changes to Wilkins’s protection detail. The next confirmed public milestone in the record of events is any further statement from FBI spokespeople or from Wilkins herself responding to outreach about the security assignments and the travel questions tied to the director.
