FBI Director Kash Patel plans to travel to Moscow and then St. Petersburg on October 14 and 15, according to a US official and a second person familiar with the matter who both spoke on condition of anonymity, as Politico first reported. The plans remain preliminary and subject to change.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the domestic intelligence agency that grew out of the Soviet KGB, will likely serve as host. Neither source could say whether a Putin meeting is on the agenda, and no other itinerary details have surfaced. The White House referred questions about the trip to the FBI, and neither the FBI nor the Justice Department responded to Politico’s requests for comment.
Robert Mueller was the last sitting FBI director to visit Russia, in 2013, before later leading the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Patel would be the first to return in 13 years, and Politico called it an unusual and sensitive trip for an FBI chief to one of America’s top adversaries.
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Officials under President Biden mostly kept clear of Russia once its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, even as the US kept its Moscow embassy staffed. Trump’s team has gone the other way, actively courting closer ties with the Kremlin. His envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner have made repeated trips there, sitting down with Putin directly to try to broker an end to the Ukraine war, and Trump held his own summit with Putin in Anchorage last year.
Congress is pulling in the opposite direction, having approved an additional $1.3 billion in aid for Ukraine last month along with new sanctions on Russia, defying House GOP leadership and Trump’s preferred approach to ending the war.
The trip surfaces alongside a separate fight over how Patel spends government money. The top Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary committees opened a joint inquiry this month into his travel habits, which reporting has connected to a publicly funded outing to the men’s hockey final at the Winter Olympics in Italy, a dive near the sunken USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, and use of a government plane tied to concerts by his girlfriend, a country singer.
Related: Raskin Accuses Kash Patel of Directing Over $1 Million in Taxpayer-Funded Bonuses to Loyalist Agents
The trip also comes as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche works to win Senate confirmation, and Politico said it could prompt fresh questions from lawmakers about the Justice Department’s decision-making.
Patel also helped lead House Intelligence Committee efforts during Trump’s first term to challenge the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which he calls the “Russiagate hoax.” During his 2025 confirmation process, the Washington Post reported he received a $25,000 payment tied to a documentary a producer with Kremlin ties financed.
