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FBI Director Kash Patel is at the center of a fierce political storm. In February, a video of him chugging alcohol in the U.S. men’s hockey team’s locker room following their Olympic victory went viral. In the New York Times, Emily Bazelon and Rachel Posner have fueled concerns about his suitability to lead the FBI with a new installment of their ongoing interview series about key agencies, sharing accounts from former agents who discussed the FBI’s dysfunction. Most damaging was Sarah Fitzpatrick’s recent article in the Atlantic which detailed allegations of heavy drinking and highly erratic behavior.

Patel is fighting back. In Trumpian fashion, he has sued the Atlantic for defamation. The New York Times also broke a chilling story: The FBI reportedly investigated one of the paper’s reporters, Elizabeth Williamson, after she began looking into the full-time FBI security detail that accompanies Patel’s girlfriend to various engagements. The FBI dropped the case, but the revelation was “alarming,” New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn warned, since it was a brazen attempt to “criminalize routine reporting.”

FBI Director Kash Patel is at the center of a fierce political storm. In February, a video of him chugging alcohol in the U.S. men’s hockey team’s locker room following their Olympic victory went viral. In the New York Times, Emily Bazelon and Rachel Posner have fueled concerns about his suitability to lead the FBI with a new installment of their ongoing interview series about key agencies, sharing accounts from former agents who discussed the FBI’s dysfunction. Most damaging was Sarah Fitzpatrick’s recent article in the Atlantic which detailed allegations of heavy drinking and highly erratic behavior.

Patel is fighting back. In Trumpian fashion, he has sued the Atlantic for defamation. The New York Times also broke a chilling story: The FBI reportedly investigated one of the paper’s reporters, Elizabeth Williamson, after she began looking into the full-time FBI security detail that accompanies Patel’s girlfriend to various engagements. The FBI dropped the case, but the revelation was “alarming,” New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn warned, since it was a brazen attempt to “criminalize routine reporting.”

Patel’s fate remains uncertain. There have been reports that President Donald Trump, who doesn’t drink and whose brother was an alcoholic, is unhappy with the stories. As with the rest of the Department of Justice, the president is also said to be frustrated that investigations into his political opponents are not moving fast enough.

Patel may soon be pushed out of the administration, replaced by a loyalist who is more disciplined and less erratic. In that sense, he has become a test case of which scandals the president won’t tolerate—distinct from the many he shrugs off.

The uncertainty over what kinds of personal behavior are no longer disqualifying reveals how profoundly the political environment has been transformed in the MAGA era. Back in 1989,........

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