WASHINGTON — Democrats want FBI Director Kash Patel to prove he hasn’t got a drinking problem.

In a letter to Patel on Tuesday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said he should take the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, a short questionnaire used to screen for harmful or hazardous alcohol use.

“There are numerous accounts that you consume alcohol to the point of illness, direct profanity-laced outbursts at support staff, and pass out drunk behind locked doors in episodes making you so unreachable that agents have had to fetch SWAT-level breaching equipment to awaken you,” the letter says.

The letter is based primarily on a story published last week in The Atlantic reporting that two dozen unnamed sources inside and outside the FBI believe “the problems with his conduct go well beyond what has been previously known, and include both conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences.”

Patel denied the story and sued The Atlantic this week for $250 million in damages over its alleged defamation of his character, claiming the magazine published “false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.”

But there’s no denying that time Patel aggressively chugged beer — on camera — with the American men’s ice hockey team after their gold medal victory in the Winter Olympics. Patel’s schedule from that trip, obtained by the New York Times, included significant downtime, private dinners and some “aperitivo” at Italy’s interior ministry.

“These glimpses of your relationship to alcohol would be alarming to see in an FBI agent; for us to see them in the FBI Director himself is shocking and indicative of a public emergency,” the Democrats said.

During a press conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday, Patel again denied he drinks on the job and defended his partying at the Olympics.

“I’m like an everyday American who loves his country, loves the sport of hockey and champions my friends when they raise a gold medal and invite me in to celebrate,” Patel said.

The focus on Patel’s alleged drinking comes as three other Senate-confirmed Donald Trump appointees have resigned or been fired from their jobs in recent weeks, including Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who also allegedly drank on the job.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday evening.

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