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FBI Director Kash Patel has announced plans to sue The Atlantic following a recent article he claims is “categorically false and defamatory.” The piece alleges that Patel’s supposed “bouts of excessive drinking” have undermined his leadership at the bureau.
Described as a “hit piece” by Patel’s legal representative, the article paints a picture of the FBI director’s “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” that have reportedly “alarmed” officials within the Justice Department and the bureau. It also recounts an incident where his security team allegedly requested “breaching equipment” to retrieve him from a locked room.
In response to these allegations, Patel stated, “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook,” a comment included in The Atlantic’s report.
Jesse Binnall, Patel’s attorney, posted a letter on the platform X, addressed to journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick. The letter, sent prior to the article’s release, claimed that “most” of the “substantive claims” about Patel in the story were “false, unsourced, and facially defamatory.”
“They were on notice that the claims were categorically false and defamatory. They published anyway,” Binnall commented in his post.
He added, “See you in court.”
Binnall notes the “vast majority of the claims in the draft article rely solely on vague, unattributed sourcing such as ‘people familiar with the matter’ or ‘some have characterized.’”
The lawyer specifically called out an allegation that Patel’s security detail had so much difficulty waking him after a night of drinking that they requested “breaching equipment” to get into his locked room.
Binnall said the allegations “has no corroborating public record whatsoever and appears to be either fabricated or drawn from a single hostile and unreliable source.”
“A reasonable and responsible pre-publication investigation, including a simple request to the FBI for relevant documentary evidence, would have quickly disproven this claim and many of the others,” he argued.
Erica Knight, the FBI director’s communication strategist, described the story as one “every real DC reporter chased, couldn’t verify, and passed on.”
“The Atlantic’s ‘reporting’? Fabricated stories about ‘breaching equipment’ that was never requested. Intoxication claims with not a single witness willing to put their name on one. A paragraph — I’m not kidding — about the FBI Store not carrying ‘intimidating enough’ merchandise,” Knight wrote on X. “Every serious DC reporter passed on this. Sarah Fitzpatrick and Jeffrey Goldberg printed it anyway.
“Lawsuit is being filed.”
In an interview on MS NOW, Fitzpatrick maintained that she stood by her reporting.