FBI Director Kash Patel files $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic over 'defamatory hit piece'

FBI Director Kash Patel filed a $250 million lawsuit on Monday against The Atlantic over a piece published Friday alleging he has "alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking."

The Atlantic published a piece on Friday, headlined, "The FBI Director Is MIA," which quoted 

The lawsuit read that The Atlantic, and its staff writer, Sarah Fitzpatrick, need to be held "accountable for a sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece published on April 17, 2026. Defendants are of course free to criticize the leadership of the FBI, but they crossed the legal line by publishing an article replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office." 

Fitzpatrick reported, among other claims, that Patel has been difficult to wake up by his security team on multiple occasions because he was seemingly intoxicated.

Patel vowed over the weekend to sue The Atlantic for the story.

The suit states, "Defendants published the Article with actual malice, despite being expressly warned, hours before publication, that the central allegations were categorically false; despite having abundant publicly available information contradicting those allegations; despite obvious and fatal defects in their own sourcing; despite The Atlantic’s welldocumented, long-running editorial animus toward Director Patel; despite a request for additional time to respond that Defendants refused to honor."

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