FBI Director Kash Patel appears on Fox News on April 19, 2026, to deny the Atlantic article”s claims (Fox News).
On Monday, Kash Patel initiated a $250 million defamation lawsuit after vocally criticizing a recent article by the Atlantic, dismissing its claims as “completely false” and “sheer fantasy.” However, a prominent First Amendment scholar suggests that Patel, the current FBI director, faces a “daunting” and “challenging” legal battle.
Last Friday, Sarah Fitzpatrick, a staff writer for the Atlantic, published an article alleging that Patel has been absent from his duties at the FBI, with claims of “excessive drinking” and being “unreachable behind closed doors.” The piece portrayed Patel as overwhelmed and paranoid about being the next to lose his job, referencing nine unnamed sources who described a recent “freak-out” over a non-issue.
The report detailed an incident on April 10, where Patel allegedly panicked and began “frantically calling aides and allies” after he couldn’t log into a computer, mistakenly thinking the White House had fired him and revoked his access. It turned out to be a “technical error,” not a termination.
The Atlantic used this incident to illustrate Patel’s current state of anxiety following Pam Bondi’s dismissal as attorney general and the administration’s notable failures to pursue investigations and prosecutions against perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump. The article also mentioned witness testimony about Patel’s alleged “unexplained absences” and “episodes of excessive drinking.”
To support the claim that his “drinking is no secret,” the story referenced Patel’s public chugging of a beer as he celebrated Team USA’s Olympic gold medal in hockey. The Atlantic cited two anonymous “officials” in reporting that Trump called Patel to “convey his unhappiness” about that video. In addition, the report said “FBI officials and others” have questioned whether “alcohol played a role” when the director “shared inaccurate information” after the murder of Charlie Kirk and the shooting at Brown University, to name two.
Though the article included a brief response from Patel, indicating that the Atlantic had contacted him before publication, it also featured his denial of the allegations.
“Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook,” Patel reportedly stated.
As the Atlantic expresses confidence that its reporter nailed the story down, Patel complains that the FBI was only given a “two-hour window” or 111 minutes to respond to a litany of claims. Worse yet, Patel’s lawyers Jesse Binnall, Jason Greaves, and Jared Roberts said the Atlantic went ahead with a publication “replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations” to “drive him from office.”
“Defendants are of course free to criticize the leadership of the FBI, but they crossed the legal line,” the complaint said, asserting that Fitzpatrick’s sources must be lying partisans because they are anonymous.
Notably, Patel currently faces multiple lawsuits from fired FBI agents who have accused him of unconstitutional political revenge firings and “defamatory speech.”
Over the weekend, the director appeared on Fox News, vowed arrests relating to the 2020 election, and attributed the Atlantic allegations he denied to his being “over the target.”
Much of Patel’s complaint slammed the Atlantic for not buying the administration’s prepublication claims that the allegations were “‘totally false,’ ‘made up,’ and ‘made up to the point of satire.’”
The lawsuit claimed that the Atlantic willfully “avoid[ed] receiving information that would refute their narrative” and that of their “sham sources.”
According to Patel, the Atlantic didn’t include a response from the Office of Public Affairs, which called the claims “one of the most absurd things I’ve ever read” and “[c]ompletely false at a nearly 100% clip” and left out information about the FBI’s successes during his tenure.
“Defendants buried this striking language, never reported it, and chose to publish the claims anyway,” the complaint said, calling that proof of actual malice. “They made no effort to reconcile these on-the-record denials—backed by documented, publicly reported law-enforcement successes—with the Article’s central thesis that Director Patel is a derelict and erratic leader, who abuses alcohol to the point of being unfit for his duties.”
Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, defended her reporting as the result of “alarm coming from within the FBI and within other really serious law enforcement and intelligence agencies that view Patel’s conduct not just as problematic or as an embarrassment, but as a national security threat.”
“And specifically in light of recent events in Iran, you know, sources felt that this was really important to have known to the public,” she explained in an NPR interview.
When Law&Crime asked famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams for his thoughts on the strength of the lawsuit, he called it “a really tough case for Kash Patel to win” and a “daunting” hill to climb.
“He needs to meet the daunting burden of showing that The Atlantic knew or suspected that what it said about him was false,” Abrams, father of Law&Crime founder Dan Abrams, said in an email. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Later on Monday, the case was assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, perhaps best remembered for not simply letting Michael Flynn’s prosecution be dismissed.
Binnall, one of Flynn’s lawyers, is now representing Patel.
Read the complaint in full here.
