FBI Director Kash Patel is suing an MSNBC analyst over a claim suggesting Patel was spending more time in nightclubs than the FBI’s headquarters.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month in Texas, Patel’s attorneys argued Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI official and frequent commentator on the channel, “crossed the legal line by fabricating a specific lie about Director Patel.”
Figliuzzi said during a May 2 broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Patel was spending more time at nightclubs in Las Vegas than on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building, according to the suit.
“Defendant knew that this was a lie when he said it,” Patel’s defamation suit reads.
The Daily Beast, which first reported Patel’s suit, noted MSNBC anchor Jonathan Lemire, during the next “Morning Joe” broadcast, told viewers Figliuzzi had made a “misstatement” about Patel and noted the network had not verified the claim.
“Since becoming Director of the FBI, Director Patel has not spent a single minute inside of a nightclub,” Patel’s suit reads, arguing Figliuzzi “fabricated this story to discredit Director Patel” because of his “clear animus” toward him.
Figliuzzi is an MSNBC columnist, senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. An outspoken critic of President Trump and his allies in the intelligence community, he spent more than two decades at the FBI before joining the network.
MSNBC did not respond to a request for comment on Patel’s suit.
