Kash Patel Says He’s Suing Over Report Claiming He’s Repeatedly Been Intoxicated in Public While FBI Director

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

FBI Director Kash Patel said he will file a lawsuit after The Atlantic published an unflattering report that called into question his fitness for the job.

On Friday, the publication ran a piece by Sarah Fitzpatrick, who reported that last week, Patel believed that President Donald Trump had fired him because he was unable to access an FBI computer system:

On Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log into an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”

However, the lockout was due to a technical issue, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

The report also said Patel had been intoxicated in public at restaurants in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas. Moreover, Patel’s FBI security detail reportedly had difficulty waking him on multiple occasions due to excessive alcohol use:

On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated, according to information supplied to Justice Department and White House officials. A request for “breaching equipment”—normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings—was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request.

Shortly after the report was published, FBI media flack Erica Knight called the piece “fabricated” and added, “Lawsuit is being filed.”

Later, Patel weighed in.

“[S]ee you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court,” he wrote on X. “But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up.”

Accompanying the tweet was a screenshot purporting to be an email to Fitzgerald and Patel from Benjamin Williamson, FBI assistant director for public affairs.

“Top to bottom, this is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever read,” Williamson wrote. “Completely false reporting at a nearly 100% clip. And with a two hour deadline.”

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