FBI Director Kash Patel made good on his threat to sue The Atlantic.
Patel filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $250 million, per The Hill.
The crux of the lawsuit is based on the magazine publishing a report that Patrl feared losing his job and was hard to reach after nights of excessive drinking.
The magazine published a story on Friday — “The FBI Director Is MIA.”
It cited conversations with more than two dozen people, including current and former FBI officials, members of Congress, hospitality industry workers and others.
The suit contends the sources for the article were “not in a position to know the facts” and that the story was part of a smear campaign against Patel.
“The Article itself reveals that Defendants understood their sources were animated by hostility. Defendants relied on ‘former advisers’ and ‘political operatives’—categories of sources with obvious axes to grind,” the defamation suit states.
“They refused a reasonable request for additional time to respond to nineteen detailed, albeit ridiculous, allegations. They ignored a detailed pre-publication letter from counsel identifying specific falsehoods and supplying counter-evidence. And they never interviewed Director Patel himself or gave him any meaningful opportunity to address the charges in his own words. This is not negligence. It demonstrates a deliberate and malicious smear,” it continued.
The suit also touted Patel’s record as FBI director by citing crime statistics and the capture of fugitives.
The Atlantic called the suit meritless.
“We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit,” a spokesperson for the outlet said in a statement.
The outlet reported that while in charge of the bureau, Patel has consumed alcohol “to the point of obvious intoxication” in front of White House officials and other Trump administration staff.
Within the past year, members of his security detail have also “had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated,” The Atlantic reported.
“Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and private conversations, they described Patel’s tenure as a management failure and his personal behavior as a national-security vulnerability,” reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick wrote.
Patel threatened to sue the outlet Friday in a post on X.
“See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court… But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up,” he wrote.
