FBI Director Kash Patel sued the Atlantic and staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick in federal court, alleging that the magazine ran a “sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece” against him on Friday with the intention of marring his reputation.
In the complaint, filed in federal district court in D.C. on Monday, Patel says he is seeking $250 million in damages plus any proceeds from the article.
The Atlantic’s article contained extensive reporting — attributed to anonymous people — alleging Patel engaged in “excessive drinking” and “unexplained absences” while leading the FBI. The FBI declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that several incidents detailed in the article are defamatory. These incidents include that Patel was often intoxicated with White House and Trump administration staff, that meetings had to be rescheduled following nights on which he drank, and that staff had to use “breaching equipment” to access rooms when Patel had reportedly been unreachable.
“We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit,” Anna Bross, a spokeswoman for the Atlantic, said in a statement to the Washington Post.
The Post has not independently verified the Atlantic’s reporting.
Under defamation law, Patel — as a public official — would probably have to demonstrate that the Atlantic acted with “actual malice,” a legal standard established in the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan.
To reach that standard, Patel would have to prove not only that the Atlantic’s claims were false but also that they knew they were false or published with reckless disregard for the truth. “They are so demonstrably and obviously false, or easily refuted,” the complaint said of the allegations, “that it was at best reckless to publish them.”
On Friday, Jesse R. Binnall, an attorney for Patel, posted on social media a letter sent earlier that day to Fitzpatrick and David Baumgarten, the Atlantic’s general counsel. “Should you publish these false allegations, Director Patel will take swift legal action to uphold his reputation,” Binnall wrote in the letter. In his accompanying post on X, Binnall said the Atlantic was “on notice” that its reporting was false and defamatory. “They published anyway,” he wrote. “See you in court.”
“Defamatory speech is not free speech, and it is an honor to represent Kash Patel in this lawsuit seeking accountability for The Atlantic article’s malicious falsehoods,” Binnall said in a statement to the Post on Monday.
Patel, formerly a staunch critic of the FBI, has led the bureau since February 2025.
Since taking the job, Patel has overseen a purge of dozens of career agents, many of whom were involved in investigations of President Donald Trump and his allies, and has shifted bureau resources from intelligence gathering and complex investigations of white-collar fraud toward assisting in Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts and policing violent crime.
Those efforts have at times been overshadowed by public scrutiny of Patel’s personal life. His frequent use of an agency Gulfstream jet for various trips, including to visit his girlfriend, a country music singer, and to see the 2026 Milan Olympics, has drawn public criticism.
During his Olympics trip, a video circulated showing Patel drinking beer with members of the U.S. men’s hockey team during a locker room celebration of their gold medal win.
Federal regulations require the FBI director to use government aircraft for all travel. Patel and his spokespeople have maintained that he uses the jet for personal trips far less than his predecessors. He flew to Milan for official meetings with law enforcement partners in Italy, they said, before he attended the hockey game.
Patel’s boss, Trump, has sued several news outlets following unfavorable coverage.
Trump, who has for years called the media “the enemy of the American people” has sued several news organizations for defamation over critical reporting about him, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC. Some, including ABC and CBS, have settled with Trump out of court.
Last week, a federal judge dismissed Trump’s defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal over a report alleging that Trump contributed a drawing of a naked woman to a 2003 birthday gift for financier Jeffrey Epstein, who would later become a convicted sex offender. The president has the option to refile by April 27.
Trump has long railed against the Atlantic, deriding the publication as a “failing Radical Left Magazine” and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, as a “con man.” Last year, Goldberg was accidentally added to a Signal group chat where Defense Department officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, detailed military plans for strikes in Yemen.
Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at the free speech group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that the lawsuit was likely an attempt by a Trump administration official to silence critical coverage. “The Trump administration has a record of punishing critics, and its officials are no strangers to filing lawsuits meant to silence dissent by driving up the cost of speaking,” he said in a statement. “Today’s filing from FBI Director Kash Patel has all the markings of that playbook.”
Patel’s lawsuit against the Atlantic is at least the second defamation claim he has filed since becoming the FBI director. In June, he sued former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi over statements made on the MSNBC show Morning Joe. (The network is now called MS NOW.) At the center of the suit, which was filed in federal court in Houston and remains ongoing, is Figliuzzi’s claim that Patel was spending more time in Las Vegas nightclubs than at the FBI headquarters in Washington.