'Bring your checkbook': Kash Patel hits The Atlantic with $250M suit over FBI drinking claims

WASHINGTON, DC: FBI Director Kash Patel filed a lawsuit against The Atlantic on Monday, April 20, demanding $250 million after the magazine published an article claiming he had “alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”

Patel’s lawyers accused The Atlantic and staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick of publishing “a sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece” against him on Friday and claimed that the allegations in the article were “false,”  "fabricated," and "designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation."

Kash Patel's lawyers demand $250 million in damages 

The lawsuit listed out achievements of Patel and lawyers claimed that the FBI director was “entitled to compensatory, special, and punitive damages, in an amount not less than two hundred and fifty million dollars ($250,000,000), as well as disgorgement of all income Defendants have earned by virtue of their lies about Director Patel.”

In an article titled 'The FBI Director Is MIA' on Friday, Fitzpatrick cited “more than two dozen” unnamed “witnesses” who, among other things, alleged that Patel had been engaged in “bouts of excessive drinking” and “unexplained absences” which “often alarmed officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice.”

The article said several officials told the reporter that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. 

Lawsuit denies claims Patel is unfit for office

The lawsuit says statements in Fitzpatrick’s article “falsely assert” that Patel “is a habitual drunk, unable to perform the duties of his office, is a threat to public safety, is vulnerable to foreign coercion, has violated DOJ ethics rules, is unreachable in emergencies, has required the deployment of ‘breaching equipment’ to extract him from locked rooms, allows alcohol to influence his public statements about criminal investigations, and behaves erratically in a manner that compromises national security.”

Fitzpatrick also reported that “on multiple occasions in the past year,” members of the FBI director’s 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,” she continued.

She claimed that “some of Patel’s colleagues at the FBI worry that his personal behavior has become a threat to public safety.”

Patel threatened to sue The Atlantic both before and again after the story was published last Friday. He was quoted by the magazine as saying, “I’ll see you in court,  bring your checkbook.”

Fitzpatrick said in an interview on MS NOW on Friday night, “I stand by every word of this reporting. We have excellent attorneys.”