FBI Director Kash Patel testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on surveillance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, on September 16, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | reuters
FBI Director Kash Patel filed a lawsuit Monday morning demanding $250 million in damages from The Atlantic magazine for what he claims is defamatory. Articles alleging that he abuses alcohol.
Patel vowed over the weekend to sue The Atlantic over the article published on Friday, headlined “Alas Patel’s erratic behavior could cost him his job.”
The article’s subtitle read, “FBI director has colleagues alarmed by incidents of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”
A 19-page lawsuit was filed on behalf of Patel. US District Court in Washington, DC
In addition to The Atlantic, the civil complaint names the article’s author, Sarah Fitzpatrick, as a defendant.
Patel’s lawsuit says it seeks to hold the defendants accountable for “a blanket, malicious and defamatory hit article.”
“While defendants are certainly free to criticize the FBI’s leadership, they crossed legal limits by publishing an article filled with false and clearly fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and remove him from office,” the lawsuit alleges.
The complaint states that the magazine and Fitzpatrick published it “out of genuine malice, despite being clearly warned just hours before publication that the central allegations were patently false.”
Patel’s lawsuit lists 17 specific claims made by the article, which allegedly contains “numerous false and defamatory statements of fact” about him.
They include claims that he “has been known to drink alcohol to the point of apparent intoxication, in several cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, DC, in the presence of White House and other administration staff;” that he “drinks too much” Poodle Room in Las Vegas, where he often spends part of his weekends;” and on several occasions last year, “members of his security squad had difficulty waking Patel because he appeared to be intoxicated.”
The Poodle Room is a members-only social club at the top of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas hotel.
The Atlantic also reported that “the request for the ‘breach device’ — commonly used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings — was made last year because Patel was inaccessible behind closed doors,” the suit notes.
“Director Patel does not drink alcohol in excess at these establishments or anywhere else and this is not and has never been a matter of concern to the Government,” the lawsuit says.
“The Atlantic’s story is false,” Patel said in a statement released by his attorneys at Binnal Law Group.
“They were told the truth before publishing and they chose to print lies,” Patel said. “I took this job to protect the American people and this FBI has brought about the largest reduction in crime in American history. The fake news will not report it, and their toxicity will never overshadow or stop our mission.”
“We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this frivolous lawsuit,” The Atlantic said in a statement to CNBC.
Public figures like Patel have high legal hurdles in lawsuits accusing them of defamation.
The Supreme Court took this issue into account in a landmark judgment in 1964. New York Times Company v. SullivanSaid that a public figure must show that the publisher acted with actual malice to bring a defamation claim.
The court defined actual malice in that opinion as making a statement “knowing that it was false or with reckless disregard that it was false.”