As he said he would on Sunday morning, FBI Director Kash Patel filed a defamation case against The Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick this morning over a story that characterizes him as an incompetent drunk who is jeopardizing national security. We talked about the contents of the article and Patel’s reaction here.
The civil lawsuit alleges just one count of defamation over publication of the article. To prevail, Patel would have to prove that false statements were made about him with “reckless disregard” for their truth. In a normal defamation case, the plaintiff need only show negligence, but because Patel is a public figure, he must meet the higher burden of showing that the defendants published the article either with knowledge it contained false statements, or with reckless disregard for their truthfulness.
The complaint starts by touting Patel’s virtues as director, including claims that he has overseen the capture of eight of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted fugitives and more than 40,000 violent crime arrests, which the complaint says reflects a 112% increase in violent crime arrests. The 40,000 number seems quite high, and of course arrests aren’t the same as the number of people subsequently indicted and convicted. But this complaint seems designed for the audience of one that controls whether Patel stays on as FBI director. So we get a full recitation of work Patel claims as his own, like locating 6,300 child victims and arresting more than 2,200 child predators, a claim that might be more compelling if he’d investigated outstanding leads in the Jeffrey Epstein matter, including the 10 people identified as potential coconspirators in a memo written by Southern District of New York prosecutors in one of the documents released as part of the Epstein Files. All of that to say, the recitation of Patel’s accomplishments has more to do with PR than it does with a lawsuit about specific claims about his drinking and job performance, which have little to do with how the FBI as a whole has performed its work since he came to the Bureau. But Patel alleges that The Atlantic had “preexisting animus” toward him, because it reported stories that said he was on the “chopping block” and in line to be fired by the president. Although Trump ultimately backed Patel when those rumors surfaced last November, there were reports from multiple sources that the White House was unhappy with some of the headlines about his personal life. It’s difficult to characterize The Atlantic, one of many news outlets that reported that information, as having special animus toward Patel. The complaint continues by discussing the article in The Atlantic, whose intent, it claims, was telegraphed by the headline: “it was not journalism about a subject; it was advocacy against Director Patel. Defendants made no effort to disguise their aim.” The headline read, “Kash Patel’s Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job.” The next step in a civil case is for the defendants to respond to these allegations within 21 days of being served with the complaint. This is usually done, going through the complaint line by line, to indicate, for each allegation, whether a defendant admits, denies, or lacks knowledge about the truth of each of its allegations—here that means we can expect to see them deny that the contents of the story were false and deny that that they published the story with reckless disregard for its truth. The Atlantic undoubtedly understood that this lawsuit was coming when they published the story–Patel’s lawyers wrote to them in advance. But the story says there are about two dozen sources, who were permitted to remain anonymous because of the nature of the information they provided. Patel lays out the key claims in the article and says, as he must, that they are all false. So the core of the defendants’ response will be their explanation of why they had a reasonable belief they were true when they ran the story. Patel’s complaint provides a nice summary of the key points in The Atlantic article:
They spend much of the rest of the complaint offering explanations for each of these incidents. Then they move on to alleging actual malice. The relevant part of the complaint reads: “Defendants’ ‘investigation’ of the claims in the Article was grossly deficient—and deliberately so. Defendants did not pursue obvious investigative leads, did not engage with publicly available counter-evidence––even evidence that was directly provided to them, did not afford a reasonable opportunity to respond, and did not conduct the most basic fact-checking that a responsible publication undertakes before attempting to destroy a public official’s reputation, even after the FBI explained to Defendants, on the record, that their claims were false, as illustrated above.” The Atlantic and its reporter will, of course, deny all of this, and much of the case, as it moves through discovery and proceeds to trial, if it gets that far, will center on the confidence they had in the evidence provided by their sources, even though Patel and the FBI denied that information was accurate.
Patel is asking for $250 million in damages plus any proceeds from the article. The lawsuit was filed in the District of Columbia. It’s not every day in America that the Director of the FBI files a defamation case against journalists, let alone one with such salacious allegations filed against a highly regarded entity. The defendants can file a motion to dismiss if they believe the complaint fails to properly allege a defamation charge, or they can respond to its allegations, or do both. But the image that provides a backdrop for this case is the one of Patel, chugging a beer in the U.S. Men’s Hockey Team’s locker room after their Olympic victory. This is an FBI director who, regardless of the outcome of this litigation, has left the public with that impression of him with his own behavior. It’s impossible to imagine a Robert Mueller, in his starched white shirts, of even one of his successors like Louis Freeh, Jim Comey, or Chris Wray, in a similar predicament. That kind of behavior would have been unimaginable in their day for someone whose primary concern was preserving the integrity of the organization they led and its ability to serve the American people. I know you have a lot of options for staying informed, and I don’t take your time or attention for granted. If Civil Discourse gives you clarity, context, and a steady place to think through the news, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support makes it possible for me to devote the time and resources it takes to write the newsletter, and I’m deeply grateful for it. We’re in this together, Joyce You're currently a free subscriber to Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance . For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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