Dead Duck: Kash Patel Files a Lulu of a Lawsuit

Jeff Robbins on Apr 28, 2026

For Americans who have watched FBI Director Kash Patel slosh beer with the U.S. Olympic hockey team, proclaim that the FBI had Charlie Kirk's murderer in custody only to have to say "Never mind," and stand glassy-eyed at press conferences looking somewhere between an unhappy participant in a police line-up and an anesthetized deer in headlights, the news that Patel had sued The Atlantic, claiming it had libeled him by calling him "erratic," triggered the same simultaneous question: "Isn't truth a complete defense to a libel lawsuit?"

It is, of course. And the word "erratic" to describe Kash Patel seems not only understated, but like the Mother of All Euphemisms.

Entitled "The FBI Director is MIA," the allegedly libelous Atlantic article asserted that Patel had engaged not only in "erratic behavior" but "excessive drinking" and "unexplained absences." Patel responded that the article is not only untrue, but "replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy (his) reputation and drive him from office."

Patel's lawsuit seems destined to collapse at one point or another. For starters, as a public official, Patel would have to adduce "clear and convincing evidence" that the magazine had published factual falsehoods either knowing they were false or, at a minimum, in "reckless disregard" of their falsity. Unless Atlantic journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick is lying through her teeth and her editors were hallucinating while reviewing her work, he is unlikely to meet that difficult standard. "I stand by every word of this report," Fitzpatrick says. "We were very diligent. We were very careful. It went through multiple levels of editing, review, care." According to Fitzpatrick, she spoke to more than two dozen people about Patel's conduct, "including current and former FBI officials, staff at law enforcement agencies, hospitality-industry workers, members of Congress, political operatives, lobbyists and former advisors."

That's a lot of sources. Moreover, Fitzpatrick says, since the article was published, "I have been inundated by additional sourcing going up to the highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work, providing additional corroborating information."

"Inundated by additional sources" is one of those phrases you don't enjoy hearing if you are a lawyer representing a plaintiff in a defamation case. According to Fitzpatrick, the article's sources told her that Patel tended to "conspicuous inebriation," and that he was "known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication." If true, that would make Patel and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the national security establishment's Bonnie and Clyde of alcohol abuse. If even a meaningful fraction of the evidence the Atlantic claims to have bears out, a trial about Patel's conduct would constitute a most unwelcome edition of "This Is Your Life," one which President Donald Trump is unlikely to permit.

Look to Trump to force Patel to walk the plank long before then and join Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and Lori Chavez-DeRener in the band of Trump cabinet members jettisoned by the boss because they had grown too toxic even for him.

Of course, in the unlikely event that Patel's case ever reached a jury, what would await him would be unpleasant. He filed the case in federal court in Washington, D.C., where the jury pool is not exactly Trump Country. Ninety percent of the District's voters pulled the lever for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Trump received 6.5% of the vote.

Patel does have a valuable tool in his toolbox, however: fear. There's a reason that the Atlantic's sources insisted on being quoted anonymously. Patel has shown a wholly unprecedented willingness -- enthusiasm, even -- for using the FBI's immense power to intimidate, threaten and, yes, retaliate against those he or the president perceives as political enemies. The New York Times recently reported that the FBI conducted an investigation of one of its journalists who had reported on Patel's girlfriend and the unusual deployment of FBI resources for her benefit. Whether it's retaliation by the FBI or others in the administration, sources cannot relish the risk of adverse consequences for their testimony about Patel's behavior.

But it appears that a whole lot of sources would have to go dry for Patel's suit to survive. What seems likely is that the leader of the world's most prominent law enforcement agency is on a path to embarrassing himself.

Again.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment and a longtime columnist, he writes on politics, national security, human rights and the Middle East.