FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice on Dec. 4, 2025. Daniel Heuer/AFP
FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic and its staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick over an article, alleging its claims were false.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Patel stated the magazine and Fitzpatrick “published the Article with actual malice, despite being expressly warned, hours before publication, that the central allegations were categorically false,” also “despite having abundant publicly available information contradicting those allegations,” and “despite obvious and fatal defects in their own sourcing.”