FBI director Kash Patel came locked and loaded with a list of accomplishments for what was, ostensibly, a department of justice press conference to elaborate on details on a fraud investigation into a civil rights organisation on Tuesday afternoon. For the majority of the conference, Patel stood beside acting attorney general Todd Blanche, who detailed the terms of the criminal charges against the Southern Poverty Law Centre. But Patel knew he, sooner or later, would be asked about the sensational reporting published, online, in Friday’s edition of The Atlantic magazine.
Written by Sarah Fitzpatrick, one of that magazine’s most senior investigative reporters, it contained an incendiary opening paragraph – and got all the more jaw-dropping from there.
“On Friday April 10 as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log on to an internal computer system,” it began.
“He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behaviour as a ‘freak out’.”
The article, under the headline The FBI Director is MIA, reported that although another FBI source confirmed the lockout had been due to a technical glitch and was “all ultimately bullshit”, the histrionic response reflected Patel’s fears he might be next to exit president Donald Trump’s cabinet, which has become a high-stakes version of musical chairs in recent weeks. Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s departure was followed by that of Pam Bondi, whose attorney general role Blanche is now filling.
The Atlantic article contained an official FBI response to its reporting of Patel’s erratic behaviour and alleged excessive drinking, name-checking both Neds, in Washington, and the Poodle Room in Vegas as favoured haunts. “Print it”, the statement retorted. “All false, I’ll see you in court – bring your checkbook.”
The Atlantic did print it. And on Monday, Patel responded by filing a $250 million (€213 million) defamation lawsuit against the magazine, and the author of the report. On Tuesday, when questioned about his response to being temporarily locked out of his account, Patel countered with a prepared litany of wins, arguing he had taken “half the time off” of his predecessors; the national murder rate had dropped “20 points” under his watch; and the FBI had captured eight of the top 10 most wanted fugitives since he took charge. He listed fentanyl seizures and the return of 6,300 child victims to families as other accomplishments before describing himself as “an everyday American who loves his hockey, loves his country and champions his friends when they win a gold medal and invite me to celebrate”.
Patel was alluding to his now infamous fraternity-brother turn in the dressingroom of the victorious US Olympic ice hockey team after their gold medal 2-1 extra-time win over Canada at the Winter Olympics in Italy in February. That footage captures the FBI director celebrating with more jacked-up machismo than the actual players – who may, understandably, have been exhausted. Beer is flying – the video depicts the FBI director not so much drinking to excess as spilling to excess. But The Atlantic piece details startling allegations of drinking and other failures that have alarmed other FBI staff, all of which Patel strenuously denied from the podium.
“Let’s have a survey. How many of you people believe that’s true? Hang on! You asked a question, let me answer it. No, no,” he said before getting into a heated exchange with one reporter when asked whether he had communicated with colleagues that he had been locked out of his account.
“The problem with you and your baseless reporting is that that is an absolute lie. It was never said, it never happened and I will serve in this administration as long as the president and the attorney general want me to do so,” he countered.
“And every time you guys report false lies, every time you guys raise baseless questions, when we are here to talk about the Southern Poverty’s Law Centre’s three-million-dollar, decade-long scheme to fraudulently fleece Americans, you are off topic. The simple answer to your question is: you are lying and … I’ve answered your question. I was never locked out of my systems and anybody that says the opposite is lying.”
The justice department had charged the civil rights centre with using their funding to pay, over the course of a decade up to 2023, at least $3 million to people associated with extremist groups including the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party and the Ku Klux Klan, “manufacturing the extremism it purports to expose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred”, as Blanche put it.
But the event was overshadowed by the presence of Patel, whose divisive appointment, confirmed by a bare 51-49, has placed his behaviour under constant scrutiny. Under his stewardship, agents who worked on Trump investigations before the 2024 election have been fired while a significant percentage of the workforce has been directed to focus on immigration enforcement, leading to fears of less stringent enforcement of traditional FBI investigations into cybercrime and terrorism.
Even as Patel embarked on this legal battle, the embattled FBI director received disappointing news on Tuesday in relation to a separate lawsuit he had filed last year, against a former FBI official, Frank Figliuzzi, who had told the hosts of the television current affairs show Morning Joe that Patel was “visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor” of the bureau’s headquarters. A Houston judge decided Figliuzzi’s observation was “rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation”.