{"id":411432,"date":"2026-04-22T08:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411432\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T08:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:29:10","slug":"fbi-director-kash-patel-defends-his-behaviour-after-sensational-magazine-reporting-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411432\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI director Kash Patel defends his behaviour after sensational magazine reporting \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

FBI<\/a> director Kash Patel<\/a> 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\u2019s edition of The Atlantic magazine. <\/p>\n

Written by Sarah Fitzpatrick, one of that magazine\u2019s most senior investigative reporters, it contained an incendiary opening paragraph \u2013 and got all the more jaw-dropping from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn 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,\u201d it began.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe 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 \u2018freak out\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201call ultimately bullshit\u201d, the histrionic response reflected Patel\u2019s fears he might be next to exit president Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s cabinet, which has become a high-stakes version of musical chairs in recent weeks. Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s departure<\/a> was followed by that of Pam Bondi<\/a>, whose attorney general role Blanche is now filling. <\/p>\n

The Atlantic article contained an official FBI response to its reporting of Patel\u2019s erratic behaviour and alleged excessive drinking, name-checking both Neds, in Washington, and the Poodle Room in Vegas as favoured haunts. \u201cPrint it\u201d, the statement retorted. \u201cAll false, I\u2019ll see you in court \u2013 bring your checkbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Atlantic did print it. And on Monday, Patel responded by filing a $250 million (\u20ac213 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 \u201chalf the time off\u201d of his predecessors; the national murder rate had dropped \u201c20 points\u201d 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 \u201can everyday American who loves his hockey, loves his country and champions his friends when they win a gold medal and invite me to celebrate\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 who may, understandably, have been exhausted. Beer is flying \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s have a survey. How many of you people believe that\u2019s true? Hang on! You asked a question, let me answer it. No, no,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d he countered.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd every time you guys report false lies, every time you guys raise baseless questions, when we are here to talk about the Southern Poverty\u2019s Law Centre\u2019s 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\u2019ve answered your question. I was never locked out of my systems and anybody that says the opposite is lying.\u201d<\/p>\n

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, \u201cmanufacturing the extremism it purports to expose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred\u201d, as Blanche put it.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cvisible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor\u201d of the bureau\u2019s headquarters. A Houston judge decided Figliuzzi\u2019s observation was \u201crhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FBI director Kash Patel came locked and loaded with a list of accomplishments for what was, ostensibly, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,285,42,1629,43,40,38,41,39,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-411432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-fbi","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}