President Donald Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel, filed a lawsuit against The Atlantic on Monday, demanding no less than $250 million after the magazine published an article claiming he had “alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”
Patel’s lawyers accused The Atlantic and staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick of publishing “a sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece” against him on Friday and claimed that the allegations in the article were “false,” “obviously fabricated,” and “designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.”
After dedicating an entire page of the lawsuit to boasting about Patel’s “historic” achievements, Patel’s lawyers claimed that the FBI director was “entitled to compensatory, special, and punitive damages, in an amount not less than two hundred and fifty million dollars ($250,000,000), as well as disgorgement of all income Defendants have earned by virtue of their lies about Director Patel.”
Recalling how badly Patel wanted this job, you’d expect him to do everything possible to keep it and stay on his best behavior, but who knows. What is clear is that partisan lines are already forming. Democrats and the liberal media have been quick to condemn him, calling for his resignation and expressing confidence that his lawsuit will fail. On the other side, most, if not all Republicans appear to support Patel, hoping not only that he wins the lawsuit, but that it delivers a significant blow to a news outlet many conservatives view as biased against the Right. Ultimately, the sense is that as long as Patel survives discovery, the smear campaign against him won’t succeed, and he could come out on top.
RELATED: House Republican Defends Embattled Kash Patel: ‘I’ve Seen Plenty of Guys Drink and Have Fun’
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