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  "path": "/post/209485/kash-patel-atlantic-lawsuit-backfiring",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-24T15:11:22.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Republican Party",
    "Donald Trump",
    "FBI",
    "Kash Patel",
    "lawsuit",
    "Defamation",
    "The Atlantic",
    "Drinking",
    "alcohol",
    "reported",
    "$250 million defamation lawsuit",
    "undermine",
    "Radio Atlantic"
  ],
  "textContent": "It looks like Kash Patel’s major meltdown over _The Atlantic_ ’s humiliating report on his excessive drinking and unexplained absences has only made things worse for the embattled FBI director.\n\nLast weekend, _The Atlantic_ ’s Sarah Fitzpatrick reported that Patel was known to drink in excess, routinely delayed meetings and time-sensitive operations, and was often unreachable, raising concerns about the potential for foreign coercion and other national security risks. His behavior had also grown increasingly erratic as he became worried he might lose his job.\n\nIn response, Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit Monday alleging that the article was “replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.” Within a day of filing, he already managed to undermine his own lawsuit.\n\nWhile speaking to Radio Atlantic Thursday, Fitzpatrick was asked about Patel’s lawsuit. “I stand by every single word of this report,” she said, noting that aside from Patel, the response to the article has been overwhelmingly supportive.\n\n“And I think one of the things that has been most gratifying, after—immediately after the story published was, 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,” Fitzpatrick said.\n\nThe sources Fitzpatrick spoke with to produce the original report were “people who felt that not only was this conduct embarrassing, unbecoming, but that it was a national security vulnerability, and that Americans were perhaps less safe as a result,” she said.",
  "title": "Kash Patel’s Atlantic Lawsuit Is Already Biting Him in the Butt"
}