Another ship adrift in the sea …
"More than two dozen people, including current and former FBI officials and members of Congress, described him as “erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence,” calling his personal behavior “a national-security vulnerability,” … One official said that the idea of Patel being in charge during a potential terrorist attack, especially while the U.S. is at war with Iran, “keeps me up at night.”
Yikes.
Who’s the source quote from?
A summary of the Atlantic article from Huffington post (wasn’t sure if people would have access to the full text of the Atlantic article).
Here it is, should be gifted.
Kash$ threatens to sue, but the Atlantic stands by their story:
FBI staffers raise concerns about Director Kash Patel’s behavior
A copy of Kash’s complaint.
Not being a legal eagle like yourself, after looking that over, what is your take of Kash’s chances?
I was just about to ask this same question.
Me too. I didn’t read the whole thing, just skimmed through to the end to see the damages he’s seeking.
Wait for it…. $250 million. It’s hard to believe that’s going to happen.
Regardless of the merits of his case (seeing Ka$h’s obvious incompetence, probably zero merits), I get a sense that Ka$h is adding insult to injury with this lawsuit. As in, he is giving The Atlantic and this article’s salacious allegations a massive amount of free publicity, per the Barbara Streisand effect.
I bet russia and our other numerous enemies are thrilled to know how messed up the FBI is right now. 
If you’re putting that “$” in there as a tribute, I applaud that effort
Seem really strong, I mean the Atlantic didn’t even read the FBI’s security detail protocols, which I have to assume are public, because why else say the Atlantic should have read them in a law suit, because if they are not public it seems they are going to have to released as part of this law suit since the complaint specifically uses them as a defense, which would undermine the protocols if they were so sensitive to not be public in the first place and no lawyer would be that dumb and it needs to be public in order do it be evidence for actual malice, the standard for a public official:
Also this is assuming that the agents followed protocols, since this is an administration using signal chats to talk about classified information and invite journalists to the chat.
Nah, I wish!
Truthfully, I got it from the lame merch on his own website:
Not my area of law, but I suspect the chances increase significantly if the Atlantic is seeking or needs FTC approval of a potential merger or is under some DOJ investigation.
I know what I’m getting you for Christmas.
Please, no !
We don’t know a lot of the key facts that would determine the outcome. We just know that Patel disputes a lot of the facts from the article.
With that caveat, I’ll assume that the article’s sources did say what the article attributes to them. If that’s the case, it will be tough for Patel to win, even if some of those sources were wrong and the article was rushed. The media get a lot of leeway when reporting on a senior official.
Patel filed in DC, rather than his (alleged) home in Nevada. A DC jury would likely not be very sympathetic to Patel and what he has done with the FBI.
Patel’s allegations about national crime rates and other purported successes of the FBI won’t help much, and likely will backfire. Probably they are just public relations stuff, but they are prominently featured in the complaint. The problem is that reasonable people can disagree about such policy matters and how much credit or blame goes to the head of the FBI. A plaintiff should not want to turn a defamation case (about personal behavior) into a dispute about federal policy. It’s not reckless to assert that some agency is not doing well — that’s just normal political/policy disagreement.
I don’t see how Patel could prove actual damages. We all saw him at the Olympics, among other events that raised questions about his professionalism and judgment. So much has been written by so many people about him. It would be very tough to show some increment of reputational harm from this one article. If he is fired, that would supersede whatever some article said. If he is not fired, what exactly is his injury?
This is getting more interesting:
“I think there is a real fear at every level — not just of the FBI, of the Justice Department, people who work in the White House — that this is a person who is going to come after [you]. If you speak out, if you are perceived as not being 120% behind this FBI director or behind the president, there is a concern that you are going to lose your job,” Fitzpatrick said
That’s J Edgar level shit
Except J Edgar was not an incompetent, drunken, knucklehead; he was just a cross-dresser
