FBI Director Kash Patel threatened to sue The Atlantic on Friday after the magazine published a lengthy investigative piece alleging erratic behavior, excessive drinking and unexplained absences during his tenure leading the bureau.

Patel, through his attorney, called the claims defamatory and said legal action was imminent. “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook,” Patel said in a statement included in the report itself.

The piece, headlined “The FBI Director is MIA,” was written by Atlantic staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick and draws on interviews with more than two dozen current and former officials, Capitol Hill staff, lobbyists, and hospitality-industry workers — all speaking anonymously.

Among the allegations: that Patel had a “freak-out” earlier this month after being locked out of a computer system, believing he was about to be fired in the wake of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s departure; that early morning meetings were repeatedly rescheduled due to late-night drinking; that members of his security detail had difficulty waking him on multiple occasions; and that a request was submitted for breaching equipment — typically used by SWAT teams — because he had been unreachable behind locked doors.

The report also raised questions about whether alcohol played a role in social media posts Patel made containing inaccurate information about active law enforcement investigations.

“Some of Patel’s colleagues at the FBI worry that his personal behavior has become a threat to public safety,” Fitzpatrick wrote, quoting one unnamed official: “That’s what keeps me up at night.”

The White House and Justice Department quickly rallied around Patel. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said he “remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called the piece an “anonymously sourced hit piece” that does not constitute journalism, adding that Patel “has accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years.”

FBI Assistant Director of Public Affairs Ben Williamson, who denied the allegations directly to Fitzpatrick before publication, was more caustic. “This article is a compilation of pretty much every obviously fake rumor I’ve heard the last 14 months,” he said, “except The Atlantic is the only one dumb enough to actually print it.”

Patel’s attorney, Jesse Binnall, had sent the magazine a letter before publication warning that the claims were false and noting that Patel’s team had been given fewer than two hours to respond. Binnall singled out one allegation — involving the breaching equipment — as having “no corroborating public record whatsoever” and possibly being “fabricated or drawn from a single hostile and unreliable source.”

Both Patel and his team said a lawsuit would be filed. “They were on notice that the claims were categorically false and defamatory. They published anyway. See you in court,” Binnall wrote on X.

Patel told Fitzpatrick directly: “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court … But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up.”

Fitzpatrick, appearing on MSNBC Friday night, said she stood by the reporting. “I am a very careful, very diligent, award-winning investigative reporter,” she said. “We have excellent attorneys.”

The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, echoed her: “We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)