Nearly three weeks after The Atlantic reported that some government officials were alarmed by FBI Director Kash Patel’s behavior, including conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences, MS NOW reported this morning that the bureau has “launched a criminal leak investigation” that focuses on the Atlantic journalist who wrote the story, Sarah Fitzpatrick.
MS NOW reported that there is concern among FBI agents assigned to the investigation, citing two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity. Leak investigations are typically focused on government officials, not on journalists.
“They know they are not supposed to do this,” one source told MS NOW. “But if they don’t go forward, they could lose their jobs. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
The FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson denied the investigation, telling the network, “This is completely false. No such investigation like this exists and the reporter you mention is not being investigated at all.” The FBI did not immediately respond to my request for further comment. The White House referred me to the FBI.
The MS NOW report said that it was unclear whether internal interviews have taken place to determine who would have had “the kind of information” that appeared in the Atlantic story. It also said it was not known what steps investigators have taken in the case, including whether the FBI had sought to obtain Fitzpatrick’s phone records, examined her social-media contacts, or run her name and information through FBI databases.
“If confirmed to be true, this would represent an outrageous attack on the free press and the First Amendment itself,” The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, said in a statement. “We will defend The Atlantic and its staff vigorously; we will not be intimidated by illegitimate investigations or other acts of politically motivated retaliation; we will continue to cover the FBI professionally, fairly, and thoroughly; and we will continue to practice journalism in the public interest.”
This is not the first time in recent months that federal law enforcement has targeted traditional newsgathering practices in ways that seem designed to intimidate journalists and discourage critical news stories. In January, FBI agents executed a search warrant at the home of the Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, seizing her phone and other devices as part of an investigation into a government contractor who was charged with unlawfully transmitting and retaining classified information. Weeks earlier, Natanson had published an essay about how she had connected with more than 1,000 sources about the Trump administration’s overhaul of the federal government. Some of that work, along with that of Natanson’s colleagues, was recognized this week when the Post was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In March, the FBI began investigating the New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson after she wrote about Patel using bureau personnel to protect his girlfriend and ferry her around, the paper reported. (It also reported that the FBI decided not to pursue a case.)
In an April 17 article titled “The FBI Director Is MIA,” Fitzpatrick wrote that she interviewed more than two dozen people about Patel’s conduct, including current and former FBI officials, staff at law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, hospitality-industry workers, members of Congress, political operatives, lobbyists, and former advisers. The article included several anecdotes about Patel that had not been previously reported, including an incident in which Patel struggled to log on to an internal computer system and thought he might have been fired, according to nine people familiar with what happened. Fitzpatrick also wrote that there was concern across the government about Patel’s drinking, according to several officials, and that he was known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication. At one point last year, Patel’s security detail requested “breaching equipment” because the director had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request.
Patel denied the details in the story and sued The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick for defamation, seeking $250 million in damages. The lawsuit alleges that the article contains “false and obviously fabricated allegations” and claims that the magazine did not give the agency enough time to respond. The Atlantic has defended its reporting and called the lawsuit “meritless.” White House aides have said that President Trump continues to support the FBI director, although he has not mounted a vociferous defense of Patel.
Last year, Patel sued the former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi for stating on Morning Joe that the FBI director had “been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building,” where the agency is headquartered. On April 21, a day after Patel filed the defamation suit against The Atlantic, a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas dismissed the suit against Figliuzzi.
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