FBI Director Kash Patel’s defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic will drag embarrassing records into open court, a legal expert predicted.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote in her Substack “Civil Discourse” on Wednesday that Patel’s attack is likely to backfire. Patel is suing The Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick for a story that cast him as an incompetent drunk endangering national security.
The Atlantic moved to dismiss the lawsuit in July, and Patel filed his response earlier this week. Patel argued that the case is too early in litigation to toss, but Vance argued that Patel is opening the door to a discovery process he won’t be able to control. Vance, a former U.S. Attorney, said the coming fight over records from the Department of Justice and testimony would not go Patel’s way.
“The Atlantic has already asked for official documents and communications from the FBI and DOJ, since Patel’s lawsuit relies on them to refute The Atlantic’s reporting,” Vance wrote. “Anyone who saw the video of Patel drinking in an Olympic locker room knows that’s unlikely to be pretty for Patel.”
The judge in the case is District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is also handling lawyer and journalist Katie Phang’s lawsuit against Attorney General Todd Blanche. Vance argued that, no matter how Sullivan rules on the motion to dismiss, the outcome is bad for Patel.
“Either way the Judge rules, Patel loses here,” Vance wrote. “And he has no one to blame but himself. He could have let it go and become yesterday’s news. Instead, he chose to sue.”
The Atlantic told the court that the case is Patel’s latest attempt to punish coverage he dislikes. The Atlantic will get a chance to reply to Patel’s brief before Sullivan decides whether the case proceeds to discovery.
“This is Director Patel’s fifth defamation lawsuit against the media in recent years, and the second one he has filed since being sworn in as FBI Director,” The Atlantic noted, per Vance.
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