On April 17, 2026 The Atlantic published an article titled “The FBI Director is MIA,” written by investigative journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick, who covers the Department of Justice (DOJ) and national security. For the article, Fitzpatrick interviewed more than two dozen current and former employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), members of Congress, political operatives, lawyers, people involved with intelligence agencies, lobbyists and people who work in the hospitality industry, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The article described FBI Director Kashyap Patel’s extreme paranoia about the possibility that he might be fired, and how his emotional outbursts resulting from his paranoia affect FBI personnel and operations. Interviewees described Patel as exhibiting problematic personal conduct on the job, including “conspicuous inebriation” and “unexplained absences.” They said Patel is “erratic,” “suspicious of others” and that he is prone to jumping to conclusions before the necessary evidence is gathered. On the whole, people interviewed for the article described Patel’s tenure so far as Director of the FBI as a “management failure” and say his personal behavior poses a “national security vulnerability.”
Officials told Fitzpatrick that Patel has imbibed alcohol to the point of obvious intoxication at private clubs in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, where he occasionally spends his weekends. Six current and former FBI employees told Fitzpatrick that soon after being appointed to head the FBI, agency staff had to move meetings and briefings from the morning to later in the day to accommodate Patel’s “alcohol-fueled benders.” Officials who work at the DOJ and the White House had gotten information that Patel’s personal security detail has had difficulty waking Patel at times, seemingly because of intoxication. In one instance, Patel’s security team requested “breaching equipment,” used by SWAT and hostage rescue teams to quickly enter buildings, after the found Patel was “unreachable behind locked doors.”
When asked in an interview with Hannah Rosin of Atlantic Radio after publication of the article what stood out the most to her about her investigation into Patel, Fitzpatrick answered that,
“The thing that stood out the most to me was the incredibly high levels of alarm that I would describe as bordering on panic for these sources” [who supplied her with information about Patel].
After the article about Patel was published, Patel called the story “a lie,” denied having an alcohol problem and on April 20, 2026 he sued The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick (pdf) for defamation, seeking $250 million in damages.
In an astonishing attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and abuse of power by the federal government, Patel’s FBI opened a criminal investigation into The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick.
The Atlantic says it stands by its reporting and is actively defending itself and Fitzpatrick from the defamation suit. The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg said,
“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.”
In keeping with the magazine’s promise to continue covering the FBI and practice journalism in the public interest, The Atlantic published an article May 6 titled “Kash Patel’s Personalized Bourbon Stash,” about how Patel travels with a supply of personalized bottles of Kash Patel-branded bourbon engraved with the words “Kash Patel, FBI Director “and a rendering of the FBI’s law enforcement shield. Patel distributes the bottles to staff and civilians while conducting FBI business, according to the article. Eight different people supplied Fitzpatrick with information about Patel distributing his personally-branded bottles of
alcohol. All of them spoke with Fitzpatrick anonymously anonymously out of fear of reprisal.
Fitzpatrick wrote,
“Several current and former FBI employees, including multiple senior leaders, told me that the director regularly handing out his own personally branded bourbon, including to civilians outside the bureau, was unheard-of. Current and former agents also told me they were concerned by Patel’s gifts of personalized bourbon. The FBI has traditionally had a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized use of alcohol on the job and for its misuse while off duty. But that standard is bending under Patel’s leadership, one former agent told me. ‘It is so weird and uncomfortable,”’this person said. Another former agent described the bottles as ‘demoralizing,’ because they suggest one set of standards for the director and another for the rest of the bureau.”