There is an image burned into the minds of anyone paying attention to the machinations of Donald Trump, his Cabinet and advisors, aka his minions and sycophants. It is not the picture I bet you’re thinking of — the one of Donald Trump, bloodied ear and fist clenched toward the sky, wrapped in an American flag at Butler, Pennsylvania.
Nope, that’s not it.
The image that should haunt you is something different. More joyous? Loutish? It’s Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, standing in the locker room of the United States men’s Olympic hockey team, chugging a beer like a frat boy who stumbled into a party where he wasn’t invited, drinking beer he didn’t pay for.
Not only is he a cheapskate, but do I need to remind you that he is the country’s top domestic intelligence officer? You’d be hard-pressed to think of a man pining for a keg stand.
He is the man who runs the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world, surrounded by elite athletes who just won a gold medal, treating their locker room like he was the uninvited guest of honor.
No sense of gravitas. No self-awareness. No decorum. No suit and tie congratulating the players with a handshake instead of shotgunning a beer. Just Kash, a putrid person in over his head, beer, job and all.
That photograph alone told a story. The Atlantic then told the rest, with an investigative piece aptly titled, “The FBI Director is MIA.”
In a thoroughly reported, meticulously sourced investigation, The Atlantic laid out a damning portrait of Patel as a man who drinks heavily, publicly, and without concern for rolling out of bed with a hangover and trying to run the FBI.
The piece drew on firsthand sources, accounts from bars, restaurants, and Las Vegas clubs, and a pattern of behavior that would disqualify most people from managing an abandoned building, let alone a federal intelligence agency with 38,000 employees and a classified portfolio of state secrets.
It described heavy drinking, late nights that bled into workdays, and concerns among colleagues about his reliability and judgment. This was not gossip. It was journalism, and the kind that makes powerful people uncomfortable.
So what did Kash Patel do? He went on Fox News and sat down with Maria Bartiromo, where he imploded on live television.
Bartiromo asked him directly whether he had a drinking problem. It was a yes-or-no question. Patel answered it the way a hungover drunk answers when the answer is yes — he hemmed and hawed. He rambled. He told America how great the FBI is.
Then the bleary-eyed Patel said: “You watch. I’m gonna sue them.”
Well. On Monday, he did.
Patel has filed a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic, claiming malice. Two hundred and fifty million dollars against a publication that did what journalism is supposed to do — investigate a powerful public official and tell the public what it found.
Before we go further, I have a confession. “You can’t fool a fellow drunk.”
I have spent over 30 years in Manhattan, and I drank heavily for most of them. I quit over four years ago, but I know that if someone wrote about my drinking exploits, I’d do everything possible to not draw attention to myself.
I had a wildly successful career in PR; however, I went to work many mornings hungover, straining to be at my best. So the stories in The Atlantic rang true. They felt authentic because I did the same thing.
Patel should stick his head in the sand, but instead the arrogant, obtuse faux-FBI person is trying to blow it all up.
Actual malice, as established in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, means the defendant published something knowing it was false, or with reckless disregard for the truth. It is an extraordinarily high bar because the First Amendment does not exist to protect the powerful.
The Atlantic didn’t write a hit job. They investigated. They reported. That is the opposite of malice.
If Patel pushes this lawsuit forward, and if it somehow survives a motion to dismiss, discovery opens up. Depositions. Sworn testimony. Subpoenas. The sources, all those people in bars, restaurants, Vegas clubs, colleagues, even those in that locker room who saw what he did and how he acted, will all potentially be called to testify under oath.
Patel’s strategy to stop the world from talking about his drinking would require the world to talk about his drinking in a federal courtroom, on the record.
And the media will be all over it. What was said to The Atlantic is likely only the tip of the iceberg.
Here’s why I know that. When I get together with friends, once the stories about my drinking exploits start, they never end. They get worse, more detailed. If Patel is like any of us who partied hearty, then the proverbial glass is only half full right now.
The lawsuit will almost certainly be thrown out. The threshold for actual malice is high. This case is a stunt. Patel is trying to emulate his boss — to look like a fighter who blindly sues, like Trump.
But not only is Patel stupid for suing The Atlantic, he’s doubly stupid for following Trump’s lead. Trump loses almost every single time.
The Trump playbook is for other losers like Patel.
I’m almost hoping the case proceeds, because a trial would be scandalous. All that dirty laundry in a federal courtroom. All those witnesses. All those stories dragged into the public eye under the threat of perjury, where B.S. and Fox News talking points don’t help you survive.
And neither, by the way, does two aspirins, a Gatorade, and a greasy egg sandwich.