A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed FBI Director Kash Patel’s defamation lawsuit against former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi over a comment Figliuzzi made that Patel had “been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been” at the FBI’s headquarters.
U.S. District Court Judge George Hanks Jr. wrote in his 10-page decision that Figliuzzi’s comment, made on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” last May, was “rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation.” (The network was then still MSNBC.)
“Accordingly, Dir. Patel has failed to state a claim against Figliuzzi, and his lawsuit must be dismissed,” Hanks Jr. wrote.
Patel had requested at least $75,000 in damages in the suit last June. “Morning Joe” co-anchor Jonathan Lemire walked back Figliuzzi’s claim the following morning, calling it a “misstatement” that the network had not verified.
Marc Fuller, Figliuzzi’s lawyer, told TheWrap the decision was “a victory for press freedom and the First Amendment.” The FBI did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
The decision came a day after Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic over a story last week that alleged he drank excessively and that it had impacted his performance, purportedly leading to an incident where his security detail struggled to wake him up and left him hard to contact.
Patel defended himself in a fiery press conference with reporters on Tuesday evening, alleging that when “the fake news mafia” gets “louder,” “it just means I’m doing my job.”
“I’ve never been intoxicated on the job, and that is why we filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit,” Patel said. “And any one of you that wants to participate, bring it on.”
Patel also said he was “the first one in” and “the last one out” of the FBI’s headquarters, and he strongly disputed a claim in the Atlantic story that an episode where he couldn’t log into his FBI systems led him to believe that President Donald Trump had fired him.
“The problem with you and your baseless reporting is that is an absolute lie,” he told an NBC News reporter. “It was never said. It never happened. And I will serve in this administration as long as the president and the attorney general want me to do so.”
The Atlantic said in a statement on Tuesday that it stands by its Patel story and “will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit.”
