Tuesday brought two new developments that managed to make the whole enterprise look even worse.<\/p>\n
While Patel was busy promoting his shiny new Atlantic<\/em> suit, a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas dismissed<\/a> his other<\/em> defamation lawsuit \u2014 the one against former FBI counterintelligence assistant director Frank Figliuzzi, who said on Morning Joe<\/em> that Patel had \u201cbeen visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. was not impressed. The court found that Figliuzzi\u2019s comment \u201cwhen taken in context, cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel.\u201d A reasonable person, the judge continued, \u201cwould not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building.\u201d In other words: it was a joke. A sarcastic, hyperbolic quip. The kind of thing that is not defamation, but is, in fact, just someone clowning on a public official on cable television, something Americans are constitutionally permitted to do.<\/p>\n Figliuzzi had requested attorneys\u2019 fees under the Texas anti-SLAPP law, but the court denied that request, finding the state\u2019s anti-SLAPP statute inapplicable in federal court. So Patel walks away empty-handed, but without a fee-shifting penalty. Lucky him. Or, to adopt the Director\u2019s preferred legal framing: a complete layup, narrowly avoided.<\/p>\n Now here\u2019s where the Atlantic<\/em> suit comes back into the picture. Patel\u2019s complaint explicitly cites the Figliuzzi litigation to support his assertion of The Atlantic<\/em>\u2018s actual malice, arguing that the magazine knew about the pending lawsuit, knew that similar nightclub-adjacent allegations had been \u201cretracted\u201d by MSNBC, and published anyway. From the complaint: the FBI \u201cwarned Defendants that these allegations echoed a similar fabrication previously aired by MSNBC\u2019s Frank Figliuzzi on Morning Joe \u2014 anonymously sourced reporting that was later retracted by MSNBC and that is the subject of pending defamation litigation \u2014 yet Defendants published it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Got that? The Figliuzzi lawsuit was Exhibit A<\/em> in the actual malice argument against The Atlantic<\/em>. The lawsuit Patel just lost. The one a federal judge just ruled was based on protected rhetorical hyperbole. The precedent that the nightclub-adjacent criticism of Patel is the kind of thing a reasonable person doesn\u2019t take literally.<\/p>\n You might want to take that exhibit out of the binder, Jesse.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon, Patel and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche held a press conference to announce what Blanche is framing as a sweeping fraud indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center<\/a>. But it took a notable detour when NBC News reporter Ryan Reilly had some questions about Patel\u2019s lawsuit instead.<\/p>\n Specifically, Reilly asked Patel<\/a> whether on April 10, Patel \u201chad a routine technical problem logging into a government system, which was quickly fixed.\u201d The Atlantic<\/em> had reported that this login issue triggered a \u201cfreak-out\u201d in which Patel believed he\u2019d been fired. <\/p>\n REILLY: Can you explain the computer log in issue? Your lawsuit contends you were not able to log into the system The lawsuit denies the freak-out characterization, but it does not deny the login problem. It admits it, right there on the page, in the document Binnall filed in federal court that Patel suffered a \u201croutine technical problem logging into a government system.\u201d Patel, it seems, does not believe the allegations in his own complaint.<\/p>\n When Reilly, reasonably, one would think, pointed this out, Blanche took over. The Acting Attorney General, sensing an opportunity to demonstrate the administration\u2019s commitment to collegial discourse, stepped forward and told the reporter: \u201cStop. You\u2019re being extraordinarily rude. And I know maybe that\u2019s part of your profession, but please just stop. If you ask a question, he can answer it\u2026 Just a little bit of respect, man, just a tiny little bit. Try it some time.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan Reilly was asking the FBI Director to explain his own lawsuit. That is the rude behavior in question.<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve covered from the start<\/a>, this suit always looked less like litigation and more like a message to Trump that Patel is a fighter. Nothing about Tuesday changed that read. It did, however, raise a new question\u2026 has Kash Patel actually read his own complaint?<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> FBI Director Promises To Pound \u2018The Atlantic\u2019 Like A Six Pack On A Tuesday<\/a> Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Kash Patel\u2019s $250 Million Lawsuit Was Going Fine Until He Started Talking About It<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Tuesday was a big day for Kash Patel\u2019s legal portfolio\u2026 just not in the direction he intended.<\/p>\n As we noted<\/a> earlier this week, the $250 million defamation complaint against The Atlantic<\/em> filed by Patel and his lawyer Jesse Binnall was already straining credulity before the ink dried. The 19-page document<\/a> opened with what amounted to a LinkedIn post, may have been drafted with AI assistance<\/a>, and contained the word \u201cfeable\u201d \u2014 which is not, for the record, how you spell \u201cfeeble\u201d especially not in a quarter-billion-dollar lawsuit. <\/p>\n Tuesday brought two new developments that managed to make the whole enterprise look even worse.<\/p>\n While Patel was busy promoting his shiny new Atlantic<\/em> suit, a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas dismissed<\/a> his other<\/em> defamation lawsuit \u2014 the one against former FBI counterintelligence assistant director Frank Figliuzzi, who said on Morning Joe<\/em> that Patel had \u201cbeen visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. was not impressed. The court found that Figliuzzi\u2019s comment \u201cwhen taken in context, cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel.\u201d A reasonable person, the judge continued, \u201cwould not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building.\u201d In other words: it was a joke. A sarcastic, hyperbolic quip. The kind of thing that is not defamation, but is, in fact, just someone clowning on a public official on cable television, something Americans are constitutionally permitted to do.<\/p>\n Figliuzzi had requested attorneys\u2019 fees under the Texas anti-SLAPP law, but the court denied that request, finding the state\u2019s anti-SLAPP statute inapplicable in federal court. So Patel walks away empty-handed, but without a fee-shifting penalty. Lucky him. Or, to adopt the Director\u2019s preferred legal framing: a complete layup, narrowly avoided.<\/p>\n Now here\u2019s where the Atlantic<\/em> suit comes back into the picture. Patel\u2019s complaint explicitly cites the Figliuzzi litigation to support his assertion of The Atlantic<\/em>\u2018s actual malice, arguing that the magazine knew about the pending lawsuit, knew that similar nightclub-adjacent allegations had been \u201cretracted\u201d by MSNBC, and published anyway. From the complaint: the FBI \u201cwarned Defendants that these allegations echoed a similar fabrication previously aired by MSNBC\u2019s Frank Figliuzzi on Morning Joe \u2014 anonymously sourced reporting that was later retracted by MSNBC and that is the subject of pending defamation litigation \u2014 yet Defendants published it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Got that? The Figliuzzi lawsuit was Exhibit A<\/em> in the actual malice argument against The Atlantic<\/em>. The lawsuit Patel just lost. The one a federal judge just ruled was based on protected rhetorical hyperbole. The precedent that the nightclub-adjacent criticism of Patel is the kind of thing a reasonable person doesn\u2019t take literally.<\/p>\n You might want to take that exhibit out of the binder, Jesse.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon, Patel and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche held a press conference to announce what Blanche is framing as a sweeping fraud indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center<\/a>. But it took a notable detour when NBC News reporter Ryan Reilly had some questions about Patel\u2019s lawsuit instead.<\/p>\n Specifically, Reilly asked Patel<\/a> whether on April 10, Patel \u201chad a routine technical problem logging into a government system, which was quickly fixed.\u201d The Atlantic<\/em> had reported that this login issue triggered a \u201cfreak-out\u201d in which Patel believed he\u2019d been fired. <\/p>\n REILLY: Can you explain the computer log in issue? Your lawsuit contends you were not able to log into the system The lawsuit denies the freak-out characterization, but it does not deny the login problem. It admits it, right there on the page, in the document Binnall filed in federal court that Patel suffered a \u201croutine technical problem logging into a government system.\u201d Patel, it seems, does not believe the allegations in his own complaint.<\/p>\n When Reilly, reasonably, one would think, pointed this out, Blanche took over. The Acting Attorney General, sensing an opportunity to demonstrate the administration\u2019s commitment to collegial discourse, stepped forward and told the reporter: \u201cStop. You\u2019re being extraordinarily rude. And I know maybe that\u2019s part of your profession, but please just stop. If you ask a question, he can answer it\u2026 Just a little bit of respect, man, just a tiny little bit. Try it some time.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan Reilly was asking the FBI Director to explain his own lawsuit. That is the rude behavior in question.<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve covered from the start<\/a>, this suit always looked less like litigation and more like a message to Trump that Patel is a fighter. Nothing about Tuesday changed that read. It did, however, raise a new question\u2026 has Kash Patel actually read his own complaint?<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> FBI Director Promises To Pound \u2018The Atlantic\u2019 Like A Six Pack On A Tuesday<\/a> Tuesday was a big day for Kash Patel\u2019s legal portfolio\u2026 just not in the direction he intended. As we noted earlier this week, the $250 million defamation complaint against The Atlantic filed by Patel and his lawyer Jesse Binnall was already straining credulity before the ink dried. The 19-page document opened with what amounted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-PFwRTo.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
PATEL: Let\u2019s have a survey. How many of you people believe that\u2019s true?
REILLY: Did you communicate with anyone you thought you were fired?
PATEL: It\u2019s an absolute lie. It never happened. You are lying.
REILLY: The lawsuit says the opposite!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Kash Patel\u2019s $250 Million Defamation Lawsuit Looks Better With Beer Goggles<\/a>
Did Kash Patel\u2019s Lawyers Have ChatGPT File A $250 Million Lawsuit?<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568.jpg?resize=174%2C160&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2271896794-300x200.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
\n
PATEL: Let\u2019s have a survey. How many of you people believe that\u2019s true?
REILLY: Did you communicate with anyone you thought you were fired?
PATEL: It\u2019s an absolute lie. It never happened. You are lying.
REILLY: The lawsuit says the opposite!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Kash Patel\u2019s $250 Million Defamation Lawsuit Looks Better With Beer Goggles<\/a>
Did Kash Patel\u2019s Lawyers Have ChatGPT File A $250 Million Lawsuit?<\/a><\/p>\n
\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"