Sources Say the FBI Has Opened an Inquiry Into The Atlantic’s Report on Patel

The FBI has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into sources that provided information regarding the agency’s director, Kash Patel, and his alcohol drinking habits to The Atlantic, which published details about them last month.

The article in question, produced by staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick, relied on dozens of sources, including former and current FBI officials, members of Congress, former advisers to Patel, and others in the director’s orbit. The report detailed multiple instances of Patel’s alleged drinking habits and their consequences, including having to reschedule meetings and agents being unable to wake him up due to apparent intoxication.

“Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences,” the article explained.

In addition to the heavy drinking that sources detailed to The Atlantic, the article reported that Patel experienced episodes of paranoia.

“He is erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence, according to the more than two dozen people I interviewed about Patel’s conduct,” Fitzpatrick wrote.

On Wednesday, MS NOW reported that the FBI had opened an “insider threat investigation” regarding who leaked information about Patel to The Atlantic. Such an inquiry is highly unorthodox, as insider threat investigations typically stem from leaks involving classified information, not reports on public figures within the agency or federal government in general.

The extent of the alleged investigation is unclear, but could include obtaining Fitzpatrick’s phone records, examining her social media messages and contacts, and running her name through FBI databases to determine who, exactly, her sources were for the story on Patel.

The FBI denies that the investigation is happening. MS NOW cited two individuals with knowledge of the inquiry in its own report.

According to those sources, there is concern within the agency about the methods agents assigned to the investigation are using.

“They know they are not supposed to do this. But if they don’t go forward, they could lose their jobs,” one of the sources said.

The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg released a statement regarding the investigation, saying that:

We will have further comment when we learn more. If true, this would be an outrageous, illegal, and dangerous attack on the free press and the First Amendment. We will defend Sarah and all of our reporters who are subjected to government harassment simply for pursuing the truth.

Patel has also filed a personal lawsuit targeting The Atlantic over its report on him, claiming they had engaged in “actual malice” — a high standard for a defamation suit that requires substantive proof of reporters publishing an article knowing it was false or with disregard for the actual truth. A similar lawsuit Patel filed against a correspondent from MS NOW failed, tossed out last month by a judge for being meritless.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) decried the alleged decision by the FBI to open an investigation into Fitzpatrick and The Atlantic, describing the move as an attempt “to settle a personal vendetta” on behalf of the agency’s director. The organization also noted that, if the inquiry is indeed happening, it would contradict claims within Patel’s lawsuit that the leaks are “fake.”

“Fake sources can’t leak,” the FPF said.

Both Patel’s lawsuit and the alleged FBI investigation into The Atlantic appear to be part of a series of attacks and threats that members of the Trump administration — including the president himself — have made against members of the press and media in general.

Shortly after being elected for a second term in 2024, Trump claimed he was for a “free and open press.” But statements and actions made prior to his reentry into the White House (including as president during his first term and as a private citizen) demonstrated such assertions were categorically untrue — including his expressing a desire for media to be shot at during his rallies, his constant demands for networks to lose their licenses over coverage of him he disliked, and his derision of the press as the “enemy of the people.”

Since returning to office, his FCC has threatened comedians over jokes featuring Trump as a subject, he has called factual reporting on the management of the war in Iran “seditious,” and he has threatened journalists with jail time if they didn’t reveal their sources for stories, among other notable examples.

In a recent report on the state of press freedom around the globe, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) noted that the U.S. has dropped several spots in its rankings, which now list the U.S. as 64th out of 180 nations in terms of how free the press is within its borders and assigning the country a “problematic” free press rating.

Since his return to office, journalists “contend with President Donald Trump’s systematic weaponization of state institutions,” RSF said in the report, “including funding cuts to public broadcasters such as NPR and PBS, political interference in media ownership, and politically motivated investigations targeting disfavored journalists and media outlets.”