© THE INTERCEPT
By suing The Atlantic for defamation, the FBI director is leveraging one of Trump’s legal tactics to tamp down free speech.
Eoin Higgins is the author of “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voice on the Left.”
Smarting from the humiliation of a report published at The Atlantic about his time in office, FBI Director Kash Patel did what conservatives have done over and over in the age of Trump: He sued for defamation.
The Atlantic’s story detailed allegations about Patel’s mismanagement of the office and FBI staffers’ concerns that his behavior has become borderline dangerous. According to the magazine’s reporting, staffers have observed that the director frequently drinks to the point of intoxication and has been unreachable behind closed doors multiple times, at one point necessitating agents breaking down a door. In his lawsuit, Patel said that the allegations are demonstrably false.
