Kash Patel has broken his silence on a bombshell story about his chaotic leadership of the FBI with a public “memo to the fake news” insisting it doesn’t bother him.
The FBI director, 46, put up a defiant front after multiple sources were quoted by The Atlantic alleging that his erratic behavior within the agency has alienated officials.
“Memo to the fake news - the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop,” he wrote in an X post on Saturday.
“Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America safe again and taking down the criminals you love,” he continued.
The Atlantic report opened with an anecdote about Patel having what sources described as a “freak-out” when he became convinced that the difficulty he was having logging into an internal computer system meant he’d been fired by the White House. That alleged episode was described as indicative of Patel’s own concerns about his standing with the White House—which would appear to be in further question now, as President Trump has yet to comment publicly on the embarrassing claims made about his FBI director. The outlet also reported that senior Trump officials were already in talks about who might replace Patel.
But White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did offer a statement defending Patel, telling The Atlantic that “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high profile criminals have been put behind bars. Director Patel remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast on Saturday.
The article contained several other explosive allegations about the ever-embattled FBI director, including bouts of excessive drinking that are said to have alarmed his staff.
On multiple occasions in the past year, Patel’s security detail struggled to wake him because he appeared to be intoxicated, The Atlantic reported. At one point last year, a request was made for breaching equipment because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, sources told the outlet.
Patel also reportedly raised eyebrows within the agency because of his unexplained absences from the office. Early into his tenure, meetings and briefings sometimes had to be rescheduled for later in the day because Patel had gone drinking the night before, according to The Atlantic.
The FBI director was described as erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions by numerous sources interviewed, some of whom described his behavior as a national security liability.
When reached for comment, the FBI referred the Daily Beast back to Patel’s post and several other statements released by his lawyers and the agency over the past week.
“This article is a compilation of pretty much every obviously fake rumor I’ve heard the last 14 months except the Atlantic is the only one dumb enough to actually print it,” FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson said on Friday.
That same day, Patel also posted a screenshot of an email that Williamson sent to Sarah Fitzpatrick, the reporter who broke the story, writing: “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court... But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up.”
Patel’s communications strategist Erica Knight—who is not an FBI employee—similarly said a “lawsuit is being filed” as she dismissed The Atlantic’s reporting as “fabricated stories.”
Patel’s tenure at the FBI had been mired in controversy even before the new report, with active-duty and retired agents last year accusing him of “dismal” leadership and a fixation on optics. Despite such criticism, Patel touted his leadership style as “inspiring” in comments on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show podcast earlier this week.
Asked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s workout videos, Patel praised his colleague for what he described as setting a strong example and said he was doing the same for his staff.
“Leaders like Pete and myself are willing to go out there and maintain our fitness levels to what we can, we’re just asking our workforce to do the same, and I think it’s inspiring,” he said, adding that it’s better than having “350-pound overweight people” in charge.
