As RedState previously reported, the latest media hit piece against a member of the Trump administration dropped on Friday. Not surprisingly, it was from The Atlantic, the same left-leaning "news" site that ran with the infamous 2020 "suckers and losers" hoax that was debunked in part by people who were and are not exactly fond of President Trump (to put it mildly), like former National Security Adviser John Bolton.
The focus this time around was on Kash Patel, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The allegations in the piece, as we noted, centered around claims that Patel was paranoid he was going to lose his job, was frequently absent from work to the point his leadership and commitment to the job were questioned, and was prone to "excessive drinking."
Another claim described times where "breaching equipment" was allegedly requested "because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors." Predictably, they only gave the FBI two hours to respond before going live with the piece, because journalism or something.
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As we also reported, people who worked closely with Patel strongly denied the claims on X, and on Monday, it was revealed that Patel was filing a $250,000,000 lawsuit against The Atlantic.
An analysis of the story, done by RedState's own "Florida Man" Brad Slager, zeroed in on the fact that the "bombshell" report was backfiring badly thanks in part to the fact that it is thinly sourced with multiple sources who didn't want to go on record to put their names to what they allegedly said. Further, the story reportedly was shopped around to other outlets, which didn't bite.
But Sarah Fitzgerald, a staff writer for The Atlantic, did bite on it. In hindsight, this honestly shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with a previous "blockbuster" story she did, which also had, shall we say, a lot of sourcing issues:
By the way, @S_Fitzpatrick is also the reporter who wrote the throughly debunked hit piece that claimed Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh drugged women so they could be sexually abused.
She has a history of writing hit pieces with either no sources on the record or completely discredited sources.
By the way, @S_Fitzpatrick is also the reporter who wrote the throughly debunked hit piece that claimed Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh drugged women so they could be sexually abused.
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) April 19, 2026
She has a history of writing hit pieces with either no sources on the record or… https://t.co/YnaE5llsJO pic.twitter.com/5HMYZVyYjl
There are probably others, too, but that one is a biggie.
As Townhall Managing Editor Matt Vespa wrote, this is about par for the course for The Atlantic (and many other MSM outlets like the ones who ran with the Russia collusion hoax nonsense):
The Atlantic has published fake news before, so this is just typical. Still, this lawsuit should be interesting. The discovery process is likely to be entertaining when none of this turns out to be true.
I can't wait.
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