FBI Director Kash Patel sues MSNBC columnist for defamation

An MSNBC columnist and former FBI counterintelligence officer made a “maliciously false and defamatory statement” against Kash Patel, according to a lawsuit the FBI director filed.

Frank Figliuzzi was lambasting President Donald Trump’s choice to head up the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he made a bizarre accusation meant to portray Patel as unfocused and unwilling to fulfill the obligations of the job.

‘Defendant made up the story out of whole cloth, and by using the word “reportedly,” attempts to distance himself from what is a maliciously false and defamatory statement.’

“Well, reportedly he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building,” Figliuzzi had said about Patel in a segment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in May.

“So this is both a blessing and a curse because if he’s really trying to run things without his experience, without any experience level, things could be bad,” he added. “If he’s not plugged in, things could be bad. But he’s allowing agents to run things, so we don’t know where this is going.”

He added of the FBI, “The one word that keeps coming back at me from inside is that the building is ‘chaos.’”

Days later, a co-host on the show retracted the claim from Figliuzzi.

“This was a misstatement. We have not verified that claim,” said Jonathan Lemire at the time.

That was not enough for Patel, who filed a defamation lawsuit against Figliuzzi, pointing out that he implied some report had made the claim against Patel, but no report existed.

“Defendant did not rely on reporting by any other person,” read the filing. “Defendant made up the story out of whole cloth, and by using the word ‘reportedly,’ attempts to distance himself from what is a maliciously false and defamatory statement.”

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Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

The lawsuit argued, “As a partisan commentator, [Figliuzzi] was motivated to sensationalize, and in this case, fabricate a story to self-promotingly advance his own name recognition, at the expense of Director Patel.”

It also affirmed that Patel had not spent a single minute inside of a nightclub since becoming the director of the FBI.

Neither Figliuzzi nor a spokesperson for Patel responded to a request for comment from the New York Post.

Figliuzzi had previously suggested in 2022 that Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson might somehow be responsible for the heinous attack on Club Q, an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs. Law enforcement officials later reported that the club had been chosen as a last-minute target.

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