FBI Director Kash Patel has grown ‘deeply paranoid’ over being fired and has been drinking heavily, raising concerns among officials in Washington, a bombshell new report claims.
The Atlantic magazine published a report Friday revealing a series of troubling incidents and allegations involving Patel, who has since threatened legal action, calling the claims ‘false reporting.’
It details claims that members of Patel’s security team have been unable to wake him on multiple occasions due to his alleged drinking.
At one point, staffers allegedly requested ‘breaching equipment’ used in SWAT raids to try and break down his door, according to the Atlantic.
Patel is known to enjoy alcohol and has frequently appeared visibly intoxicated at clubs in Washington and in his home city of Las Vegas.
He reportedly also enraged the president after he was filmed chugging beer with the US men’s hockey team following their Olympic victory.
But colleagues reportedly say his conduct has become erratic amid an increased paranoia he is set to be replaced.
Just last week, Patel allegedly spiraled into a nervous breakdown after mistakenly believing he had been fired due to a technical issue that left him locked out of a system, the Atlantic reports.
Fearing he was about to be fired by the Trump administration, he allegedly called aides and allies in panic – a reaction that, according to the Atlantic’s report, quickly reached the White House.
Officials told the outlet they are increasingly alarmed about whether the FBI could respond to a national crisis like a terror attack with Patel at the helm.
‘That’s what keeps me up at night,’ an unnamed official told the publication.
Patel has staunchly denied the Atlantic’s claims and threatened to sue the outlet and its reporter, Sarah Fitzpatrick.
In a post on X, Patel shared a screenshot of an email from FBI communications official Benjamin Williamson to Fitzpatrick, which described the article as ‘completely false and nearly 100 percent clip.’
The email read: ‘Top to bottom, this is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever read. Completely false and nearly 100% clip. And with a two hour deadline.’
‘See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court,’ Patel captioned his Friday post.
‘But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up,’ he added.
The Atlantic’s report alleges that, early in his tenure leading the bureau, meetings were sometimes rescheduled later in the day to accommodate what it describes as Patel’s alleged ‘nighttime drinking’ habits.
Drinking to the ‘obvious point of intoxication,’ as alleged in the report, violates FBI conduct rules and leaves the nation’s top law enforcement official vulnerable to the possible risk of coercion or exploitation.
Both FBI officials and members of the Trump administration have allegedly raised concerns about whether alcohol may have played a role in alleged missteps by Patel, including his blunder in the aftermath of the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
Hours after the killing of the conservative activist in September 2025, Patel took to X to announce that the ‘subject’ in Kirk’s murder was finally ‘in custody.’
But shortly after, he walked back his earlier statement, announcing that the suspect ‘has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.’ A different suspect, Tyler Robinson, was later arrested.
Two sources with knowledge of his movements revealed that he was actually in New York City that evening, dining at Rao’s – the high-end Italian hotspot that opens at 7pm promptly, as reported by NBC News.
President Trump, who is sober and has publicly spoken about his brother’s death from alcohol-related issues, has also reportedly slammed Patel’s drinking.
Patel, a longtime hockey fan, made headlines after he was seen drinking beer with players following Team USA’s gold-medal win over Canada at the Winter Olympics, where the men’s team secured its first title since 1980.
In the footage, he was seen enthusiastically drinking beer and shouting as he celebrated alongside the players.
But according to a person familiar with the matter, Trump told Patel he was unhappy with the locker room festivities and also raised concerns about Patel’s use of a government aircraft for a trip to Milan, according to NBC News.
In response to the bombshell claims, Patel’s advisor Erica Knight released a pointed statement on X, calling it a story ‘that every real DC reporter chased, couldn’t verify, and passed on.’
‘Here’s reality. Since being sworn in, Director Patel has taken a grand total of 17 days off – half as much time off as Comey and Wray – and he spends twice as much time in the office as either of them ever did,’ Knight wrote.
‘The so-called “intoxication incidents” The Atlantic breathlessly reports have happened exactly ZERO times,’ she added.
She went on to list statistics she said were achieved under Patel’s tenure, including 67,000 arrests nationwide and ‘2,200+ kilos of fentanyl seized – enough to kill 178 million Americans.’
‘The Atlantic’s “reporting”? Fabricated stories about “breaching equipment” that was never requested. Intoxication claims with not a single witness willing to put their name on one,’ she wrote.
‘Every serious DC reporter passed on this. Sarah Fitzpatrick and Jeffrey Goldberg printed it anyway,’ she added. ‘Lawsuit is being filed.’
Jesse Binnall, Patel’s attorney, also posted on X, slamming the report as ‘categorically false and defamatory’ and adding, ‘See you in court.’
He shared three photos of a letter he said he said he sent to The Atlantic and Sarah Fitzpatrick before the story was published, which he referred to as a ‘hit piece.’
‘The email contains 19 substantive claims about Director Patel, most of which are false, unsourced and facially defamatory per se,’ the letter read.
In the letter, Binnall accused the outlet of relying ‘solely on vague, unattributed sourcing,’ while also reiterating that it did not give the department enough time to provide relevant information that he said would have disproven the claims.
One of the claims in the letter states that the allegation about breaching equipment being requested to reach Patel appears to be based on ‘no corroborating public record’ or ‘drawn from a single hostile and unreliable source.’
Binnall compared the magazine’s reporting to 2025 MSNBC claims that Patel was spending too much time drinking, allegations now tied to ongoing litigation.
The litigation stems from a 2025 lawsuit Patel filed against MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi, who claimed on air that the chief spends more time ‘at nightclubs’ than at work.
The former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, a 25-year special agent, said on Morning Joe that Patel spends much of his time clubbing, but was later forced to retract the claim and admit that there was no evidence.
In a Texas defamation lawsuit, Patel alleged that Figliuzzi ‘knew that this was a lie when he said it.’
‘Numerous publicly available official records directly contradict the article’s assertions,’ the letter reads. ‘These include the FBI’s documented operational successes under Director Patel.’
Patel’s attorney also accused the magazine of being ‘determined to publish false allegations due to its longstanding animus toward Director Patel.’
His lawyers also made a point in stating that ‘since becoming Director of the FBI, Director Patel has not spent a single minute inside of a nightclub.’
They also claimed that Figliuzzi made up the rumor because he has a ‘clear animus’ toward Patel, slamming his credentials for the job in a column previously, according to The New York Post.
Ultimately, the plaintiff alleged that ‘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.’
Figliuzzi made the allegation just months into Patel’s tenure as FBI Director, appointed by Donald Trump.
In Binnall’s recent letter, he wrote that the Atlantic ‘previously reported that Director Patel was “on the chopping block,” revealing an editorial predisposition and what strongly suggests an ongoing campaign to damage his reputation.’
Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick stood by her story as entirely factual in a Friday interview with MS NOW.
‘I stand by every word of this reporting,’ she declared.
She explained that her piece drew on more than two dozen interviews, noting that the FBI is ‘not typically an organization where people are eager to leak to the press.’
She said the volume of sourcing behind the story on Patel, including interviews with current and former FBI officials, suggested notable internal concern within the bureau over his stewardship.
Fitzpatrick said the allegations stood out given Patel’s push to fire agents seen as disloyal or part of the anti-Trump ‘deep state,’ along with his use of polygraph tests to root out suspected leakers.
In September 2025, three former high-ranking bureau employees filed a lawsuit against Patel alleging that he caved to political pressure from Trump to fire them.
The officials – Brian Driscoll, Steve Jensen and Spencer Evans – said their ouster was a ‘campaign of retribution’ carried out by Patel to keep his own position in the administration, according to the federal lawsuit.
Driscoll resisted demands to hand over a list of FBI agents who worked on investigations into the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
Jensen, meanwhile, was section chief of the division that took over the investigation into the attack, and Evans believed he was removed for reviewing accommodation requests related to COVID-19 vaccine exemptions.
The lawsuit also claimed that Patel told Driscoll in a conversation that ‘the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.’
While speaking to MS NOW after the release of the article, Fitzpatrick said: ‘These are not the types of people who are willing to speak out outside of the FBI, especially right now.’
‘Because Kash Patel is going after people with polygraphs in a way that has never happened at the bureau. So for it to be this level of alarm, this is people genuinely concerned that America is in danger as a result of this conduct,’ she added.
‘I feel a real responsibility to take care of that reporting incredibly carefully.’
The Atlantic’s article comes months after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi were removed from their roles in abrupt shake-ups to Trump’s cabinet.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the FBI for comment.
