New Twist in Kash Patel’s Duel With the Media: FBI Accused of Investigating Reporter Who Wrote Unflattering Article on His Girlfriend

It’s only Thursday, and already it has been a particularly bruising week for the FBI director Kash Patel and his pugilistic approach to responding to, as he puts it, “the fake news mafia.”On Monday, he filed a $250 million defamation suit against the Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick over an explosive report claiming he may soon be fired over a drinking problem and an “erratic” performance that anonymous sources described as a “national security vulnerability.”Then, on Tuesday, a federal judge in Texas dismissed a 2025 defamation lawsuit he filed against a retired FBI official and former MSNBC contributor, Frank Figliuzzi, after ruling his remarks that Mr. Patel was “far more” visible at Las Vegas nightclubs than at FBI headquarters were “rhetorical hyperbole.” On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the FBI launched an investigation into one of its reporters, Elizabeth Williamson, after a February 28 article of hers claimed Mr. Patel assigned members of an FBI SWAT team to provide security and transportation for his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins.The article, “Kash Patel’s Girlfriend Seeks Fame and Fortune, Escorted by an FBI SWAT Team,” described how Ms. Wilkins was provided “open-ended, around-the-clock” protective detail made up of SWAT team members from various FBI offices across the country to escort her to dinners and a hair salon. An FBI spokesman said in a statement that Ms. Wilkins required the full-time protective detail after receiving “hundreds” of violent and sexually graphic death threats.Ms. Wilkins received another “threatening email” from an anonymous sender in Boston on the day of the article’s publication, the Times reported. The alleged sender of that email, who is currently under criminal investigation, admitted to emailing Ms. Wilkins the threatening note after reading Ms. Williamson’s article, the Times reported, citing a criminal affidavit.The FBI interviewed Ms. Wilkins soon thereafter, who shared that Ms. Williamson’s reporting for the article “had left her unnerved and feeling harassed,” the Times reported. The FBI queried its databases for information on Ms. Williamson and recommended moving forward with a preliminary investigation to determine whether the reporter broke federal stalking laws. Justice Department officials “determined there was no legal basis to proceed,” the Times reported Wednesday. “While investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking, no further action regarding Williamson or the reporting was ever pursued by the FBI,” FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said in a statement to the Times.In a statement to his own paper, New York Times executive editor Joseph Kahn described the FBI’s actions as “a blatant violation of Elizabeth’s First Amendment rights and another attempt by this administration to prevent journalists from scrutinizing its actions.”Ms. Wilkins, like her 46-year-old boyfriend, has filed defamation lawsuits against media personalities. In August, she sued podcasters like ex-FBI agent Kyle Seraphin after she was accused of being an Israeli “honeypot” seeking access to the Trump administration. The case against Mr. Seraphin, for which she is seeking $5 million, is still pending. A similar defamation lawsuit filed by Ms. Wilkins against a MAGA influencer, Elijah Schaeffer, is also pending. News of the FBI’s investigation of Ms. Williamson, which came to light just one day after the dismissal of Mr. Patel’s lawsuit against Mr. Figliuzzi, suggests that Mr. Patel’s lawsuit against The Atlantic is part of an aggressive pushback against a media establishment that has been uniformly critical of Mr. Patel, a longtime Trump supporter, for many years. Mr. Patel’s suit against the Atlantic may take years to resolve and is no slam dunk, legal experts say. But winning may not be the point. “If anything, the fact that Patel issued a statement, claimed the allegations were false, asserted that he would see the Atlantic in court, and then publicly demanded $250 million in damages in a lawsuit, was his best strategy,” Holtz Matthews LLP entertainment and defamation attorney Jordan Matthews tells the Sun. “It’s highly unlikely the Atlantic will pay him anything, but at least Patel’s side of the story is a part of the public record, and it was the best play for him to make to protect his reputation,” Mr. Matthew adds. A legal scholar and author of the book “When Freedom Speaks: The Boundaries and Boundlessness of Our First Amendment Rights,” Lynn Greenky, tells the Sun that the most likely outcome for Mr. Patel is dismissal through a motion for summary judgment. “The Atlantic would argue that evidence garnered during the discovery process proves that there are no material facts in dispute and that there is no evidence of actual malice upon which Patel could claim harm,” Ms. Greenky adds.

New Twist in Kash Patel’s Duel With the Media: FBI Accused of Investigating Reporter Who Wrote Unflattering Article on His Girlfriend

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