TheFBI has reportedly opened a criminal leak investigationtargeting the journalist who published a bombshell account of DirectorKash Patel's alleged excessive drinking, in a move legal experts say has no precedent in modern American law enforcement.
The investigation centres on Sarah Fitzpatrick, a staff writer atThe Atlantic, whose 17 April 2026 article cited more than two dozen anonymous sources to describe a pattern of alcohol-fuelled absences inside the FBI so severe that colleagues feared a national security crisis.
Patel immediately filed a£188 million ($250 million) defamation lawsuitagainst the magazine and Fitzpatrick personally. Now, sources familiar with the matter tellMS NOWthat the bureau has gone further, launching a criminal inquiry that some of its own agents privately describe as deeply improper.
Fitzpatrick's piece, headlined 'The FBI Director Is MIA,' drew on current and former FBI officials, Department of Justice staff, members of Congress, political operatives, hospitality workers and lobbyists. The picture they painted was not merely unflattering: it described a director whose drinking had begun to corrode the operational capacity of the country's primary domestic law enforcement agency.
Six sources told Fitzpatrick that briefings and meetings with Patel had been rescheduled for later in the day specifically because of his alcohol-fuelled nights. She reported that members of his security detail had struggled to wake him on multiple occasions after nights of heavy drinking. At least once, a request was made for 'breaching equipment' normally used by SWAT teams to force entry, because Patel was unreachable behind locked doors, according to information supplied to Justice Department and White House officials.
Fitzpatrick named two specific venues. She reported that Patel was known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication atNed's, a private members' club in Washington DC, in the presence of White House and administration staff. She also reported that he drank heavily at the Poodle Room, a members-only social club at the top of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas hotel, where he spent portions of his weekends. After the story published, The Atlantic updated it to include a photograph of custom-labelled bottles of bourbon bearing Patel's name, which he reportedly gives out as gifts.
Patel gave his pre-publication response to The Atlantic in writing: 'Print it, all false, I'll see you in court. Bring your checkbook.' His office later added, 'I have never been intoxicated on the job.' Fitzpatrick, writing onRadio Atlanticafter the lawsuit was filed, said she had since been 'inundated' by additional sources going 'up to the highest levels of the government' who confirmed her reporting. 'This was an open secret in Washington,' she said.
On 6 May 2026, MS NOW reporter Carol Leonnig reported that the FBI had opened a criminal 'insider threat' investigation focused on identifying who leaked information to Fitzpatrick. Two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said the inquiry was being handled by agents in Huntsville, Alabama, the location of an FBI insider threats unit.
What makes this investigation legally and historically extraordinary, sources told MS NOW, is that no classified information appears to have been disclosed. Fitzpatrick's article contained no state secrets. The standard legal framework governing leak investigations under the Espionage Act applies to disclosures of classified material. Journalists who receive and report such leaks have, even in those cases, historically been treated only as potential witnesses, not as investigative targets.
Sources inside the investigation described a climate of coercion among the agents assigned to it. 'They know they are not supposed to do this,' one told MS NOW. 'But if they don't go forward, they could lose their jobs. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.' The investigation, if it proceeds, could grant agents the power to examine Fitzpatrick's phone records, run her name through FBI databases and scrutinise her social media contacts, without the standard threshold of classified information being breached.
Source: International Business Times UK
