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Earlier this week, we reported on the news that FBI Director Kash Patel is suing The Atlantic for $250 million for reporting that he’s frequently drunk.
In a furious press conference, Patel lashed out at the publication and alleged that he was being unlawfully defamed.
Now, Democrats are pushing back and demanding that Patel come clean about his drinking under penalty of perjury.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D, Md) and House Judiciary Democrats have requested that Patel complete a 10-question test designed to identify “hazardous drinking behaviors.”
Obviously, it would be easy for Patel to simply answer the questions untruthfully, so Raskin has also requested that Patel be sworn in and answer under the penalty of perjury.
“These glimpses of your relationship to alcohol would be alarming to see in an FBI agent; for us to see them in the FBI Director himself is shocking and indicative of a public emergency,” reads a letter that Raskin and his colleagues wrote to Patel earlier this week (Via Fox News).
The Atlantic report alleged that sources who have worked with Patel have strong concerns about his alcohol intake and his related job performance issues.
“Patel, according to multiple current officials, as well as former officials who have stayed close to him, is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy. He has good reasons to think so — including some having to do with what witnesses described to me as bouts of excessive drinking,” Atlantic staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick alleged at one point.
“Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook,” Patel said in a statement published by The Atlantic.
“I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake news mafia, and as when they get louder, it just means I’m doing my job,” he added, during a joint press conference with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Raskin’s demand for transparency is unlikely to receive any sort of substantive response, as Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has already dismissed arguments that Patel should be made to testify under oath.
“Crime is down to record-low levels. Criminals are behind bars, and America is safer thanks to the leadership of President Trump and Director Patel,” a spokesperson for the committee Republicans told Fox News this week.
“This is just another unserious effort from anonymous sources and partisan actors to attack the President and his Administration.”
“Defendants are of course free to criticize the leadership of the FBI, but they crossed the legal line by publishing an article replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office,” reads the lawsuit filed this week by Patel.
We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.
