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FBI Director Kash Patel, listens during a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing to examine worldwide threats, Thursday, March 19, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington (AP Photo/Tom Brenner).
The "specific lie" on TV that gave rise to Kash Patel's defamation lawsuit against a national security commentator was nothing more than "rhetorical hyperbole," a federal judge ruled while tossing the case.
U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr., a Barack Obama appointee on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, issued the 10-page decision on Tuesday, just one day after the FBI director referenced the lawsuit as "pending" in his $250 million suit against The Atlantic.
"[W]hen taken in context," former FBI counterintelligence assistant director Frank Figliuzzi's statements "cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel," the judge said.
In May 2025, Figliuzzi made an appearance on the cable news network formerly known as MSNBC. During a segment on "Morning Joe," the guest said that "reportedly" Patel has "been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building" — a remark that the network days later called a "misstatement" and unverified.
That did not stop Patel's attorneys Jesse Binnall and Jason Greaves from filing a complaint in Texas against Figliuzzi in June 2025, writing that the defendant "crossed the legal line by fabricating a specific lie about Director Patel." And on Monday, the attorneys mentioned the Figliuzzi case while suing The Atlantic over anonymously sourced claims of "excessive drinking," instances of being "unreachable behind locked doors," and a "freak-out" on the part of Patel.
The filing claimed that The Atlantic willfully "avoid[ed] receiving information that would refute their narrative" and published "pure fantasy" about Patel that "echoed a similar fabrication previously aired by […] Figliuzzi on Morning Joe—anonymously sourced reporting that was later retracted by MSNBC and that is the subject of pending defamation litigation—yet Defendants published it anyway."
Unfortunately for the FBI director, the "pending" case that he says The Atlantic ignored has failed.
"A person of reasonable intelligence and learning would not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building. By saying that Patel spent 'far more' time at nightclubs than his office, Figliuzzi delivered his answer 'in an exaggerated, provocative and amusing way,' employing rhetorical hyperbole," the judge summarized. "The Court finds that Figliuzzi's statement is rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation."
Law&Crime has learned that Patel intends to appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The court ruled that Mr. Figliuzzi's statements were rhetorical hyperbole; he was successful because he convinced the judge that he's not a serious person," said Binnall, also one of Michael Flynn's lawyers. "While we disagree with the court and will appeal, that holding effectively eviscerates anyone's—including The Atlantic's—ability to treat his statements as reliable facts."
Law&Crime did not immediately receive a response to a follow-up question asking whether Patel's lawyers had reason to believe The Atlantic did treat Figliuzzi's statements as reliable facts. The Atlantic article itself did not mention him.