The FBI has reportedly opened a criminal leak investigation targeting the journalist who published a bombshell account of Director Kash 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 at The 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.
