A major war of words broke out between FBI director Kash Patel's advisers and Atlantic after Atlantic's journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick exclusively reported that the FBI director has been suffering from a drinking problem, which is known to the administration. On several occasions, Patel's security detail had difficulty waking him as he was seemingly intoxicated, Fitzpatrick reported, and then asserted that she stood by every word of what she wrote as she is an award-winning investigative journalist. She said Atlantic has excellent attorneys who would fight the case as she crosschecked the accounts, and even the White House and the Department of Justice, and they did not dispute the reporting. "This is telling," Fitzpatrick commented on Patel's advisor Erica Knight's statement threatening her with a lawsuit. Fitzpatrick said Patel is going after people with a polygraph and so no one will go record.
