A day after FBI Director Kash Patel filed a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic, he has lost a different defamation claim, against news analyst and pundit Frank Figliuzzi.
U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. dismissed Patel’s lawsuit against Figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, who has been an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
Patel sued after Figliuzzi, appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last year, said of the FBI director, “Well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.”
Hanks wrote, “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 wrote that because he found that the statement was “rhetorical hyperbole,” it cannot be considered defamation.
The judge, though, ruled that Figliuzzi was unable to recover attorneys fees and costs under Texas’ anti-SLAPP law.
Patel sued The Atlantic after the media outlet published a piece on his “erratic” tenure at the FBI, including accounts of excessive drinking and absences. Patel claimed that the story was “replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.” The Atlantic said in a statement, “We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit.”