FBI Director Kash Patel filed a defamation lawsuit on June 2 targeting MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi, accusing him of fabricating a false narrative that Patel frequents nightclubs more than his own office at the FBI’s Hoover Building.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court, asserts that Figliuzzi deliberately misled viewers during a May 5 broadcast by stating that Patel had “reportedly been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building.”
According to the complaint, the statement was not based on any reporting or source and was entirely false.
“This was a misstatement,” MSNBC anchor Jonathan Lemire later admitted on air, according to BizPac Review. “We have not verified that claim.”
The correction came weeks after the original broadcast, but the lawsuit argues that the damage to Patel’s professional reputation had already been done.
In the lawsuit, Patel’s legal team asserts that the analyst knowingly invented the claim.
“Defendant did not rely on reporting by any other person,” the complaint reads. “Defendant made up the story out of whole cloth, and by using the word ‘reportedly,’ attempts to distance himself from what is a maliciously false and defamatory statement.”
The lawsuit further contends