FBI Director Kash Patel is taking a page from his boss’s playbook.
A little less than a year after now-President Donald Trump won a settlement in a lawsuit against ABC for defamation from ABC star George Stephanopoulos, Patel is suing an MSNBC contributor and columnist for comments he made on the air attacking Patel’s work ethic, according to a New York Post report Tuesday.
And, according to the Post, Patel’s legal team isn’t holding back.
In a legal filing, according to the Post, Patel’s attorneys accuse MSNBC’s Frank Figliuzzi — himself a former FBI assistant director and vocal Trump opponent — of “fabricating a specific lie” about Patel spending more time in D.C. nightclubs than his FBI office since being confirmed to the post.
Figliuzzi made the comments on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the liberal website The Daily Beast reported at the time.
Former FBI boss Frank Figliuzzi lies about FBI Director Kash Patel attending nightclubs on MSNBC https://t.co/L5ZFTBLtlF pic.twitter.com/32WQAA5AAF
— kekius tees (@kekmaximusk) May 5, 2025
“Reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he’s been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building,” Figliuzzi said, referring to the FBI’s executive headquarters.
“And there are reports that daily briefings to him have been changed from every day to maybe twice, weekly.”
On the May 5 episode of “Morning Joe,” co-host Jonathan Lemire walked back the story, the Post reported at the time.
“This was a misstatement,” Lemire said on air, according to the Post. “We have not verified that claim.”
According to a legal filing from Patel’s attorneys quoted by the Post, the claim couldn’t be verified because it’s not true.
“Defendant knew that this was a lie when he said it,” Patel’s attorneys said in the filing, according to the Post. “Since becoming Director of the FBI, Director Patel has not spent a single minute inside of a nightclub.”
Furthermore, according to the Post, the filing argued that Figliuzzi tried to hide behind the impression that he was only passing on “reported” rumors.
The filing states “there was no basis for Defendant’s fabrication, and Defendant’s use of the weasel word, ‘reportedly,’ is itself a fabrication,” according to the Post.
“Defendant did not rely on reporting by any other person,” the filing stated, according to the Post. “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.”
Patel’s attorneys claimed Figliuzzi’s comments amounted to defamation.
That was also the claim Trump brought against ABC in 2024 after Stephanopoulos repeatedly, and incorrectly, stated on air that Trump had been found liable for “rape” and “defamed a victim of rape” in two lawsuits filed against him by a former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, as The Associated Press reported.
The cases did not involve “rape.” They involved accusations of sexual abuse.
Presumably, MSNBC’s disavowal of Figliuzzi’s claims on May 5 is protecting the network from further legal action from Patel.
Figliuzzi did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment, the newspaper reported.
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