Oh, FBI Director Kash Patel. You thought you’d be a heavy hitter, just like Dear Leader President Donald Trump, and bring a defamation suit against a publication that would cause them to buckle and give you millions.
Patel seems to have missed the point that this method works for Trump because he is the actual president, but Kash Patel is, well, Kash Patel.
After Patel sued The Atlantic, with much spittle-flecked fanfare, for reporting that he was a drunky mclazyboy, the actual litigation of this defamation lawsuit is not going swimmingly for the Make-a-Wish Special Boy FBI director.
On Tuesday, Judge Emmet Sullivan told Patel that, no, he couldn’t get discovery and go a-rummaging through The Atlantic’s files, because they’ve filed a motion to dismiss. Defendants file motions to dismiss when there is no world where the plaintiff could win the case, either because of some legal or factual insufficiency, or both. It’s a way to short-circuit litigation, because you shouldn’t have to go to trial on a meritless case.
Often, defendants are entitled to a stay of discovery while that motion is pending, on the theory that it isn’t fair to have to produce documents, sit for depositions, and so on if the case is likely to be tossed.
Here, The Atlantic argued that Patel failed to state any viable defamation complaint, because the lawsuit didn’t manage to genuinely allege that the outlet published any allegedly false statement with “actual malice,” which is the standard for a public figure. That requires Patel to show that The Atlantic either knew it was publishing something false or recklessly didn’t check whether it was false and published it anyway.
Patel, who is a former federal prosecutor—basically just skipped right over that and said that since The Atlantic didn’t treat his blanket “nuh-UH, never happened!” as truth, ipso facto, defamation!
Part of the fault here should be laid at the feet of Jason Greaves, Patel’s attorney. Greaves is a third-tier Trumpy type, a partner at Binnall Law Group, one of the gazillion firms that represented Trump in some way following the Jan. 6 insurrection. He isn’t hired to make legal arguments so much as to do this sort of bullyboy BS.
So, no discovery for Greaves or Patel at this juncture.
But the ruling is more humiliating than that. What the court said is that the arguments this dynamic duo brought were not even based on the governing law in the jurisdiction … the jurisdiction in which Patel and his lawyer decided to sue. You can hear Judge Sullivan sighing from space when he wrote: “Again, this is not the legal standard in this District.”
The court also didn’t buy that Patel must be allowed to immediately torment The Atlantic defendants with discovery because “[a]ny delay in discovery will only serve to delay Dir. Patel repairing his reputation by delaying the progress of this litigation.”
And what law supports that? Here’s the judge again: “Plaintiff cited no legal authority in support of his argument. The Court therefore rejects it.”
Womp, womp.
In another little problem for Patel, The Atlantic, in contrast, is free to seek some FBI records to determine whether they truthfully reported that Patel is a dangerous little dilettante, and let’s face it: That will not go well for Patel.
With that possibility on the horizon, if Patel were smart, he’d dismiss this thing himself and get out of his own way. But he is not smart. So you can expect this to drag on, a continual source of embarrassment, one of his own hilarious making.
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