Kash Patel, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 19, 2026.
Daniel Heuer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A federal judge in Houston on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit by FBI Director Kash Patel that alleged he was defamed by former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi, who had said Patel has “been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of” the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit is not related to another defamation lawsuit that Patel filed Monday against The Atlantic magazine over an article that alleged he has abused alcohol. That civil complaint, filed in D.C. federal court, seeks $250 million in damages.
Figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, had made the comment about Patel on the MS Now show “Morning Joe.”
“The Court finds that Figliuzzi’s statement is rhetorical hyperbole that cannot
constitute defamation,” U.S. District Court Judge George Hanks Jr. wrote in the decision.
“Accordingly, Dir. Patel has failed to state a claim against Figliuzzi, and his lawsuit must be dismissed.”
CNBC has requested comment from lawyers for Patel and Figliuzzi.
In his decision, Hanks wrote that Figliuzzi’s jibe about Patel, “when taken in context, cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel.”
“As alleged, Figliuzzi’s statement about Patel — again, made in response to a question about Patel’s decreased visibility as Director of the FBI — was that ‘he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building,’ ” the judge 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,” Hanks wrote.
“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.”
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