Washington | FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic magazine for USD 250 million on Monday, claiming an article that talked about his alleged excessive drinking was false and a “malicious hit piece.”

The Atlantic, in response, said it stood by its reporting and would vigorously defend against the “meritless lawsuit.”

In the article, posted on the magazine's website on Friday, author Sarah Fitzpatrick said Patel is deeply concerned about losing his job and that “he has good reasons to think so — including some having to do with what witnesses described to me as bouts of excessive drinking.”

His behaviour, including “both conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences,” has alarmed officials at the FBI and Department of Justice, The Atlantic said. Fitzpatrick was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Patel, in the lawsuit filed in district court in Washington, denied the allegations of his behaviour and criticized the magazine for relying on anonymous sources. Fitzpatrick wrote that she interviewed more than two dozen people and granted them anonymity to “discuss sensitive information and private conversations.”

“Defendants cannot evade responsibility for their malicious lies by hiding behind sham sources,” the lawsuit said.