‘Kash Patel had five weeks’: FBI director’s ‘panicked’ response after explosive firing allegations

Read more: Kash Patel’s girlfriend shares update on drinking dispute; FBI director takes action

“People close to the director said he himself has said he believes he is about to be fired or about to be fired,” author Sarah Fitzpatrick told CNN on Friday. “I think this is being discussed behind closed doors in Washington. In fact, senior administration officials are discussing openly who will be the next FBI director.”

“I stand by every word of this report,” Fitzpatrick told MS NOW on Friday.

She added that the FBI is not a place where people rush to leak to the press, so the extensive sources in her article, which relied on more than two dozen interviews including current and former FBI officials, show real internal alarm about Patel’s leadership of the bureau.

Read more: Kash Patel mocks Eric Swalwell amid rape accusations, ‘doors open to everyone’

She noted that the charges were particularly noteworthy given Patel’s efforts to stamp out internal dissent, including allegedly using polygraph tests to identify suspected leakers.

In an email shared by Patel, FBI communications officer Benjamin Williamson called the article “almost 100 percent completely false” and claimed the FBI had only about two hours to respond before publication.

Patel adviser Erica Knight also criticized the reports on social media. She wrote that the magazine’s reporting was based on claims “that every real Washington reporter pursued, couldn’t verify, and then moved on from.”

Meanwhile, Patel’s lawyer Jesse Binnar called the report “absolutely false and defamatory” and shared a pre-publication letter sent to the outlet.

The letter said the report “relyed entirely on vague, unattributed information” and did not give the FBI enough time to provide relevant information that refuted its claims.