FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend has filed a lawsuit against MS NOW, accusing the news organization of using “sham” anonymous sources to “push knowingly or recklessly false allegations” that she abused bureau resources.
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Alexis Wilkins’ suit, filed in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, names MS NOW as a defendant alongside Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig, two of the cable news channel’s reporters.
The defendants “falsely asserted that Ms. Wilkins demanded, and Director Patel ordered, that federal agents assigned to her security detail—which did not even exist at the time—escort an intoxicated friend home after a ‘night of partying.’ They falsely portrayed Ms. Wilkins as being intoxicated even knowing that she does not drink,” Kurt Beasley, Jason C. Greaves and Jared R. Roberts, Wilkins’ attorneys, wrote in part.
“This false portrayal is highly offensive to Ms. Wilkins, and would be to any reasonable person in her situation. Ms. Wilkins’ professional identity is of a responsible, sober young woman who does not partake in the excess drinking culture and party scene that is typical for musicians,” Wilkins’ lawyers added.
In the article published on MS NOW’s website, Dilanian and Leonnig reported that, on more than one occasion, Patel ordered that the security detail protecting Wilkins escort one of her inebriated friends home after a night of partying in Nashville. Wilkins’ lawyer acknowledges that the article, published on Dec. 5, does not accuse Wilkins of drinking, though Wilkins’ lawyers argue “that is precisely the impression Defendants constructed and conveyed, and reasonable readers of MS Now would come to that conclusion.”
In response to a request for comment, MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler said in a statement: “We stand firmly behind MS NOW’s reporting. As a general matter of practice, we don’t comment on ongoing legal matters.”
MS NOW was formerly a unit of NBC News’ parent company, NBCUniversal, under the brand name MSNBC. In early January, NBCUniversal officially spun off its cable channels into a separate publicly traded company called Versant Media Group.
Wilkins’ lawyers wrote that MS NOW’s “false portrayal” of Wilkins, a country music singer and actor, “directly and proximately caused” her to “suffer humiliation and actual damages to her professional identity, reputation, and standing in the community.”
Wilkins’ lawsuit says both that she is “sober” and that she “very rarely drinks, if ever.” Ben Williamson, an FBI spokesman, told Dilanian before the article was published that she “doesn’t even drink,” according to the suit.
Wilkins is seeking a jury trial and more than $75,000 in damages.
Two of Wilkins’ lawyers also represent Patel in a separate lawsuit against The Atlantic over an article it published in April alleging he drinks to excess. The attorneys allege in that suit that the article is a “sweeping, malicious and defamatory hit piece.”
In a statement at the time, an Atlantic spokeswoman said: “We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit.”
