Atlantic reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick cited more than two dozen sources in her April exposé alleging Patel drinks to the point of obvious intoxication, regularly misses meetings, and was once so unreachable that his security detail requested breaching equipment just to get to him. And when Patel responded by filing a $250 million defamation lawsuit against her, it backfired spectacularly. Instead of scaring sources into silence, The Atlantic reported that Fitzpatrick was inundated with even more people coming forward with additional stories of him drinking on the job.

Here is where it gets even more delicious. While the criminal investigation was already underway, Fitzpatrick dropped a brand new story today revealing that Patel has been gifting personalized bottles of bourbon to FBI employees and civilians he meets through official duties. The director of an agency with a historically zero tolerance alcohol culture, handing out his own personally branded booze like party favors. The FBI called it routine. Former senior FBI officials called it unheard of. One reportedly just laughed.

And through all of it, Sarah Fitzpatrick has not flinched once. The woman has a $250 million lawsuit aimed at her head, a criminal federal investigation at her back, and she responded by publishing another story about his drinking. That takes a level of courage that is genuinely hard to overstate. Gigantic balls of steel do not even begin to cover it. The Atlantic's editor Jeffrey Goldberg called the probe an "outrageous, illegal, and dangerous attack on the free press," and Fitzpatrick just kept right on reporting, because some people refuse to be bullied into silence by a man with a personalized whiskey bottle and a grudge.

In one of the most nakedly corrupt abuses of power we have seen from this administration, kash Patel is using the full muscle of the FBI to launch a criminal investigation into the journalist who dared to report on his drinking.