Journalism Glance
The Atlantic is asking a judge to toss a lawsuit brought by FBI Director Kash Patel against the outlet over its reporting alleging excessive drinking and questioning his performance in the job.
The lawsuit, filed by Patel in April, alleges the magazine defamed him and relied on sources who were “not in a position to know the facts” and were part of an orchestrated smear campaign against him.
The Atlantic, in a statement on Monday, called Patel’s suit “meritless” and said it was asking the court to permit it to begin seeking factual discovery from the FBI and the Department of Justice — including documents and depositions of key individuals, which it called “appropriate given the allegations in this matter.”
“If Director Patel did not want to face this process, he should not have filed this suit,” the outlet’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, said. “These legal filings are consistent with the promise I made to our staff and to our readers in May: we will defend The Atlantic and its staff vigorously.”
Lawyers with the Department of Justice on Thursday agreed to unilaterally withdraw a series of subpoenas that sought to compel New York Times journalists to testify about their sources and to access their phone records. 
President Donald Trump called for ABC and NBC’s licenses to be revoked over not airing his July 16 primetime address focused on election security.
A group of prominent conservative organizations has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny license renewal requests from the eight local television stations owned and operated by ABC, accusing the network of political, racial and sexual bias and supporting the Chinese communist party.
