A federal judge in Houston has tossed out a defamation lawsuit filed by FBI Director Kashyap “Kash” Patel against a former bureau official who suggested on national television that the director spent more time in nightclubs than his own office.
U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks, Jr. ruled Tuesday that the comments made by Cesare Frank Figliuzzi, Jr. were “rhetorical hyperbole” rather than statements of fact.
The decision effectively ends the legal battle over a heated exchange that took place on the MSNBC show Morning Joe.
The dispute centered on remarks Figliuzzi made during an appearance where he discussed Patel’s leadership. When asked about the director’s relatively low profile during his first 100 days in office, Figliuzzi told the host, “Yeah, well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.”
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Patel’s legal team argued the statement was a “fabricated lie” designed to injure the director’s professional reputation by painting him as an absentee leader. Patel’s complaint stated that claiming “the top federal law enforcement official in the nation… has been, instead, spending the majority of his time in nightclubs” constituted defamation.
However, the court found that a person of “ordinary intelligence” would not have taken the nightclub comment literally.
“A person of reasonable intelligence and learning would not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building,” Judge Hanks wrote in the order. He characterized the remark as an “exaggerated, provocative and amusing way” of making a point.
Under Texas law, which governed the case, “rhetorical hyperbole” is considered a form of protected opinion because it cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts about an individual.
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While Figliuzzi won the dismissal, the judge denied his request for attorney’s fees and court costs. Figliuzzi had sought those payments under “anti-SLAPP” laws, which are intended to prevent frivolous lawsuits aimed at chilling free speech.
The court determined that while Texas law governed the defamation claim, the specific fee-shifting portions of the Texas anti-SLAPP statute do not apply in federal court.
“The Court finds that Figliuzzi’s statement is rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation,” the judge concluded, dismissing the case in its entirety.
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