Excerpted from the filing in Wilkins v. Versant Media Group, Inc. (M.D. Tenn.), submitted on Friday:
This defamation lawsuit concerns MS Now (previously MSNBC) relying on fake “anonymous” sources to prop up knowingly or recklessly false claims that Alexis Wilkins, through her relationship with FBI Director Kash Patel, misused FBI resources. Defendants may discuss the FBI’s leadership and how its resources are allocated, positively or negatively. They, however, are not entitled to lie about it.
The defendants allegedly asserted that Ms. Wilkins demanded, and Director Patel directed, that federal agents assigned to her security detail—which did not exist at the time—escort an intoxicated friend home after a “night of partying.” They portrayed Ms. Wilkins as intoxicated even though she does not drink. They presumed they could get away with this fabrication by citing “anonymous sources,” fraudulently claiming “nonpublic” and “inside” knowledge. This was false and they knew it. Journalists cannot evade accountability by hiding behind invented “anonymous” sources. This lawsuit seeks to hold Defendants accountable for these egregious lies….
On December 5, 2025, Defendant, MS Now, published an article, written by its employees, Defendants Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, titled, “Kash Patel ordered FBI detail to give girlfriend’s pal a lift home: sources” …. In the Article, Defendants wrote:
FBI Director Kash Patel has—on more than one occasion—ordered that the security detail protecting his girlfriend escort one of her allegedly inebriated friends home after a night of partying in Nashville, according to three people with knowledge of the incidents.
Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, asked FBI agents on her security team at least two times, including once this spring, to drive her friend home, and agents objected to diverting from their assignment, said the sources, who were granted anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters. But Patel insisted they do as Wilkins requested and in one case called the leader of Wilkins’ security detail and yelled at him to do so.
This is entirely false. Director Patel has never ordered any FBI agent or member of Ms. Wilkins’ security detail to escort any of Ms. Wilkins’ friends home—inebriated or otherwise—nor did Ms. Wilkins ask any of them to do so. Not only did these supposed demands/orders never take place, but the entire scenario is fabricated. No FBI agents have ever escorted any of Ms. Wilkins’ friends home.
Defendants claimed in the Article that the substance of their defamatory allegations supposedly occurred in Spring 2025. Notably, Ms. Wilkins did not have a security detail at that time. Defendants were aware of this. Defendants had previously published, on November 17, 2025, an entire article about Ms. Wilkins’ security detail. Defendants were the first to break that story as Ms. Wilkins had only then been recently assigned a detail, necessary due to credible death threats made against her….
On December 2, 2025—three days prior to publication of the Article at issue in this case—Defendant Dilanian reached out to FBI spokesman, Ben Williamson, to obtain comment on the accusation that Ms. Wilkins’ detail had been diverted to escort her friends home. Defendants grossly misrepresented and diminished the FBI’s response in the Article, writing:
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson did not answer questions about multiple inside accounts of Wilkins’ detail being diverted, but broadly denied such events took place.
“This is made up and did not happen,” Williamson said.
{Since its original publication, Defendants have stealth-edited the Article, without any acknowledgement of the change. In the current online version, the sentence reads: “FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson broadly disputed that such events took place.”}
This was dishonest in two respects. First, Mr. Williamson did answer Mr. Dilanian’s questions about these unfounded accusations. He did not just “broadly” deny them. He specifically, and pointedly, refuted them on the record after having researched the matter by speaking to all potential witnesses, explaining that there is no record or corroboration. Second, it was Dilanian who refused to answer questions. Williamson, who was flabbergasted at Dilanian’s complete lack of details or corroboration, asked him for anything that would support the accusations. Their text exchange was as follows:
WILLIAMSON: This detail thing you emailed about looks like it’s made up. I just checked. No record of it anywhere and Alexis, who doesn’t even drink, said it’s not true. As did Director. Do you have any more details? General date? Who is the friend? Anything.
DILANIAN: Stand by
WILLIAMSON: Do you not have this info already?
DILANIAN: Just to be clear no one is saying Alexis was drunk. We don’t have the details you are looking for but we are comfortable with our sourcing. So just looking for your official comment.
WILLIAMSON: So you have no name, no date range, no nothing – just comfortable with your sourcing. Are you serious?
Respectfully
Defendants were, therefore, specifically aware prior to publication that the FBI had investigated the allegations and refuted them. Not only did Defendant Dilanian recklessly disregard this fact, claiming “we are comfortable with our sourcing,” but Defendants omitted this information from the Article, falsely implying that the FBI made only a reflexive and broad denial, and falsely claiming that the FBI had refused to answer questions.
Additionally, Defendant Dilanian lied to the FBI in the text exchange, falsely claiming that he had no information on the general date of the alleged incident. Had Dilanian provided the Spring timeframe for the allegation, the FBI could, and would have even more conclusively refuted the story by pointing out that Ms. Wilkins had no security detail at that time.
Defendants, in calculated fashion, avoided that truth. They knew about the recent assignment of Ms. Wilkins’ detail by virtue of their own November 17 article. They knew that if they were to give the FBI the Spring timeframe, it would result in more than just the “official comment” they were looking to get and would derail their desired narrative.
Because the alleged events did not take place, all potential witnesses, including every member of Ms. Wilkins’ security detail flatly, and rightly, deny the allegations from the Article. And as the FBI has no corroborating records, Defendants’ “anonymous” sources could not possibly have had first-hand knowledge. If their sources existed at all, Defendants knowingly or recklessly disregarded their complete lack of knowledge and credibility. Defendants knew this and recklessly chose to publish these anonymously sourced lies in the face of on-the-record refutation.
In fact, by saying in the Article that their sources were “granted anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters,” and that they were “inside accounts,” Defendants falsely suggest to their readers, as intended, that the sources are official, or even members of Ms. Wilkins’ security detail. This alone is evidence of Defendants’ maliciously deliberate obfuscation and knowledge of falsity….
As implicitly acknowledged by Defendant Dilanian, the Article also implies that Ms. Wilkins was inebriated. By claiming that on multiple occasions she was out late after a “night of partying” with a group of inebriated friends in Nashville, Tennessee—a city known for late-night partying and drinking—the Article suggests to the average reader that Ms. Wilkins is a heavy drinker. This is entirely false, as Ms. Wilkins very rarely drinks, if ever. Importantly, Defendants were on actual notice that this implication was false from Mr. Williamson’s text message….
The complaint also (1) alleges that the statements were said with “actual malice” (i.e., were knowingly or recklessly false, (2) argues that “Ms. Wilkins is not a public figure,” so that the actual malice standard doesn’t apply, and instead “she need only show that Defendants acted negligently,” and (3) criticizes New York Times v. Sullivan, which set forth the actual malice requirement. That last point is of course not particularly relevant in a Complaint, but presumably Wilkins is planning to raise and preserve such a challenge in the event that the Supreme Court can be persuaded to cut back on that precedent, or cut back its extension from public officials (the precise issue in Sullivan) to public figures. The complaint also includes a “false light” claim, which is closely related to a defamation claim: It also rests on the statements being allegedly false, but seeks to recover for their being “highly offensive” to the plaintiff and to a reasonable person, rather than for their damaging reputation.
