White House officials are “openly discussing” who will be the next FBI director amid a bombshell report about current leader Kash Patel’s alleged excessive drinking and other concerning conduct.

Patel has threatened to sue The Atlantic after journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick’s report alleged the FBI director is deeply paranoid about being fired and often drinks to excess, alarming officials at the agency and beyond. Fitzpatrick responded that she stands “by every word of this reporting” and told MS NOW: “We have excellent attorneys.”

“People close to the director have said that he himself has expressed that he believes that he is about to be fired or that is imminent,” Fitzpatrick also told CNN Friday. “This is widely, widely discussed, I think, within Washington, behind closed doors. In fact, there are senior administration officials who are openly discussing who will be the next FBI director.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not directly address the firing claim but touted Patel’s leadership at the FBI, in a statement to The Independent.

“Under President Trump and Director Patel’s leadership at the FBI, crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high profile criminals have been put behind bars,” Leavitt said. “Director Patel remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.”

The FBI referredThe Independent to Patel’s latest social media post, where he characterized The Atlantic’s reporting as a “hit piece.”

“No amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America safe again and taking down the criminals you love,” Patel said Saturday on X.

The Atlantic report, published Friday evening, claimed that Patel is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication at clubs in Washington, D.C. and his home city of Las Vegas, violating FBI conduct standards and potentially leaving the nation’s top law enforcement official vulnerable to coercion or exploitation.

The director’s drinking reportedly angered President Donald Trump, who is famously sober, and whose brother died from alcoholism-related health issues. Trump called Patel after the director was seen chugging beer with members of the victorious U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team to express his displeasure, according to the report.

Sources told The Atlantic that Patel’s alleged conduct at the helm of the FBI has alarmed officials about what would happen if the bureau was needed in a national crisis, such as a terror attack.

“That’s what keeps me up at night,” an unnamed official said.

Other claims in the report portray Patel in an unflattering light. On April 10, according to the magazine, the director flew into a paranoid “freak-out”over a technical issue with a computer system. The report claimed Patel thought it was a sign he was being fired and began calling aides and allies in a panic.

Word of the alleged meltdown reportedly spread quickly through Washington, D.C. and the White House received calls about who was really leading the FBI, according to The Atlantic.

Patel has vowed to sue The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick, suggesting in a social media post that the article met the high legal bar to qualify as defamation.

“See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court,” Patel wrote in a post on X Friday. “But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up.”

Patel shared a screenshot of an email from FBI assistant director for public affairs, Benjamin Williamson, to Fitzpatrick. In that message, Williamson called the article “completely false at a nearly 100 percent clip.”

Erica Knight, a longtime adviser to Patel, wrote on X that far from being an absentee leader, Patel has worked more days than his predecessors. Knight, who was hired by Patel to help shakeup the FBI’s communications strategy according to CBS News, alleged that the magazine’s reporting was based on claims that “every real D.C. reporter chased, couldn’t verify, and passed on.”

Jesse Binnall, an attorney representing Patel, called the article “categorically false and defamatory” in a post on X.