Indian-American Pentagon official Kash Patel sues CNN, seeks $50 mn for defamation

Kash Patel, the highest-ranking Indian-American in the Pentagon, has filed a USD 50 million lawsuit against CNN and several of its top reporters for allegedly defaming him by publishing a series of "false and defamatory statements”.

Patel, currently the Chief of Staff to Acting US Defence Secretary Christopher Miller, filed the lawsuit in a Virginia court against CNN and several CNN reporters on Friday, according to Fox News.

In his lawsuit, Patel, who previously served in the White House before being moved to the Pentagon, alleged that CNN between November 24 and December 4 published a series of articles that “contain a series of false and defamatory statements” about him, according to the complaint reported by Fox News.

The CNN articles described Patel, who was previously a top aide to Republican Representative from California, Devin Nunes, as a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist, the report said.

“..publication of the defamatory statements is part of a general pattern of retaliation and discrimination against Kash… a larger conspiracy undertaken between 2018 and the present to discredit Kash through the publication of false statements and the promotion of unfounded left-wing political narratives,” his attorney Steven S Biss said.

Patel “uncovered many inconvenient facts undermining the fake political narrative about collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russians when he was counsel for Nunes, then-chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” Biss said.

CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Fox News said.

New York-born Patel has his roots in Gujarat. His parents are from East Africa – mother from Tanzania and father from Uganda. They came to the US from Canada in 1970.