Patel’s lawsuit said it was "false" that he had "panicked" or engaged in a "freak-out" over the incident, and said the FBI told The Atlantic before publication that talk of his firing was a "made-up rumor." Asked by NBC News about whether the April 10 technical incident ever led Patel to believe that he had been fired, the FBI declined to comment Monday.

The lawsuit further alleges that the Atlantic article by Sarah Fitzpatrick contains other “demonstrably and obviously false” claims.

Patel, 46, is “at FBI headquarters nearly every single day, and when he is not at headquarters, he is visiting field offices — which he has done more frequently than any of his predecessors, a fact independently verifiable through his public social media account that Defendants were specifically directed to review," the lawsuit says.