Overview
- Alexis Wilkins filed a federal defamation complaint in Nashville against MS NOW and reporters Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig, accusing them of publishing knowingly false allegations about her use of FBI agents.
- The suit targets a Dec. 5 article that cited anonymous sources saying FBI Director Kash Patel ordered agents to escort an allegedly inebriated friend home and says that portrayal harmed Wilkins’ reputation.
- A central factual dispute in the complaint is timing: Wilkins says she had no FBI security detail at the time the article described and that MS NOW had earlier reported the detail was only assigned in November 2025.
- Wilkins asks the court to treat her as a private person so she need not meet the Supreme Court’s higher “actual malice” standard, and she is seeking more than $75,000 in damages; the case is assigned to Judge Eli Jeremy Richardson.
- MS NOW has said it stands by its reporting and will respond in court, and the lawsuit lands alongside other legal fights involving Patel that could shape how courts and the public weigh anonymous sourcing and press accountability.