FBI Director Kash Patel says MS NOW owes apologies to the FBI, the law enforcement community and the American public after the network falsely reported he had traveled to Russia, when he was actually at an event in Virginia honoring law enforcement at Liberty University.
“MS NOW put me in Russia based on two anonymous sources. I was in Virginia, honoring law enforcement at Liberty University. The network had to correct its false report,” Patel wrote on X on Thursday.
The false report aired Wednesday, when MS NOW anchor Peter Alexander told viewers there was “breaking news” that Patel had “landed in Russia” for meetings. The report, from MS NOW justice correspondent Ken Dilanian, cited two FBI sources and raised concerns within the agency about an alleged visit to the Kremlin.
Shortly after the segment aired, the FBI’s Rapid Response account on X pushed back, noting that Patel was actually in Virginia at a law enforcement appreciation event.
Dilanian later issued an on-air correction. “I want to correct reporting from earlier today,” he told viewers. “I reported that two sources had told us that FBI Director Kash Patel had landed in Russia for a planned trip that had been reported about recently. We’ve since learned that Patel did not, in fact, land in Russia today and remains in the U.S. The FBI did not answer our questions when we asked them about it.”
“But we do know now that he has not already landed in Russia, as we reported earlier,” Dilanian continued. “The timing of any potential trip remains unclear. Again, we regret this error, and we are transparent about when we make errors.”
Patel said the mistake went beyond a simple correction. “This was a basic verification failure,” he wrote. “They were wrong about my location, and they are wrong about the successes of this FBI and our partnership with State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement. If a network cannot confirm where I was before putting it on air, how can the public trust its reporting on the work our agents and officers do every day?”
“This is bigger than a false story about me,” he added. “The men and women of law enforcement deserve accurate reporting while they protect communities and take violent criminals off our streets. Three apologies are owed: to this FBI, to the law enforcement community, and to the American People.”
MS NOW did not immediately respond to a request for comment beyond pointing to its on-air correction.
Some critics have speculated that the false report may have stemmed from an effort to flush out leakers inside the FBI. An FBI official would not confirm or deny that leadership had run such an operation, but said the two sources involved would “likely” be identified as a result. “We are always hunting leakers,” the official said.
