Media

Kash Patel demands apology after MS NOW falsely placed him in Russia

Network cited two anonymous FBI sources while director attended police event in Virginia, FBI declines to deny the report was bait to expose leakers

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FBI Director Kash Patel speaks at DOJ press conference on indictment. FBI Director Kash Patel speaks at DOJ press conference on indictment. foxnews.com
Patel addresses White House press briefing about China visit Patel addresses White House press briefing about China visit foxnews.com
Ken Dilanian on MS NOW Ken Dilanian on MS NOW foxnews.com
MS NOW issues correction after falsely reporting FBI Director Kash Patel was in Russia MS NOW issues correction after falsely reporting FBI Director Kash Patel was in Russia foxnews.com

FBI director Kash Patel is demanding an on-air apology from MS NOW after the network reported, as breaking news, that he had landed in Russia for meetings. He was in Virginia, honouring law enforcement at an appreciation event at Liberty University.

Anchor Peter Alexander delivered the item as breaking news on Wednesday. Justice correspondent Ken Dilanian's report cited two FBI sources and described concern within the bureau about an alleged Kremlin visit. The FBI debunked the story within hours, and Patel wrote on X that the network had placed him in Russia on the word of two anonymous sources. He listed three apologies owed — to the FBI, to law enforcement, and to the American public — and asked: '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?'

Dilanian corrected the report on air, saying two sources had described a planned trip whose timing 'remains unclear,' that the FBI had not answered the network's questions, and that 'we regret this error, and we are transparent about when we make errors.'

The more uncomfortable detail is what may have produced the story in the first place. Critics speculated that the report was fed to the network deliberately, to expose leakers inside the FBI. An FBI official would neither confirm nor deny that such an operation had been run — while noting that the two leakers involved would 'likely' be identified as a result, and adding: 'We are always hunting leakers.'

MS NOW is the renamed MSNBC, which Trump has already barred from the White House along with Politico. The network has now supplied the administration with its cleanest exhibit yet: a Russia story that collapsed the moment the director's actual location was checked. The apology demand is itself content, and the correction does not undo the underlying fact — two sources presented as bureau insiders could not place the director of the bureau in the correct country. Fox News, which reported the episode and received no response to its request for comment, is a combatant in the same conflict; the story it is telling is a rival's defeat.

The two sources who put Patel in Russia have not been named. The FBI says they likely will be.