FBI Director Kash Patel demanded apologies from MS NOW after the network wrongly reported he had landed in Russia while he was attending a law enforcement event at Liberty University in Virginia.
In a statement on X, Patel called the error a basic verification failure. He said the network owed apologies to the FBI, the law enforcement community and the American public.
“MS NOW put me in Russia based on two anonymous sources,” Patel wrote. “I was in Virginia, honoring law enforcement at Liberty University.”
MS NOW corrected the report Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 14. Correspondent Ken Dilanian told viewers that Patel had not arrived in Russia and remained in the United States. “We regret this error,” he said.
The original report aired at 11:44 a.m. Eastern during Peter Alexander’s “State of Play” program. Citing two people familiar with the matter, Alexander announced that Patel had landed in Russia for a meeting. Dilanian joined the broadcast and said his FBI sources were concerned because they did not know the purpose of the visit, Mediaite reported.
The reported trip involved two days in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with meetings hosted by Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, according to Reuters. The FBI disputed the report and posted footage of Patel at Liberty University. Video from a local ABC affiliate also showed him at the Lynchburg event.
Liberty University published photographs and an account of Wednesday’s roundtable. Patel appeared alongside Rep. John McGuire, R-Va., local law enforcement officials and prosecutors, discussing cooperation among agencies and answering students’ questions about public service.
Patel also challenged MS NOW’s broader reporting on the FBI, saying the network had misrepresented the bureau’s accomplishments and its partnerships with state, local and tribal agencies.
“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?”
During his correction, Dilanian said the FBI had not answered the network’s questions before the report. He said the timing of any potential Russia trip remained unclear.
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