FBI Director Kash Patel was attending a law enforcement appreciation event in Lynchburg, Virginia, on Thursday when MS NOW reported, citing two unnamed sources, that he had landed in Russia for a planned trip. The report was false.
Local news outlets covered Patel’s appearance in Lynchburg, and a member of Congress posted a photo with him there, placing him firmly in Virginia at the time the network claimed he was arriving in Russia.
MS NOW correspondent Ken Dilanian issued an on-air correction after the error became apparent. “I want to correct reporting from earlier today. 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,” Dilanian said. “We’ve since learned that Patel did not, in fact, land in Russia today and remains in the U.S. … The timing of any potential trip remains unclear. Again, we regret this error and we are transparent about when we make errors. Back to you.”
Dilanian pointed to prior media reports of a “planned trip” to explain the error, though no such trip had ever been officially confirmed by Patel or the FBI.
Patel responded to the network directly on X, framing the error as a broader credibility problem for the outlet’s law enforcement coverage.
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. This was a basic verification failure. 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. 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.
The false report circulated briefly before the correction, with some social media users reacting to the initial claim as though it had been confirmed before MS NOW walked it back.
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