MS NOW told viewers FBI Director Kash Patel had landed in Russia for FSB meetings, while he stood on stage at Liberty University in Virginia.
On a Wednesday broadcast, the network told audiences that Patel had touched down overseas. Anchor Peter Alexander opened the segment by citing two unnamed people who said the FBI director had arrived in Russia for a scheduled meeting.
Correspondent Ken Dilanian then warned that Russia’s FSB would try to surveil Patel and crack into his devices, and that his purpose in the country remained unclear. The claim did not hold. Patel was speaking that morning at a law enforcement appreciation event at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, hosted by Rep. John McGuire, a Virginia Republican.
The FBI’s Rapid Response account shredded the report on X with side-by-side video of the MS NOW segment and footage of Patel on the Virginia stage. The Daily Caller reported the network’s error and the swift pushback that followed.
The bureau’s account posted the clip with a blunt caption. It left little room for spin.
"Left: MS Now reports two sources familiar say Kash Patel just landed in Russia Right: Here’s where Kash Patel actually is... Liberty U, doing a law enforcement appreciation event MS Now’s “sources” are “familiar” with NOTHING!"
Ben Williamson, the FBI’s assistant director for public affairs, wrote that he watched the breaking-news clip air just as photos of Patel at the Lynchburg event reached his phone. The timing made the miss hard to miss.
Roughly two hours and 10 minutes after the original segment, Dilanian went back on air and conceded the report was wrong.
"We regret this error,"
That was the on-air correction. It came only after the FBI had already posted proof of where Patel actually was. Readers who follow FBI terrorism task force work know the bureau moves fast when facts are on the line; the same instinct showed up here.
Patel hit back on X the same day. He framed the Russia claim as part of a longer pattern of false attacks on the bureau and its partners.
"MS NOW just reported I had “landed in Russia” for meetings with the FSB. The same outlet constantly tells lies about this FBI and law enforcement’s historic achievements in safeguarding the American people. The results speak for themselves: • 53,969+ violent crime arrests (up 90%) • Nearly 20% decrease in the nationwide murder rate • 31,016+ violent criminals and gang members arrested (up 30%) • 10 of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted fugitives captured (2.5× the prior four years) • 11,081+ child victims located and identified (up 21%) • 3,258+ kilos of fentanyl seized (up 8%), enough to kill 247+ million Americans This is no accident. It is due to the relentless work of this FBI and all of our state, local, and tribal partners. They owe an apology to this FBI, the men and women of law enforcement, and to the American people. -DKP🇺🇸"
Those figures come from Patel’s own post. He tied the apology demand to arrests, murder-rate drops, Most Wanted captures, child-victim recoveries, and fentanyl seizures, not to media narrative. Cases such as an alleged COVID fraud fugitive capture fit the enforcement picture he described.
Politico reported in July that Patel was tentatively set to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg on Oct. 14 and 15, with the FSB expected to serve as host. That framing cast a possible trip as the first by an FBI director since Robert Mueller entered Russia in 2013.
MS NOW’s Wednesday segment treated arrival as fact. Two unnamed sources were enough, on air, to place Patel in Russia for meetings. The FBI’s video from Liberty University showed otherwise. Tentative calendar chatter is not the same as a wheels-down confirmation, and the network’s own walk-back proved the gap.
Dilanian’s earlier warnings about FSB surveillance and device intrusion rested on the same faulty premise. Once the location collapsed, so did the risk monologue built on top of it.
This was not the first time network coverage of Patel required a public cleanup. In an earlier episode, MSNBC had to retreat from a separate claim about how the director spent his time.
On Morning Joe, former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi said Patel had been “visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building,” and alleged briefings had been cut and the building left in chaos. Co-host Jonathan Lemire later walked it back. The New York Post covered the correction.
"This was a misstatement. We have not verified that claim."
Fox News also reported Lemire’s on-air cleanup after Figliuzzi’s nightclub line spread. Unverified color about nightclubs and “chaos” moved faster than the correction. The Russia segment followed the same sequence: bold claim first, regret later.
Pattern matters. When unnamed sources and loaded framing outrun basic location checks, viewers get fiction dressed as breaking news. A separate high-profile claim that collapsed under case-by-case scrutiny showed how fast a narrative can fail once records enter the picture.
Patel’s fiancée, country singer Alexis Wilkins, sued MSNOW and Dilanian this summer. She described as defamatory claims that the director ordered FBI agents to escort her drunken friends home after nights out in Nashville. Mediaite reported on that suit.
The Russia error landed on the same outlet and the same correspondent already facing that litigation. A fresh false location claim, walked back in just over two hours, does not settle a civil case. It does add another public miss to the same names.
Law-and-order audiences have little patience for that cycle. Agents chasing gang members, fugitives, and fentanyl networks, including work tied to a Pennsylvania terror-plot arrest, do not need networks inventing overseas itineraries while the director is on a Virginia stage thanking cops.
Alexander’s segment rested on two people “familiar” with a Russia arrival. The FBI answered with video from Lynchburg. Williamson’s phone filled with event photos while the “breaking” claim still aired. Dilanian’s regret line followed only after that collision.
No on-air detail in the Step package shows the network explaining how those sources got the country wrong. The correction was short. The original package had room for FSB device-hacking warnings built on a false premise.
Patel’s post listed violent-crime arrests up sharply, a nearly 20% drop in the nationwide murder rate, more gang takedowns, Most Wanted captures at 2.5 times the prior four years, thousands of child victims located, and more than 3,200 kilos of fentanyl seized. He said those results come from relentless work with state, local, and tribal partners, and that MS NOW owes them an apology.
Another related enforcement thread, a Manhattan ICE building arson arrest, sits in the same lane of federal cases the public actually tracks. Location errors about the FBI director do not help that work.
When a network places the FBI director in Russia and the bureau posts him live in Virginia, the failure is not subtle. Unnamed sources and a two-hour regret do not repair trust. Law enforcement results do, and those are the numbers Patel put on the record while MS NOW scrambled to unsay a fake landing.
