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MS NOW put Kash Patel in Russia. The FBI showed him in Virginia.

Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation / Public domain (source)

MS NOW Said Kash Patel Landed in Russia. The FBI Showed Him at Liberty University, and the Network Corrected.

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 15, 2026 · 4 min read
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MS NOW told its viewers on Wednesday, Oct. 14, that FBI Director Kash Patel had landed in Russia. He had not. He was in Lynchburg, Virginia, at Liberty University, and within hours the FBI posted video to prove it, forcing the network into an on-air correction.

It was a remarkably fast collapse for a story that came with the usual anonymous-source packaging, and it adds to a growing pile of MS NOW reporting on Patel that he, his fiancée and the bureau have publicly disputed.

“We don’t know what Kash Patel is doing in Russia”

According to The Daily Wire, anchor Peter Alexander reported, citing “two people familiar with the matter,” that Patel had landed in Russia. Correspondent Ken Dilanian, who sourced the story, then added a layer of intrigue: “We don’t know what Kash Patel is doing in Russia,” he said, adding that his FBI sources did not know either.

There was a kernel of something behind it. Politico had reported in July that Patel was expected to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg on Oct. 14 and 15, The Daily Wire noted. But an expected trip is not a landing, and a scheduled visit is not a mystery that has the bureau’s own people worried.

The receipts

The FBI’s Rapid Response account answered with a side-by-side video: the MS NOW segment on one side, Patel at Liberty University on the other. “Here’s where Kash Patel actually is… Liberty U, doing a law enforcement appreciation event,” the bureau wrote. “MS Now’s ‘sources’ are ‘familiar’ with NOTHING!”

Patel replied to the post with three words: “Facts over clickbait.” He then went further, accusing the network of repeatedly lying about the FBI’s work, pointing to the bureau’s arrest numbers, fugitive captures and fentanyl seizures, and saying MS NOW owed “an apology to this FBI, the men and women of law enforcement, and to the American people.”

The event was a roundtable in Lynchburg with law students and local law enforcement, hosted by Rep. John McGuire, a Virginia Republican, with students from Liberty University School of Law. McGuire posted photos from the event. “Director Patel and I are committed to protecting victims, not criminals,” he wrote. “We want the next generation to understand that our laws are meant to be enforced.”

The correction

A few hours after the original report, Dilanian went back on air. “I want to correct reporting from earlier today,” he said, according to TheWrap. “We’ve since learned that Patel did not, in fact, land in Russia today and remains in the U.S.” He added: “Again, we regret this error and we are transparent about when we make errors.” He said the timing of any potential trip remains unclear.

Credit where due: the network corrected itself on air, the same day. But the correction was only possible because the FBI had already shown the country where the director was standing. Two people “familiar with the matter” were not familiar with the director’s location.

A pattern, and a lawsuit

This is not the first time the bureau and the network have clashed. In May, Dilanian told viewers that statistics Patel had cited about his tenure, including a claim that the FBI arrested twice as many violent felons in 2025 as in 2024, were ones “our sources say are basically bogus,” TheWrap reported. In a separate post on Oct. 14 defending those numbers, the FBI said MS NOW would rather “spin BS narratives to try and diminish the accomplishments of law enforcement.”

Dilanian is also a named defendant in a defamation suit. In June, country singer Alexis Wilkins, who announced her engagement to Patel in early October, sued MS NOW, Dilanian and reporter Carol Leonnig in federal court in the Middle District of Tennessee over a December 2025 report. That story, built on three anonymous sources, alleged Patel had asked members of Wilkins’ security detail to drive her friends home after nights of drinking in Nashville.

Her complaint says the network used “sham ‘anonymous’ sources to push knowingly or recklessly false allegations,” and states that she had no security detail during the period described and “does not even consume alcohol.” The suit seeks damages of no less than $75,000 for defamation and false-light invasion of privacy. MS NOW has said it stands firmly behind that reporting and does not comment on ongoing legal matters.

Why it matters

Every newsroom gets things wrong. What separates a mistake from a habit is how often the same outlet, leaning on the same kind of unnamed sources, ends up in the same place with the same target. Putting the director of the FBI in Russia, with a hint that even his own agents did not know why, is not a minor slip of the calendar. It is the kind of claim that, left unanswered, takes on a life of its own.

This time it did not get the chance. The bureau answered with video, the director answered with three words, and the network answered with a correction.

MS NOW put the FBI director in Russia; the FBI put him in Virginia, and the network had to admit it.

Sources

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