It takes genuine incompetence to file a breathless exposé about an FBI Director in crisis and simultaneously get beaten on the actual facts by the outlet you’re trying to out-scoop. MS NOW managed it anyway. Five reporters. One humiliation.
Here’s what happened.
Kash Patel had plans to fly to Chicago Friday — meetings during the day, his country-singer girlfriend performing at night. He was called into the White House unexpectedly. MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian, Carole Leonnig, Jacqueline Alemany, Vaughn Hillard, and Jake Traylor — five credentialed journalists with all the resources of a major television network — turned this into a story about Patel being on the verge of getting fired, citing: “people spoke on the condition of anonymity,” “according to two people with knowledge,” “several people said,” “some found it confounding,” “according to a person familiar,” “others cited,” “according to three people briefed,” “according to two other people with knowledge.”
Count them. That’s eight separate invocations of anonymous sourcing in a single article. Not one person willing to put their name on any of it. Not one official quote from anyone supporting the central claim.
And then — buried in the middle of this mountain of anonymous innuendo — the reporters admit they don’t actually know why Patel was summoned to the White House: “The precise reasons that Patel’s political bosses demanded he cancel his trip and report to the West Wing are unclear.”
They published anyway. With five bylines.
The New York Times — not exactly a Trump-friendly outlet — had no such problem finding out what Patel was actually doing at the White House all day. He was working the leak investigation into the compromised Air Force One communications during Trump’s NATO trip. An eight-hour workday. A specific, documented assignment. Nothing remotely resembling a firing.
MS NOW’s battalion of reporters, with their extensive network of anonymous bitter cranks inside the administration and the Agency, couldn’t find any of this. The Times did. Because the Times apparently has sources who know things that are actually true (well, okay, sometimes anyway), rather than sources who want Patel gone and are willing to manufacture a narrative to make it happen.
This is not the first time. You likely remember when The Atlantic ran the Patel alcoholism story — blackouts in his office, sources everywhere, not a single witness willing to go on record, no official incident reports, nothing. It produced no consequences beyond briefly embarrassing everyone who ran with it. The pattern is identical every time: anonymous sources, dire warnings, dramatic framing, zero substantiation, and Patel still running the FBI the next morning.
Patel’s response to Dilanian’s reporting was a social media post calling him a “dumbass” and noting that his job is to lie while Patel’s is to protect the American people.