An MS NOW reporter is panning what he calls "basically bogus" FBI stats after previously touting the ones released under the Biden administration without such scrutiny.
MS NOW justice correspondent Ken Dilanian co-authored a report last week alleging FBI Director Kash Patel was "padding the stats" to boost arrest numbers, citing agency insiders.
"It was remarkable to hear Kash Patel really lean into these stats, which our sources say are basically bogus," Dilanian said, referencing Patel's contentious Senate hearing.
Dilanian claimed Patel "changed the policy" so that violent arrests carried out by other agencies that the FBI was present for were included in the tally, saying, "There's no larger number of fugitives or arrestees being taken off the streets. It's just simply a numbers game."
He also accused Patel's FBI of "gaming the system" when touting arrests from the FBI's Most Wanted list, alleging the agency would add names to the list shortly before they're arrested.
"We looked at the numbers: four out of six of the fugitives captured during Patel's tenure were captured within a month of being placed on the list, two within a day, one within an hour," Dilanian said.
"So these stats just don't add up and Patel is claiming credit for things that really aren't real," he added.
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FBI spokesman Ben Williamson rejected the claims, telling Dilanian in his report, "The contentions here seeking to discredit law enforcement are false and just the latest attempt to detract from this FBI’s and this administration’s year of the most prolific reduction in crime in United States history."
However, as X personality Maze Moore highlighted Thursday, Dilanian appeared far less skeptical of the crime stats released by the Biden-era FBI and even chastised Republican detractors for not believing them.
"The latest numbers from the FBI, which comes from the cities, by the way — the FBI doesn't make these numbers up — show that violent crime overall declined by a rate of 3% in 2023 and that murder declined 11.6%. That's the largest single year drop on record," Dilanian said to network colleague Katy Tur in Sept. 2024.
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Dilanian asserted that then-candidate and former President Donald Trump's claim that violent crime was up 43% under then-President Joe Biden was "flatly wrong." He also rejected Trump's claim that cities were no longer reporting crime stats to the FBI, insisting "94% of the population" is represented in the latest data, which he celebrated for approaching pre-pandemic levels.
"That should be uncontroversial, but it's not because Republicans and others are pushing the narrative that this data is wrong, that crime is somehow up when it's down," Dilanian separately told then-MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell at the time."
"It's a good news story. It's too bad that not everybody is prepared to accept it," he later said.
MS NOW did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Fox News Digital also reached out to the FBI for comment.
