Fox News Quiet After Congressional Report Finds No Benghazi Scandal | Blog | Media Matters for America
Fox News Quiet After Congressional Report Finds No Benghazi Scandal
New House Intel Report Reportedly Finds No Intentional Wrongdoing By The Obama Administration
Fox News has gone silent on Benghazi amid reports that the House Intelligence Committee concluded that there was no intentional wrongdoing in the Obama administration's response to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on August 1 that the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee voted to declassify findings from its investigation into the 2012 attacks on U.S diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, and "concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack," according to committee member Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA).
The intelligence community "did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened," the process used to create administration talking points was "flawed" but "reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis, and "there was no 'stand-down order' given to American personnel," Ranking Member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-CA) said in a statement laying out the committee's findings.
It's a clinical, point-by-point refutation of the Benghazi hoax Fox has pushed for nearly 2 years.
Yet Fox News made no mention of the report on Monday.* In sharp contrast to its current silence, when House Speaker John Boehner announced the formation of a select committee to investigate Benghazi in June, Fox devoted at least 225 segments to the topic over just two weeks, an estimated publicity value of more than $124 million.
Fox's sudden lack of interest in congressional investigations into Benghazi comes less then one week after Rep. Trey Gowdy, head of the select committee, announced - in what Fox News billed as an "exclusive" interview - that he would hold more public hearings on the attacks in September.
"The American people have not been given clear answers to things like Benghazi," Bill O'Reilly said Friday night on Fox. Monday night, O'Reilly's audience didn't learn the answers that the House Intelligence Committee declassified last week.
On July 31, the day the House Intelligence Committee adopted its report, Fox News signaled its intention to continue politicizing the Benghazi tragedy by immediately pivoting to Hillary Clinton.
"The Republican head of the powerful House Intelligence Committee told Fox News that there was no intelligence failure and that all roads lead to the State Department," Herridge said on America's Newsroom.
Hours later, the conclusion that there was no intelligence failure had evaporated from her reporting. "The chairman of the House Intelligence Committeee says, Hillary Clinton's State Department has more explaining to do," Herridge claimed on The Kelly Report that night.
That assessment was based on questions answered long ago about who signs diplomatic cables at the State Department.
* Media Matters searched transcripts provided by TVEyes.com for the terms "Benghazi" and "House Intelligence Committee."
UPDATE: On Fox's evening news program Special Report, the network finally noted the findings of the House Intelligence Committee report and that they were in line with past congressional investigations. Host Bret Baier noted that House Republicans are still looking to the upcoming House select committee as "the definitive word on the terror attack."
Benghazi ''scandal'' = a right wing hoax.
