On Carl In The Morning, David Brock Explains How Fox News “Has Been One Of The Primary Drivers” Behind The Benghazi Committee

Brock: Fox News' “Conspiracy Theories” Rile The GOP “To Set Expectations That Can't Be Met”

From the October 9 edition of KXRY's Carl in the Morning:

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CARL WOLFSON: Yeah, you were the co-author of an e-book called The Benghazi Hoax, and I checked out your post yesterday at mediamatters.org. And you, along with many other people, were a bit stunned yesterday when The New York Times editorial read “Shut Down The Benghazi Committee.”

DAVID BROCK: Yeah, so The Benghazi Hoax that we did at Media Matters, that came out about two years ago. And we predicted pretty much perfectly what was going to happen here. Which is, you start investigating one thing and the initial investigations were entirely legitimate. But we're now on our tenth investigation here. And it's morphed from the legitimate questions surrounding the attack in Benghazi to Hillary Clinton's emails, which the chairman of the committee himself has said has nothing to do with Benghazi. So I compare this in a way to the Clinton scandals of the 1990s where they started off with one story --Whitewater -- and then it metastasized and morphed in a variety of wider directions. And they ended up spending almost $80 million to basically find nothing. And so this committee is in the same tradition, spending taxpayer money for partisan, political ends. And we think that the committee should be disbanded at this point. There's nothing more to know about Benghazi. Republican investigators themselves, the House Intelligence Committee run by Republicans, concluded that there was no wrongdoing by President Obama, Secretary Clinton, or any responsible official on any of the conspiracy theories that the conservatives have been floating over the years.

WOLFSON: And that's been the conclusion, David, with every investigation, including one by the House Intelligence Committee headed by Republicans.

BROCK: Yes, that's right. There have been independent reviews, there have been Republican-led reviews. And they've all reached the same conclusions. This was a national tragedy, and it's really pretty despicable that the Republicans are using the deaths of four Americans to raise money, which they've done for their own campaigns. And they quickly pivoted, as soon as Secretary Clinton left office in 2013, the Republicans tried to politicize this event in the Obama Romney race. It didn't work. And they quickly pivoted to having Hillary Clinton in their sights. Back then, I mean I remember very clearly in the spring of 2013, about eight different Republican Super PACs and organizations were formed two and a half years ago, to do nothing but try to discredit Hillary and blacken her reputation. First, during the period where she was considering running, and now that she's in the race, they won't let go.

[...]

WOLFSON: And let me just give out one tidbit and have you comment on it that I read at Media Matters yesterday. That on May 2, 2014, when Speaker Boehner announced this Select Benghazi Committee, in the next two weeks, there was so many mentions on Fox News about this committee, that a study that you commissioned found that those mentions in two weeks alone by Fox amounted to $124 million worth of promotion.

BROCK: Right, well Fox News certainly has been one of the primary drivers of this whole what we call hoax from the beginning. Some of the main conspiracy theories that conservatives have floated are coming out of Fox News, false stories, wrong stories, and really riling up the conservative base to set expectations that can't be met. The expectations can't be met by the committee because there's no there there. In a certain way, they're doing themselves damage because they set up the conservative grassroots to be very disappointed with their leadership and that's partly what were seeing on some other issues play out right now with this mess of a leadership race.

Previously:

Now That Everyone's Calling For The End Of The Benghazi Committee ... How Did It Get Started?

David Brock On Coverage Of Hillary Clinton: There's “Collusion” Between Republican “Operatives And The New York Times”

On SiriusXM Progress, David Brock Discusses The Media's “Power Of Suggestion” In Changing Public Perception Of Clinton