Fox News continued to push the false narrative that the Obama administration politicized early intelligence assessments about the Benghazi attack by purporting to provide “new data points” which are contradicted by the findings of a bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report released in January.

On February 13, Shannon Bream introduced a report from Fox national security correspondent Catherine Herridge by saying, “Tonight, two new data points in the Benghazi timeline [are] raising new questions about whether early intelligence was indeed politicized.” Herridge began her report by claiming CIA leadership had been informed twice that the anti-Islam video “played no role” in the Benghazi attack, before former UN Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on the Sunday news shows and provided information about the attack based on talking points that represented the best assessment of the intelligence community at the time.

But nowhere in the segment is there evidence that anyone was told that the anti-Islam video had no role in inspiring the Benghazi attack. Instead, Herridge presents evidence and quotes from Republican lawmakers that there was no demonstration that took place before the attack -- which is not the same thing.

The very Benghazi report Herridge cites in her appearance contradicts her claim that the video “played no role.” The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's findings and recommendations in the report included the following:

Some intelligence suggests the attacks were likely put together in short order, following that day's violent protests in Cairo against an inflammatory video, suggesting that these and other terrorist groups could conduct similar terrorist attacks with little advance warning.

That finding from the Senate committee report lines up with the talking points drafted in the aftermath of the attack, which said that the attack was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” -- protests that were a response to the anti-Islam video.

Considering that Fox's “new data points” do not actually provide any new information, the charges of intelligence politicization fall flat. The New York Times had a journalist who arrived at the Benghazi diplomatic facility as it was being attacked, and learned about the anger at the video from some of the attacks there.

The Benghazi report cited by Herridge also found that “there were no efforts by the White House or any other Executive Branch entities to ”cover-up" facts or make alterations for political purposes" -- a fact that she chose to left out.