Fox Hosts Push Dubious Claim That Libyan Ambassador Stevens Should Have Had Hillary Clinton's Email Address

Written by Media Matters Staff

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The hosts of Fox & Friends and discredited journalist Sharyl Attkisson dubiously suggested that Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the 2012 Benghazi attacks, should have had been able to contact then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “directly and personally” through email to ask for additional security in Libya. However, as Washington Post Fact-Checker Glenn Kessler has noted, “With nearly 200 ambassadors in the field, it would invite chaos if each could directly write the secretary of state.” Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass has also pointed out that requests for security do “not rise to the level of the secretary of state” and that it is not unusual for ambassadors to not have the email address of a secretary of state. From the April 25 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Alright, let's talk about something else you know a lot about, and that is Benghazi. Of course, four brave Americans died that night in 2001 [sic] on September the 11th. Over at Newsmax TV, Steve Malzberg got an interview with a woman by the name of Lydie Denier. I've never heard of her before. Apparently she was engaged to Chris Stevens back in 1995. They were never married. Now she's working on a documentary called A Voice For Ambassador Chris Stevens. Steve Malzberg asked her about Hillary Clinton, and she had this to say over on Newsmax. Listen. 

[BEGIN VIDEO]

LYDIE DENIER: I think she should have done a better job for security and not ignore his request. And if he was a friend, as she said, he was a friend, then you don’t let your friend down. 

[END VIDEO]

DOOCY: If she was a friend, you wouldn’t let a friend down.

SHARYL ATTKISSON: You know, one thing about the email controversy that I do wonder, I think people say Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Stevens were friends. Did he have her email address? So he is making pleas for better security. Did he know that she was operating on a private server and not necessarily reached through a government email that he would have the address of? Did he ever try to reach out to her directly and personally, even though he probably assumed she was reading these memos he was sending about security? I've kind of wondered what contact they had in light of her email arrangement. 

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): You know, keep in mind too that this is what Hillary Clinton -- the emails they're looking at now that could get her in a lot of trouble are the ones that she handed over. There's a whole bunch of emails that were deleted. 

ATTKISSON: Yeah, you're sort of relying on the person who may have allegedly done something improper or wrong to be the keeper of the evidence against the person. And that's what happens government-wide when, in recent years,governments have been accused of wrongdoing, whether it's the IRS or something else. Then you rely on the government itself to be the policeman that turns over the evidence and then prosecutes itself or, you know, finds information. 

KILMEADE: That's a great point, though, to think that maybe if Chris Stevens had it or didn't have it, how tight could they have been, number one? Number two, if he had it and it was there and she ignored it. 

ATTKISSON: Because, you know, like a lot of things they say, just because her name was on information that came to the State Department doesn't mean that she read it even or signed it. They've used that excuse with several different incidents like “Fast & Furious.” Just because wiretap approvals were signed by a certain official doesn't mean he read them. Well, they’re supposed to. That's what it's supposed to mean. But you do wonder with all that mail coming in, if you were really in a desperate situation, as those who were there say he was about security, could he have reached out to her in a more personal way? 

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Maybe that's what she was trying to cover up. 

DOOCY: Great point.