A House committee report released Tuesday refuted claims that any stand-down order was given to prevent military support from reaching Benghazi, dismantling a central story in right-wing media mythology of a Benghazi cover-up.

The House Armed Services Committee report, released February 11, concluded that “There was no 'stand down' order issued to U.S. military personnel in Tripoli who sought to join the fight in Benghazi.” As The Washington Post explained, the report further determined that “no U.S. military assets could have arrived in Benghazi in time to affect the outcome of the attack, according to committee staff members who briefed reporters on the report.” 

The determination devastates one of right-wing media's favorite Benghazi hoaxes.

Fox News has persistently pushed the myth that the administration withheld military assistance during the Benghazi attack by issuing a “stand down order” to backup forces in Tripoli -- by June 2013, the network had repeated the charge at least 85 times in primetime segments. The accusations were vitriolic: In October 2012, Fox legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. asked if there was a “political calculation that was made to sacrifice Americans on the ground so we didn't kill innocents in front of the consulate,” while the network's national security analyst, K.T. McFarland, claimed the supposed absence of aid to the consulate was “probably” politically motivated. Fox host Kimberly Guilfoyle claimed that the administration had decided that Americans targeted in Benghazi “were expendable.” And the allegations didn't stop there.

The House report is not the first investigation and testimony to debunk the claim that a “stand down” order was issued. A January 2014 Senate Committee on Intelligence review of the Benghazi attacks determined there was no evidence that any “stand down” order was given to responding units during the attack. Tripoli security team leader LTC. S.E. Gibson soundly debunked the notion that a “stand down” order was given in testimony from a declassified June 26, 2013, House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, stating: “Madam Chairman, I was not ordered to stand down.” The CIA has repeatedly denied that any “stand down” orders had been given, and noted that reinforcements actually arrived from Tripoli in time for the second attack on the CIA facility.

Yet just as the network often ignored previous determinations that debunked the “stand down” order myth, Fox's coverage on the House report thus far has either ignored or dismissed this newest evidence of the collapse of its “stand down” narrative. A Fox & Friends First headline segment that focused on the report ignored the “stand down” finding entirely, instead claiming that "the report also found U.S. military forces were left vulnerable at the time of the attack.