The Benghazi Pipeline: How Two Anonymous Fox Sources May End Up Speaking To The Benghazi Select Committee

Written by Brennan Suen

Published

Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) is reportedly urging two witnesses to speak to his committee after they made anonymous appearances on Fox News’ Special Report, where they suggested the military did not take all available actions to save lives during the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

Fox News opened the May 11 edition of Special Report with a report featuring two anonymous witnesses who believe that there were additional assets the military could have deployed during the 2012 Benghazi attacks. Fox correspondent Adam Housley contrasted their statements with claims from the State Department Accountability Review Board and “the claim by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department that nothing more could have been done.” In fact, reports from House and Senate committees, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs at the time of the attack, and some of their predecessors all back up the State Department’s conclusion that no other military response would have yielded better results.

On the May 12 edition of Special Report, guest host Doug McKelway reported that Gowdy responded to Housley’s report by “urging witnesses who spoke to Fox News to talk to his committee,” despite Housley’s troubled history of citing discredited Benghazi “witness” Dylan Davies. Davies admitted to falsifying statements about his experience during the Benghazi attack after claiming he scaled a wall of the compound, personally struck a terrorist in the face with his rifle butt, and later went to the Benghazi hospital to see Ambassador Chris Stevens' body on CBS’ 60 Minutes. Housley has used unnamed sources before to revive the myth that there were unused military assets that would have been able to affect the outcome of the attack.

Fox’s obsession with the Benghazi attacks has been well documented. In the first 20 months after the Benghazi attacks, Fox aired 1,098 evening segments about them, many of which suggested a “cover-up” by the Obama administration and Clinton. Fox also spent months pushing for the formation of a select committee to investigate Benghazi.