Fox Promotes Dubious GOP Suggestion That Ambassador Stevens Should Have Been Directly Emailing Hillary Clinton

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Picking up on a talking point repeatedly pushed by Republican members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi during Hillary Clinton's October 22 testimony, Fox News correspondent Mike Emanuel highlighted how Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the attacks, “didn't have her personal email address, but lawmakers now have hundreds of her friend Sidney Blumenthal's electronic messages.” But as Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler noted, “there is a simple reason why an ambassador would not have the secretary of state's private e-mail address. It's called the chain of command.” Kessler continued, “With nearly 200 ambassadors in the field, it would invite chaos if each could directly write the secretary of state. Instead, ambassadors and other diplomats send reporting cables, which in turn are examined and processed by various levels of the State Department.” From the October 22 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier:

EMANUEL: Clinton acknowledged Stevens didn't have her personal email address, but lawmakers now have hundreds of her friend Sidney Blumenthal's electronic messages.

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EMANUEL: It is notable that Blumenthal emails and memos got her attention, and yet security requests from her ambassador in Libya, she says, did not reach her desk.