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Speaker 1: Pushkin previously on fiasco. A number of conservative media outlets

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Speaker 1: were particularly genda.

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Speaker 2: This is a political cover up of some kind of

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Speaker 2: intelligence officials acknowledged they originally got it wrong.

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Speaker 3: I know the Ghazi Annex chief personally, and he's a

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Speaker 3: decent man.

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Speaker 4: The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Benghazi kicks off at

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Speaker 4: the top of the hour.

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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's painted apparently hit her head and had that concussion.

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Speaker 5: I bet that we might never hear her testimony. She

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Speaker 5: doesn't want to answer the question.

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Speaker 1: When Alison Camarada was an anchor on Fox News, she

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Speaker 1: talked about Benghazi a lot.

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Speaker 5: For what's been called Benghazi Gate. There was a lack

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Speaker 5: of security at the US consulate in Benghazi, but who

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Speaker 5: is to blame for not beefing it up? Was the

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Speaker 5: administration just clueless or was there a cover up?

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Speaker 1: Joining us among other things, it was just a good,

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Speaker 1: rich story with a seemingly endless stream of angles to explore.

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Speaker 5: There were some mysteries embedded in Benghazi that needed to

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Speaker 5: be answered, so that gave it legs for sure.

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Speaker 6: There were four dead.

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Speaker 5: Americans and that is obviously something that resonated with our viewers,

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Speaker 5: and they wanted justice, and we could beat the drum

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Speaker 5: of justice.

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Speaker 1: At the time, Camarada was one of the co hosts

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Speaker 1: of Fox and Friends Weekend. She ended up leaving the

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Speaker 1: network in twenty fourteen, and she's been public with her

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Speaker 1: criticisms of Fox News in the years since. But during

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Speaker 1: the months after the Benghazi attack, Camarada spent her weekend

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Speaker 1: mornings dutifully beating the drums of justice alongside her Fox colleagues.

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Speaker 5: That Chris Stevens was saying, we're under attack, We're under attack,

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Speaker 5: please help, And of course nothing was done to help them.

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Speaker 5: Four Americans dead, and we need justice for this, so

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Speaker 5: on wins.

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Speaker 1: According to Camarata, Fox's relentless emphasis on ben Ghazi came

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Speaker 1: directly from the network's founder and chief executive, Roger Ales.

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Speaker 5: Sometimes at Fox, Roger got to be in his bonnet

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Speaker 5: over certain stories, and we would do them time and

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Speaker 5: again and again and again. Ben Gazzi's right at the

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Speaker 5: top of that list. I don't know that it was

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Speaker 5: some grand strategy from the get go, but I just

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Speaker 5: think that he did naturally lean towards outrage.

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Speaker 1: Ales didn't personally dictate Fox's coverage at all times, but

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Speaker 1: he didn't need to because his producers knew what he wanted.

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Speaker 6: By the time you became an executive producer at Fox,

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Speaker 6: you could channel Roger. It wasn't hard Obama, bad Muslims,

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Speaker 6: bad Hillary, bad Republicans, good Democrats, crazy like it wasn't

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Speaker 6: rocket science.

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Speaker 1: Before he created Fox News in nineteen ninety six, Ayles

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Speaker 1: spent decades in conservative politics, serving as a campaign advisor

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Speaker 1: to Richard Nixon, Mitch McConnell, and George H. W. Bush. Later,

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Speaker 1: he was the executive producer of a short lived TV

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Speaker 1: talk show starring Rush limbar Ardys and gentleman Best Rush

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Speaker 1: bar From the beginning, Ayle's positioned Fox News as a

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Speaker 1: counterbalance to what he called the communist broadcasting system CBS

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Speaker 1: and the Clinton News Network CNN.

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Speaker 7: Fox News channel fair and balanced, where news is going,

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Speaker 7: where news should be.

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Speaker 1: But in its early days, Fox's conservative opinion shows like

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Speaker 1: The O'Reilly Factor were kept at arm's length from its

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Speaker 1: news division.

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Speaker 7: Few broadcasts take any chances these days, and most are

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Speaker 7: very politically correct. Well, We're going to try to be different,

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Speaker 7: stimulating and a bit daring.

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Speaker 1: It was only gradually that Fox's identity as a platform

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Speaker 1: for the right became more holistic By the time the

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Speaker 1: Bengazi attack happened, the network was producing a mix of commentary, activism,

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Speaker 1: and propaganda.

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Speaker 8: Welcome into Fox and Friends.

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Speaker 1: Fox and Friends Weekend, where Camarato worked, aired every Saturday

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Speaker 1: and Sunday from six to ten am.

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Speaker 6: Well, I always saw Fox and Friends' Weekend as quite

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Speaker 6: of a morning zoo of political talk. I mean, I

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Speaker 6: sometimes called it talk radio in a skirt. I mean,

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Speaker 6: it was a variety show. It was mixing in the

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Speaker 6: really incendiary political stuff, but not for too long. We

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Speaker 6: would immediately in a toss, turn to and coming up

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Speaker 6: breaking news. Subway sandwiches. Foot long subs are only eleven

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Speaker 6: and a half inches long.

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Speaker 5: Subway sandwiches foot long subs are only eleven and a

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Speaker 5: half inches long.

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Speaker 6: I know, everyone, I fill your outage.

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Speaker 1: There's gonna be Camarata says that despite being an anchor,

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Speaker 1: she didn't have much control over the actual content of

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Speaker 1: Fox and Friends. Because it aired so early in the morning,

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Speaker 1: a small team of producers would always work overnight to

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Speaker 1: build the next day's show.

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Speaker 6: By the time I got in, there was already a rundown.

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Speaker 6: It was a built show. When I came in, I

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Speaker 6: was busy. You know, I was going and I was

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Speaker 6: getting into my outfit. I was getting into hair and makeup,

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Speaker 6: and then I had like probably from five fifteen till

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Speaker 6: I had to run to the set at five point

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Speaker 6: fifty to get miked up to dive in and study.

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Speaker 6: You know, that's not enough time. It just wasn't built

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Speaker 6: to ever do real research. It was basically headlines, talking points,

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Speaker 6: and you know, mixing it up.

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Speaker 1: In January of twenty Thirteenillary Clinton was set to testify

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Speaker 1: before Congress about Benghazi for the first time. As it happened,

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Speaker 1: she was planning to leave the Obama administration about a

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Speaker 1: week later, which meant that her Benghazi testimony would be

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Speaker 1: one of her last public appearances as Secretary of State.

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Speaker 5: While the White House preparing today for Secretary of State

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Speaker 5: Hillary Clinton to testify tomorrow regarding the deadly September eleventh

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Speaker 5: attack on our consulate in Libya, Secretary.

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Speaker 1: Clinton was there was there a lot of anticipation for

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Speaker 1: her appearance?

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Speaker 6: Oh god, yes, I mean part of the Fox model

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Speaker 6: is just constant build up. It's teasing.

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Speaker 5: Republicans are expected to grill her about what she knew

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Speaker 5: about the attack and when she knew it. Some have

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Speaker 5: charged that the administration deliberately tried to hide that the

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Speaker 5: ambush was the work of terrorists linked to al Qaeda.

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Speaker 6: It's teasing what's going to happen tomorrow. It's teasing what's

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Speaker 6: going to happen this week in front of committee. It's

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Speaker 6: teasing Hillary Clinton's appearance. And that's not new what.

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Speaker 8: She knew when she knew it.

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Speaker 1: Is this going to get answered today?

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Speaker 2: She has had time to prepare, but she has an

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Speaker 2: awful lot to answer for.

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Speaker 3: She's one of the top candidates for president in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 3: so she can either help move on or she could

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Speaker 3: have a Susan roy Sunday Show moment.

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Speaker 9: And not.

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Speaker 1: The committee will come to order. Clinton appeared in front

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Speaker 1: of both the Senate and the House back to back.

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Speaker 1: She started her day shortly after nine am with a

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Speaker 1: prepared statement in which she took responsibility for making changes

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Speaker 1: of the State Department to prevent another tragedy.

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Speaker 6: As I have.

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Speaker 10: Said many times, I take responsibility, and nobody is more

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Speaker 10: committed to getting this right.

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Speaker 1: For the most part, Clinton's questioners were fairly cordial.

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Speaker 8: Thank you, Adam, Secretary, and wonderful to see you in

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Speaker 8: good health, and as combative as ever.

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Speaker 1: There were two points that kept coming up over and

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Speaker 1: over again, and they generated the most intense moments of

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Speaker 1: the day. The first had to do with a case

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Speaker 1: cable sent to the State Department with Ambassador Stevens's approval

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Speaker 1: about a month before the attack. The cable had warned

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Speaker 1: about an increase in violent incidents in Benghazi and the

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Speaker 1: rise of anti American militias. Republicans wanted to know why

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Speaker 1: Clinton hadn't personally reviewed the cable and weighed in that

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Speaker 1: had I been president at the time and I found

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Speaker 1: that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you

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Speaker 1: did not read the cables from bessaror Stevens, I would

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Speaker 1: have relieved you of your post.

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Speaker 6: I think it's inexcusable.

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Speaker 3: The thing is.

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Speaker 1: The second point of focus was on the Obama administration's

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Speaker 1: original explanation of the Bengazi attack as a protest gone wrong.

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Speaker 1: A Republican senator from Wisconsin wanted to know why Clinton

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Speaker 1: hadn't immediately called the survivors of the attack to find

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Speaker 1: out whether or not there really had been a protest

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Speaker 1: that night.

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Speaker 10: We were misled that there was supposedly protests, and then something

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Speaker 10: sprang out of that, and assault sprang out of that.

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Speaker 1: Clinton, who up to this point had appeared even keeled

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Speaker 1: and in decent spirits, suddenly changed her tones, and they didn't.

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Speaker 10: With all due respect, the fact is we had four

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Speaker 10: dead Americans.

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Speaker 6: Was it because of a protest?

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Speaker 10: Or was it because of guys out for a walk

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Speaker 10: when night, or decide they'd go kill some Americans?

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Speaker 6: What difference at this point does it make?

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Speaker 10: It is our job to figure out what happened and

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Speaker 10: do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.

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Speaker 1: Senator Now, honestly, this became the SoundBite of the day.

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Speaker 1: On the big broadcast networks, Clinton's testimony was described as

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Speaker 1: fiery and riveting.

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Speaker 7: Today, this woman who has traveled the world as America's

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Speaker 7: top diplomat, came to the Hill ready for a fight,

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Speaker 7: and her.

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Speaker 11: Long awaited appearance before Congress was remarkable.

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Speaker 1: Harrying Hasso questions all day.

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Speaker 12: Clinton was also the political pro massaging big egos, sidestepping

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Speaker 12: attacks when she could when she couldn't, giving as good.

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Speaker 3: As she got.

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Speaker 1: But on Fox News, the clip of Clinton saying what

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Speaker 1: difference does it make? Was played as callous indifference toward

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Speaker 1: those who lost their lives in Bengazi.

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Speaker 7: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's monumental gaff that may haunt

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Speaker 7: her for the rest of her political career.

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Speaker 1: Allison Camarada covered Quinton's testimony as a fill in host

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Speaker 1: on the regular weekday edition of Fox and.

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Speaker 6: Friends mad As Hill.

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Speaker 5: Secretary Clinton fires back at Congress in a battle over

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Speaker 5: ben Ghazi.

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Speaker 10: What difference at this point does itn't make?

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Speaker 5: Well, this morning, we may have an answer for what

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Speaker 5: difference it makes, and it may include three more dead Americans.

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Speaker 5: You're going to want to hear this, all right.

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Speaker 6: Fox really was good at sloganeering and catchphrases and coming

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Speaker 6: up with a little outrage nugget to send viewers on

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Speaker 6: their way, So that one just came, you know, ready made.

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Speaker 6: They just zeroed in for days and days and weeks

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Speaker 6: and weeks on what difference does it make? As though

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Speaker 6: she was being callous, as though she was being cavalier. Basically,

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Speaker 6: they were trying to make it sound synonymous with who cares?

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Speaker 10: What difference at this point does itn't make?

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Speaker 13: It makes a lot of difference.

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Speaker 1: You may notice Camarata uses the word they when talking

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Speaker 1: about Fox News. Part of the reason it might just

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Speaker 1: be that she doesn't work there anymore. But even at

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Speaker 1: the time, Camarada says she felt separate from the network

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Speaker 1: and not fully bought in, which I admit reminds me

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Speaker 1: of coming home in high school and telling my mom

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Speaker 1: it was my friends who had been smoking, not me.

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Speaker 1: But Camarada told me that she was never comfortable with

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Speaker 1: how her producers and co hosts talked about Bengazi, and

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Speaker 1: in particular, how they presented the Clinton sound bite. Over

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Speaker 1: the coming weeks. Camarada bristled at Fox's framing of what

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Speaker 1: she thought was an uncontroversial comment if she listened to

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Speaker 1: the whole thing, But Fox's producers often cut out right

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Speaker 1: after what difference at this point does it make?

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Speaker 6: So they would end it right there instead of it

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Speaker 6: is our job to figure out what happened and do

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Speaker 6: everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again,

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Speaker 6: that's her next sentence, and they wouldn't always play that part.

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Speaker 1: Camarata decided to push back on air.

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Speaker 5: Her point is that what is the label? What difference

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Speaker 5: does the label make? And her point, which then she

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Speaker 5: didn't answer, is where's the justice? Why hasn't it even

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Speaker 5: been prosecuted? We are our American was killed. They were

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Speaker 5: terrorists and had we gone.

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Speaker 1: It was a quiet rebellion and pretty easy to miss

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Speaker 1: if you weren't looking for it. But Camarada told me

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Speaker 1: that every time she departed from the party line in

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Speaker 1: this way, she felt like she was risking her job.

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Speaker 5: There was no winning that conversation with Roger. He had

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Speaker 5: his opinion, and you were supposed to sort of reflect

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Speaker 5: his opinion.

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Speaker 1: Looking back, Camarata describes Fox's Bengazi coverage as a kind

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Speaker 1: of feedback loop.

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Speaker 5: There is a certain kind of self fulfilling prophecy when

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Speaker 5: it comes to outrage. We did train the audience to

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Speaker 5: become outraged.

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Speaker 6: Often the scripts.

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Speaker 5: Would say you'll be outraged right after a commercial. We

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Speaker 5: told people stick around for the outrage.

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Speaker 6: We told them they would be outraged.

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Speaker 5: We told them afterwards, were sure they are outraged, and

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Speaker 5: lo and behold, they came outraged.

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Speaker 1: The right wing outrage machine was not invented by Fox News.

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Speaker 1: It had been around in various forms for decades, and

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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton had long been one of its favorite targets. Now,

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Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack, the machine was

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Speaker 1: about to kick into high gear. I'm Leon Nafok from

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Speaker 1: Prolog Projects and Pushkin Industries. This is fiasco Bengazi.

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Speaker 4: He said, the government is lying to you. What they're

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Speaker 4: saying happened did not happen.

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Speaker 5: Is the Obama administrations threatened Benghazi whistleblowers.

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Speaker 13: I was literally afraid from my life.

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Speaker 3: What do you mean, stand down?

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Speaker 12: They're invading the place. Yeah. I think there's a direct

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Speaker 12: line from what happened in the nineteen nineties to twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 1: Episode five Greatest Hits, in which Benghazi transforms from an

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Speaker 1: Obama scandal into the ultimate Clinton scandal, as decades of

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Speaker 1: built up Clinton lore provide all parties with a roadmap,

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Speaker 1: a backstory, and a cudgel. We'll be right back. When

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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton testified before Congress in January of twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 1: it was not her first time having to publicly address

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Speaker 1: a scandal. She had been fighting off various allegations ever

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Speaker 1: since her husband Bill first ran for president in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety two, long before Fox News even existed. The din

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Speaker 1: of controversy was a fact of life for the Clintons

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Speaker 1: and a source of endless frustration.

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Speaker 12: Clinton was elected, and there were people in the right

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Speaker 12: wing who didn't accept that election as legitimate.

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Speaker 1: This is David Brock. During the early days of Bill

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Speaker 1: Clinton's presidency. He was a young journalist working at a

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Speaker 1: conservative magazine called The American Spectator.

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Speaker 12: And you know, in circles that I was in, they

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Speaker 12: were talking about impeaching him literally before he was even

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Speaker 12: sworn into office. So there was a machinery in place

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Speaker 12: to try to make that happen.

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Speaker 1: As Brock tells it, the writing he did for The

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Speaker 1: American Spectator was part of an effort known internally as

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Speaker 1: the Arkansas Project. It was funded by a conservative billionaire

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Speaker 1: named Richard Mellen'scaife, and its purpose was to dig up

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Speaker 1: dirt on the Clintons from before they moved into the

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Speaker 1: White House.

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Speaker 12: Anything was fair game. They were looking for anything they

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Speaker 12: could find that could help, at first to cause problems

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Speaker 12: for Clinton, and then it became more explicit mission to

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Speaker 12: get him out office.

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Speaker 1: Brock told me that at the time he genuinely thought

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Speaker 1: he was doing journalism, but he realized pretty quickly that

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Speaker 1: his patrons saw him more as a political operative, and

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Speaker 1: he embraced it. The outgoing message on Brock's answering machine

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Speaker 1: during Clinton's first term was I'm out trying to bring

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Speaker 1: down the president.

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Speaker 12: That was the intention of the Arkansas project. It used

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Speaker 12: tactics of journalism, but it was more like political opposition

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Speaker 12: research without any scruples at all. It had no fealty

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Speaker 12: to facts or truth. If it was a myth that

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Speaker 12: could stick, that was fine. It was just to create

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Speaker 12: an atmosphere in which it was difficult for Clinton to

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Speaker 12: govern and to throw sand in the gears of any

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Speaker 12: progress that would be made under Clinton.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, Brock got a tip from a

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Speaker 1: major Republican donor. Apparently there were some Arkansas State troopers

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Speaker 1: who had served on Bill Clinton's security detail while he

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Speaker 1: was governor, and they had some salacious stories to tell

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Speaker 1: about what they'd seen.

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Speaker 12: I went down to Arkansas. I spent hours and hours

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Speaker 12: debriefing the troopers. They were seemingly first hand witnesses to

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Speaker 12: these events.

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Speaker 1: The troopers told Brock that they had helped then Governor

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Speaker 1: Clinton coordinate and cover up his extramarital.

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Speaker 12: Affairs, basically being part of a political movement that wanted

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Speaker 12: to do damage to the Clintons. You know, I took

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Speaker 12: them at their word. I did not do a lot

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Speaker 12: of like checking beyond what they said.

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Speaker 1: As Brock explained it to me, the main goal of

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Speaker 1: the story was to conjure the width of scandal so

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Speaker 1: that journalists in the mainstream media could pick up the scent.

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Speaker 1: The Spectator had a relatively modest circulation and they were

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Speaker 1: known to have an anti Clinton slant. But if they

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Speaker 1: could get coverage of the State Trooper story into a

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Speaker 1: more mainstream outlet, it would remove the air of bias

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Speaker 1: from the allegations and amplify the scandal to a massive audience.

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Speaker 1: Brock came to think of this process as scandal laundering.

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Speaker 12: One of the goals that the Spectator was to try

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Speaker 12: to hook more established media onto some of our narratives.

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Speaker 12: You'd plant a seed and then it kind of grows

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Speaker 12: on all sorts of places, and by the time you're done,

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Speaker 12: it's on the evening news.

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Speaker 4: This is CNN.

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Speaker 1: When Brock was ready to go to press with his story,

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Speaker 1: but the State Troopers, the American Spectator made a point

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Speaker 1: of giving CNN a sneak peek.

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Speaker 12: They went for it. They interviewed the troopers themselves the

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Speaker 12: day the piece was published, and the troopers were on

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Speaker 12: six o'clock evening news on CNN on a particular day

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Speaker 12: the story broke, Hilary Sawer.

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Speaker 7: She told me, she said, I know who she is,

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Speaker 7: I know what she is here for get the whole

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Speaker 7: out of here.

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Speaker 12: So it very quickly got into the bloodstream of the

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Speaker 12: mainstream media, which is what our goal was.

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Speaker 1: The troopers say they helped Clinton pick up women up

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Speaker 1: to the day he left for Washington to become president.

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Speaker 1: The story became known as Troopergate. The scandal had been

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Speaker 1: duly laundered.

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Speaker 2: One senior administration official complained that every time they have

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Speaker 2: to deny a new round of these kinds of allegations,

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Speaker 2: it gets harder.

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Speaker 1: Over the next few years, the American Spectator printed one

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Speaker 1: story after another suggesting that the Clintons were nothing less

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Speaker 1: than criminal masterminds.

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Speaker 12: There were stories about Clinton being involved in drug grinning

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Speaker 12: out of an airport in Arkansas. There was some speculation

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Speaker 12: that the Clintons somehow were implicated in Vincent Foster's death,

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Speaker 12: which was a suicide, but was said to be something else.

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Speaker 1: What Brock is referring to here is the so called

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Speaker 1: Clinton body count, a darkly absurd rumor alleging that the

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Speaker 1: Clintons have had multiple close associates murdered the best known

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Speaker 1: data point in this fantasy was always Vince Foster, a

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Speaker 1: longtime friend and colleague of the Clintons who worked in

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Speaker 1: the White House before taking his own life in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety three. After Foster's death, the allegation that the Clintons

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Speaker 1: had something to do with it gained so much traction

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Speaker 1: that it was discussed in congressional hearings. One of the

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Speaker 1: theories that sprouted from Foster's death was that he and

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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton have been having an affair, but there were

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Speaker 1: many other theories too, and between nineteen ninety three and

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, at least five official investigations looked into them.

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Speaker 1: Each one came to the same conclusion, including one led

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Speaker 1: by independent counsel Ken Starr.

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Speaker 7: The Whitewater Special prosecutor. Kenneth Starr issued his final report

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Speaker 7: today on the death of former White House Deputy Council

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Speaker 7: Vince Foster and reaffirmed that Foster was depressed and committed suicide.

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Speaker 1: Bill Clinton had famously bragged on the campaign trail that

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Speaker 1: a vote for him was a vote for Hillary too.

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Speaker 11: I always say that that my slogan might well be

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Speaker 11: a buy one, get one free.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately for Hillary that seemed to mean that when it

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Speaker 1: came to scandal, she and her husband would also be

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Speaker 1: treated as a pair. During just the first two years

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Speaker 1: of Clinton's presidency, Hillary was implicated in Troopergate, which you've

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Speaker 1: heard about, Travelgate, in which Hillary was accused of funneling

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Speaker 1: government business to a travel agent friend, and Whitewater, which

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Speaker 1: concerned an Arkansas real estate deal for which she spent

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Speaker 1: four hours in front of a federal grand jury.

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Speaker 10: The White House today had little comment on the first

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Speaker 10: lady's grand jury appear runs, other than to say she

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Speaker 10: answered all questions and was not told she'd have to return.

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Speaker 1: When reports first surfaced about her husband's affair with a

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Speaker 1: former White House intern, Hillary Clinton blamed a vast right

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Speaker 1: wing conspiracy.

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Speaker 14: I mean, look at the very people who were involved

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Speaker 14: in this. They have popped up in other settings. The

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Speaker 14: great story here for anybody willing to find it and

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Speaker 14: write about it and explain it is this vast right

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Speaker 14: wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since

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Speaker 14: the day he announced for president.

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Speaker 1: At the time, independent counsel Ken Starr dismissed the idea

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Speaker 1: as nonsense, while the media portrayed Clinton as the woman

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Speaker 1: who cried conspiracy won too many times.

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Speaker 8: The first lady salvo appears to be a favorite Clinton tactic,

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Speaker 8: fired off in almost every scandal, from Jennifer Flowers to

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Speaker 8: Paula Jones to Whitewater.

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Speaker 11: Instead of his Clinton raising her antenna and circling the

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Speaker 11: country to find the source of our problems, she can

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Speaker 11: look at her own family and she'll find them right there.

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Speaker 1: The problem for the Clintons was that some of what

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Speaker 1: they were accused of turned out to be true. No,

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Speaker 1: they didn't have a kill list, but Bill Clinton did

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Speaker 1: have extramarital affairs that he consistently lied about. Also, the

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Speaker 1: Clinton's attempts to damage control in the face of scandal

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Speaker 1: often caused them to make decisions that looked suspicious and secretive.

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Speaker 12: I mean, both things ended up being true. There was

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Speaker 12: an affair with Monkolinsky, and there was a best right

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Speaker 12: wing conspiracy. So I think people said this is like

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Speaker 12: a delusional type of defense, and that she had possibly

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Speaker 12: deluded herself into thinking that the Lensky affair didn't happen.

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Speaker 12: But what got lost there was that both things were true.

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Speaker 12: Just because the allegations of the affair ended up being correct.

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Speaker 12: The way that all that was dug up was part

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Speaker 12: of the wrongful scheme.

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Speaker 1: Back in nineteen ninety four, Rockets started working on a

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Speaker 1: biography of Hillary Clinton. His friends all assumed it would

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Speaker 1: be a devastating takedown, but Brock found himself writing something

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Speaker 1: much milder. The book was almost generous to Clinton. Rock

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Speaker 1: called her intelligent, talented, ambitious, and very determined. After the

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Speaker 1: book was published, Brock found himself getting uninvited from dinner

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Speaker 1: parties and not getting booked by right wing radio hosts

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Speaker 1: like g Gordon Lyddy and Oliver North. This cold reception

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Speaker 1: wounded Brock and convinced him that his friends on the

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Speaker 1: right were just as unscrupulous about the truth as his

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Speaker 1: enemies on the left. Eventually, Brock came to regret his

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Speaker 1: work for the Arkansas Project, and in a piece for

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Speaker 1: Esquire magazine titled Confessions of a right Wing hit Man,

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Speaker 1: he described himself as having been bought and paid for

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Speaker 1: by the conservative movement. David Brock, the road warrior of

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Speaker 1: the right, is dead, he declared.

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Speaker 12: Part of what happened was I felt complicit in the lying,

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Speaker 12: the separation that I made from the right wing, and

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Speaker 12: the conversion that I had wasn't really around ideology, it

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Speaker 12: was around ethics.

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Speaker 1: In subsequent years, Brock made the most of his status

444
00:24:19,590 --> 00:24:23,191
Speaker 1: as an x right wing defector. In two thousand and four,

445
00:24:23,350 --> 00:24:27,431
Speaker 1: he founded Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group that scrutinized

446
00:24:27,431 --> 00:24:30,511
Speaker 1: the conservative media ecosystem. Brock had once been a part of.

447
00:24:31,551 --> 00:24:35,911
Speaker 1: That ecosystem had changed dramatically since the early nineties, mostly

448
00:24:35,991 --> 00:24:39,390
Speaker 1: due to the advent of Fox News. But when Hillary

449
00:24:39,431 --> 00:24:43,031
Speaker 1: Clinton became the focus of the Benghazi scandal, Brock got

450
00:24:43,071 --> 00:24:43,671
Speaker 1: deja vu.

451
00:24:44,671 --> 00:24:47,711
Speaker 12: The phrase that was used was Hillary lied, four died,

452
00:24:48,311 --> 00:24:51,991
Speaker 12: and so the idea that Hillary was a liar, she

453
00:24:52,110 --> 00:24:54,830
Speaker 12: covered things up. That was one of the through lines

454
00:24:54,830 --> 00:24:58,190
Speaker 12: in Benghazi. They were convinced that Hillary was hiding something,

455
00:24:58,751 --> 00:25:03,950
Speaker 12: going back to the Whitewater scandal and Vince Foster and

456
00:25:03,991 --> 00:25:06,430
Speaker 12: all the other things. It had those same themes. And

457
00:25:06,471 --> 00:25:10,631
Speaker 12: then the fact that every allegation kept getting knocked down, debunked,

458
00:25:10,671 --> 00:25:14,390
Speaker 12: and disproven didn't seem to slow it down. The facts

459
00:25:14,630 --> 00:25:16,670
Speaker 12: didn't matter, and it was hard to cut through the

460
00:25:16,711 --> 00:25:17,911
Speaker 12: fog of disinformation.

461
00:25:21,870 --> 00:25:25,350
Speaker 1: Brock was ready to deploy Media Matters as a countervailing force.

462
00:25:26,191 --> 00:25:29,590
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, the website dedicated a huge percentage of

463
00:25:29,590 --> 00:25:34,271
Speaker 1: its resources to monitoring Fox News' coverage of Benghazi. Their

464
00:25:34,311 --> 00:25:37,110
Speaker 1: goal was to delegitimize Fox's coverage in the eyes of

465
00:25:37,191 --> 00:25:40,710
Speaker 1: mainstream journalists who might otherwise feel compelled to match it

466
00:25:40,870 --> 00:25:41,951
Speaker 1: or amplify.

467
00:25:41,511 --> 00:25:46,031
Speaker 12: It, because you figure, you can't really change Fox itself,

468
00:25:46,590 --> 00:25:49,551
Speaker 12: but you could change how others viewed Fox so that

469
00:25:50,590 --> 00:25:53,670
Speaker 12: what happened with Whitewater didn't happen with Benghazi, that the

470
00:25:53,711 --> 00:25:56,390
Speaker 12: whole rest of the media became obsessed with it as well,

471
00:25:56,551 --> 00:25:59,071
Speaker 12: and then yeah, you'd never get out from under it.

472
00:26:00,231 --> 00:26:02,271
Speaker 1: Do you remember what your instructions were to your team

473
00:26:02,271 --> 00:26:05,190
Speaker 1: at Media Matters in terms of how to cover Benghazi.

474
00:26:05,671 --> 00:26:09,151
Speaker 12: The main thing was, there's nothing too small to address.

475
00:26:09,711 --> 00:26:18,190
Speaker 12: Every minor charge, any minor misrepresentation could end up mushrooming

476
00:26:18,511 --> 00:26:23,631
Speaker 12: and becoming quote a thing. So we had to be

477
00:26:24,110 --> 00:26:28,390
Speaker 12: very careful and listen very carefully, and be very attentive

478
00:26:28,511 --> 00:26:32,311
Speaker 12: to every sort of jot and tittle of what they

479
00:26:32,311 --> 00:26:35,230
Speaker 12: were saying, because you never knew what would get traction.

480
00:26:38,350 --> 00:26:42,631
Speaker 1: Just nine days after delivering her congressional testimony, Hillary Clinton said,

481
00:26:42,711 --> 00:26:44,671
Speaker 1: farewell to the State Department.

482
00:26:44,511 --> 00:26:49,471
Speaker 10: And I hope that you will continue to make yourselves,

483
00:26:50,350 --> 00:26:54,631
Speaker 10: make me and make our country proud. Thank you all,

484
00:26:54,671 --> 00:26:55,511
Speaker 10: and God bless you.

485
00:26:56,671 --> 00:26:59,350
Speaker 1: But no one expected her to leave the spotlight for long.

486
00:27:00,110 --> 00:27:03,351
Speaker 1: With the twenty sixteen election coming up, it was widely

487
00:27:03,431 --> 00:27:07,031
Speaker 1: understood that Clinton would soon start running for the Democratic nomination,

488
00:27:08,110 --> 00:27:11,430
Speaker 1: and so Clinton's handling of ben Gotta remained in the news,

489
00:27:12,031 --> 00:27:14,551
Speaker 1: where the scandal would go on to sprout yet another

490
00:27:14,671 --> 00:27:18,071
Speaker 1: new head, and this time there would be whistleblowers.

491
00:27:18,911 --> 00:27:22,750
Speaker 4: My husband and I were in Parpagnon, France. We were

492
00:27:22,830 --> 00:27:26,711
Speaker 4: right on the Mediterranean, and I awoke to my cell

493
00:27:26,751 --> 00:27:32,951
Speaker 4: phone with a big headline US ambassador murdered in Benghazi.

494
00:27:33,630 --> 00:27:37,271
Speaker 1: This is Victoria Tunsing. She's a lawyer who served in

495
00:27:37,271 --> 00:27:40,631
Speaker 1: the Justice Department during the Reagan administration before going into

496
00:27:40,711 --> 00:27:44,071
Speaker 1: private practice and making herself the go to attorney for

497
00:27:44,191 --> 00:27:48,830
Speaker 1: various Republican causes. Tunsing and her husband, a fellow lawyer

498
00:27:48,911 --> 00:27:52,350
Speaker 1: named Joe Degeneva, became media stars during the nineties as

499
00:27:52,431 --> 00:27:57,111
Speaker 1: legal commentators. In nineteen ninety eight, the Washington Post reported

500
00:27:57,150 --> 00:27:59,551
Speaker 1: that the couple had appeared on TV or in news

501
00:27:59,551 --> 00:28:02,991
Speaker 1: stories talking about the Clinton Lewinsky scandal more than three

502
00:28:03,110 --> 00:28:04,630
Speaker 1: hundred times in one month.

503
00:28:05,191 --> 00:28:08,630
Speaker 4: We have tapes where her voice to Lynda Tripp is

504
00:28:08,711 --> 00:28:13,511
Speaker 4: saying I had a sexual relationship, and most importantly, people

505
00:28:13,511 --> 00:28:16,151
Speaker 4: asked me to lie about it. Here is one more

506
00:28:16,191 --> 00:28:18,670
Speaker 4: person saying the president lied to me.

507
00:28:19,671 --> 00:28:22,670
Speaker 1: After the Benghazi attack, Tunsen got a phone call that

508
00:28:22,791 --> 00:28:24,231
Speaker 1: made her want to get involved.

509
00:28:24,630 --> 00:28:27,951
Speaker 4: I got a call the next day from a good

510
00:28:27,991 --> 00:28:30,430
Speaker 4: friend who I was supposed to meet in Paris, and

511
00:28:30,431 --> 00:28:32,351
Speaker 4: he says, I can't do it. These are my friends

512
00:28:32,630 --> 00:28:34,711
Speaker 4: who were murdered in Benghazi.

513
00:28:35,191 --> 00:28:38,671
Speaker 1: According to Tunsing, her friend, a former lawyer. The CIA

514
00:28:39,071 --> 00:28:40,991
Speaker 1: then told her something she never forgot.

515
00:28:41,511 --> 00:28:44,991
Speaker 4: He said, the government is lying to you. What they're

516
00:28:45,071 --> 00:28:46,751
Speaker 4: saying happened did not happen.

517
00:28:47,511 --> 00:28:50,311
Speaker 1: When Tunsing got back to Washington, she put out a

518
00:28:50,311 --> 00:28:52,831
Speaker 1: call on Capitol Hill saying she was willing to work

519
00:28:52,911 --> 00:28:56,111
Speaker 1: pro bono on behalf of anyone involved in the Benghazi story.

520
00:28:56,591 --> 00:28:59,230
Speaker 4: About a week later, I get a phone call, we

521
00:28:59,311 --> 00:29:02,551
Speaker 4: have a client for you to represent, and I find

522
00:29:02,591 --> 00:29:06,831
Speaker 4: out the person that needed representation was the DCM, called

523
00:29:06,831 --> 00:29:10,190
Speaker 4: the Deputy Chief of Mission, the number two person in

524
00:29:10,671 --> 00:29:11,351
Speaker 4: the embassy.

525
00:29:12,071 --> 00:29:15,071
Speaker 1: The Deputy Chief of Mission in Tripoli was Greg Hicks.

526
00:29:15,631 --> 00:29:17,751
Speaker 1: You first heard from him in episode three when he

527
00:29:17,791 --> 00:29:20,190
Speaker 1: was trying to reach Chris Stevens by phone as the

528
00:29:20,231 --> 00:29:24,751
Speaker 1: attack in Benghazi was unfolding. Later, when Hicks returned to

529
00:29:24,791 --> 00:29:27,631
Speaker 1: the United States, he was asked to step down from

530
00:29:27,631 --> 00:29:31,111
Speaker 1: his position in Libya. He agreed, but when he started

531
00:29:31,151 --> 00:29:34,151
Speaker 1: looking for another job at the State Department, he found

532
00:29:34,231 --> 00:29:36,551
Speaker 1: that no one seemed interested in working with him.

533
00:29:37,351 --> 00:29:40,791
Speaker 3: I walked the halls of the State Department looking for

534
00:29:41,351 --> 00:29:44,071
Speaker 3: a job. I would get an interview and there would

535
00:29:44,071 --> 00:29:47,271
Speaker 3: always be sad eyes, and they would listen and say,

536
00:29:47,511 --> 00:29:49,751
Speaker 3: you really have a great career. You've done a lot

537
00:29:49,751 --> 00:29:51,911
Speaker 3: of good things, and we could certainly use you in

538
00:29:51,951 --> 00:29:56,271
Speaker 3: this job, but we have another candidate. I'm sorry, and

539
00:29:56,591 --> 00:29:58,271
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of months later, I would look

540
00:29:58,271 --> 00:30:00,591
Speaker 3: at the available jobs list and it would still be open.

541
00:30:01,791 --> 00:30:04,471
Speaker 1: Hicks suspected that higher ups in the State Department were

542
00:30:04,511 --> 00:30:07,071
Speaker 1: blocking him from getting the jobs he was applying for.

543
00:30:07,951 --> 00:30:10,151
Speaker 1: He didn't know why exactly, but as far as as

544
00:30:10,151 --> 00:30:12,791
Speaker 1: he could figure, his problems could be traced back to

545
00:30:12,831 --> 00:30:18,071
Speaker 1: an incident involving a Republican Congressman, Jason Chaffits. This gets

546
00:30:18,111 --> 00:30:22,831
Speaker 1: slightly convoluted, so bear with me. Chafits was investigating Benghazi

547
00:30:22,951 --> 00:30:26,270
Speaker 1: as a member of the House Oversight Committee. Roughly a

548
00:30:26,311 --> 00:30:29,190
Speaker 1: month after the attack, he traveled to Libya's capital to

549
00:30:29,231 --> 00:30:32,591
Speaker 1: see the US embassy with his own eyes. Because of

550
00:30:32,671 --> 00:30:36,431
Speaker 1: Chaefitz's role in the House investigation, the State Department sent

551
00:30:36,471 --> 00:30:38,311
Speaker 1: one of its lawyers to sit in on all of

552
00:30:38,311 --> 00:30:42,271
Speaker 1: his conversations with embassy officials, but when Hicks took chafits

553
00:30:42,311 --> 00:30:45,311
Speaker 1: to meet with the local CIA station chief, the State

554
00:30:45,311 --> 00:30:48,071
Speaker 1: Department lawyer was not allowed to join because he didn't

555
00:30:48,111 --> 00:30:52,831
Speaker 1: have the necessary security clearance. Afterwards, Hicks says he received

556
00:30:52,831 --> 00:30:55,871
Speaker 1: a phone call from Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills,

557
00:30:56,231 --> 00:30:59,071
Speaker 1: who was well known as a loyal, longtime associate of

558
00:30:59,111 --> 00:30:59,671
Speaker 1: the Clintons.

559
00:31:00,351 --> 00:31:07,230
Speaker 3: She spoke for This is Clinton in many circumstances, so

560
00:31:07,831 --> 00:31:13,111
Speaker 3: everyone in the department knew that if Cheryl Mills was calling,

561
00:31:13,151 --> 00:31:18,271
Speaker 3: you set up straight and listened very carefully, because something

562
00:31:18,351 --> 00:31:21,871
Speaker 3: is going to be imparted to you. I was shaking

563
00:31:21,951 --> 00:31:22,991
Speaker 3: in my boots.

564
00:31:23,751 --> 00:31:27,071
Speaker 1: According to Hicks, Mills wanted to know what had happened

565
00:31:27,151 --> 00:31:30,871
Speaker 1: during Chaefitz's briefing with the CIA station chief, and though

566
00:31:30,911 --> 00:31:33,470
Speaker 1: Hicks says she never explicitly said, she was angry at

567
00:31:33,551 --> 00:31:35,710
Speaker 1: him for allowing the briefing to take place without the

568
00:31:35,711 --> 00:31:39,391
Speaker 1: State Department. Lawyer Hicks had no doubt she was furious.

569
00:31:40,191 --> 00:31:43,191
Speaker 3: It was in the tone of her voice. She was very,

570
00:31:43,271 --> 00:31:47,431
Speaker 3: very upset, and so in my view, this was a

571
00:31:47,511 --> 00:31:55,351
Speaker 3: concern that Jason Chafitz may have gained information that would

572
00:31:56,351 --> 00:32:00,591
Speaker 3: be released into the public debate leading up to the

573
00:32:00,631 --> 00:32:07,911
Speaker 3: presidential election. That is my interpretation of what was going on.

574
00:32:09,711 --> 00:32:12,671
Speaker 1: Later, when Hicks was back in Washington and struggling to

575
00:32:12,711 --> 00:32:15,470
Speaker 1: find a new position in the State Department, he thought

576
00:32:15,511 --> 00:32:18,031
Speaker 1: back to that phone call with Clinton's chief of staff

577
00:32:18,551 --> 00:32:20,911
Speaker 1: and concluded that it was the reason he was now

578
00:32:20,991 --> 00:32:25,311
Speaker 1: being blacklisted. Hicks thought he had marked himself in Clinton's

579
00:32:25,351 --> 00:32:28,511
Speaker 1: mind as someone who wasn't a team player, someone who

580
00:32:28,551 --> 00:32:31,391
Speaker 1: couldn't be counted on to defend the administration when called

581
00:32:31,431 --> 00:32:31,911
Speaker 1: to do so.

582
00:32:33,431 --> 00:32:35,231
Speaker 3: I became to think that all of this was being

583
00:32:35,471 --> 00:32:38,391
Speaker 3: driven from Hillary Clinton's perspective, even though she was out

584
00:32:38,431 --> 00:32:41,470
Speaker 3: of the administration by then, but also by the Obama administration.

585
00:32:41,591 --> 00:32:45,271
Speaker 3: They were afraid of me, and then they were creating

586
00:32:45,471 --> 00:32:49,511
Speaker 3: even greater fears in my own mind that I was

587
00:32:49,711 --> 00:32:52,551
Speaker 3: a threat to them, and I felt they were a

588
00:32:52,551 --> 00:32:54,631
Speaker 3: threat to me. I absolutely felt they were a threat

589
00:32:54,631 --> 00:33:00,031
Speaker 3: to me. It just becomes so negative in your own

590
00:33:00,071 --> 00:33:04,751
Speaker 3: mind that what can I do? Everything I do, I'm

591
00:33:04,751 --> 00:33:08,311
Speaker 3: being squashed like a bug. And on top of that,

592
00:33:08,391 --> 00:33:10,791
Speaker 3: by this time, I also was beginning to believe that

593
00:33:10,911 --> 00:33:17,431
Speaker 3: I was under surveillance. Over time, as I was walking

594
00:33:17,471 --> 00:33:20,190
Speaker 3: my dog at night, I noticed that there was constantly

595
00:33:20,271 --> 00:33:22,151
Speaker 3: a truck park at the end of my cul de

596
00:33:22,231 --> 00:33:24,311
Speaker 3: sac with the lights on point that at my house,

597
00:33:25,711 --> 00:33:28,831
Speaker 3: and I was like, well, where did that truck come from?

598
00:33:29,111 --> 00:33:30,351
Speaker 13: And what's he doing here?

599
00:33:32,591 --> 00:33:36,191
Speaker 3: And so you begin to have tricks.

600
00:33:35,911 --> 00:33:36,711
Speaker 13: Played in your mind.

601
00:33:36,751 --> 00:33:40,190
Speaker 3: I don't know whether that was surveillance or not, but

602
00:33:40,831 --> 00:33:41,471
Speaker 3: I came.

603
00:33:41,311 --> 00:33:43,351
Speaker 13: To believe that I was under surveillance.

604
00:33:44,271 --> 00:33:48,871
Speaker 1: Hicks's new lawyer, Victoria Tunsing, wasn't surprised by her client's experience.

605
00:33:49,431 --> 00:33:52,471
Speaker 4: This is what they do. Democrats have no problem doing

606
00:33:52,511 --> 00:33:55,991
Speaker 4: in a whistleblower. The whistleblower they don't like, they kill.

607
00:33:57,271 --> 00:34:01,470
Speaker 1: Tonsing could personally relate to Hicks's fears. Back in nineteen

608
00:34:01,551 --> 00:34:03,791
Speaker 1: ninety eight, when she and her husband were appearing on

609
00:34:03,831 --> 00:34:07,271
Speaker 1: TV to talk about the Clinton Lewinsky scandal. They came

610
00:34:07,311 --> 00:34:09,551
Speaker 1: to believe the White House was targeting them.

611
00:34:09,471 --> 00:34:12,631
Speaker 4: To when my husband and I were speaking out a

612
00:34:12,631 --> 00:34:17,511
Speaker 4: lot about the Clintons. They hired a private detective to

613
00:34:17,631 --> 00:34:20,671
Speaker 4: find out anything about us, but they couldn't find anything.

614
00:34:21,511 --> 00:34:24,790
Speaker 1: At the time, Tunsing's husband made a similar claim during

615
00:34:24,831 --> 00:34:26,631
Speaker 1: an interview on Meet the Press.

616
00:34:26,230 --> 00:34:30,871
Speaker 7: Deputies, Republican attorney Joe Degeneva, a commentator who defends Starr,

617
00:34:31,071 --> 00:34:33,551
Speaker 7: says he was told he's being investigated too.

618
00:34:33,710 --> 00:34:36,790
Speaker 1: That is truly a frightening, frightening development. It was a

619
00:34:36,791 --> 00:34:40,391
Speaker 1: spectacular enough charge that the White House felt compelled to respond.

620
00:34:40,791 --> 00:34:45,710
Speaker 7: You don't retain private investigators that go Snooper ran about prosecutors,

621
00:34:45,750 --> 00:34:47,511
Speaker 7: reporters or Joe Dejenneva.

622
00:34:49,230 --> 00:34:53,031
Speaker 1: Now, at the height of the Bengazi scandal, Tunsing's client

623
00:34:53,190 --> 00:34:57,190
Speaker 1: Greg Hicks, also suspected he was being watched, and as

624
00:34:57,190 --> 00:35:00,071
Speaker 1: he explained to me, the person he was thinking about

625
00:35:00,351 --> 00:35:03,231
Speaker 1: was Vince Foster. Did you fear for your life?

626
00:35:04,031 --> 00:35:07,591
Speaker 13: I did when the surveillance started. I was very concerned.

627
00:35:08,671 --> 00:35:11,831
Speaker 3: The Vince Foss story was well known. I knew of

628
00:35:11,991 --> 00:35:16,831
Speaker 3: what had happened to him, and I was concerned that

629
00:35:16,831 --> 00:35:20,071
Speaker 3: that I might be on a list for elimination.

630
00:35:21,391 --> 00:35:23,991
Speaker 13: I was literally afraid from my life.

631
00:35:24,270 --> 00:35:27,431
Speaker 3: You get to a point where just you become desperate,

632
00:35:29,831 --> 00:35:33,790
Speaker 3: and so at this point I felt my only way

633
00:35:33,831 --> 00:35:37,310
Speaker 3: out was to come forward and testify.

634
00:35:37,351 --> 00:35:40,431
Speaker 1: And so in May of twenty thirteen, after more than

635
00:35:40,471 --> 00:35:43,270
Speaker 1: twenty five years as a State Department employee with no

636
00:35:43,391 --> 00:35:48,351
Speaker 1: public profile, Greg Hicks stepped into the spotlight. By this point,

637
00:35:48,511 --> 00:35:51,471
Speaker 1: Fox News had spent two weeks talking about the anonymous

638
00:35:51,511 --> 00:35:54,311
Speaker 1: whistleblowers getting ready to come out against the State Department.

639
00:35:55,151 --> 00:35:59,991
Speaker 1: As Hicks's representative, Victoria Tunsing made the most of the anticipation.

640
00:35:59,951 --> 00:36:03,551
Speaker 15: Well, let me just tell you that, knowing the unclassified

641
00:36:03,591 --> 00:36:09,991
Speaker 15: information is, there are inconsistent facts with what the administer

642
00:36:10,431 --> 00:36:10,830
Speaker 15: has said.

643
00:36:10,991 --> 00:36:12,750
Speaker 13: Can you sure any one of those with us?

644
00:36:12,951 --> 00:36:13,750
Speaker 12: No, I can't be.

645
00:36:13,991 --> 00:36:16,471
Speaker 4: I just can't, you know, be glad to come back here.

646
00:36:16,591 --> 00:36:19,671
Speaker 1: But in early May it was announced that the House

647
00:36:19,710 --> 00:36:22,551
Speaker 1: Oversight Committee would hold a hearing to interview Hicks and

648
00:36:22,591 --> 00:36:25,951
Speaker 1: three others. Among them was a former marine in the

649
00:36:25,951 --> 00:36:29,790
Speaker 1: State Department's Bureau of Counter Terrorism, who conveniently was being

650
00:36:29,831 --> 00:36:34,431
Speaker 1: represented by Victoria Tunsing's husband. At Fox News, the emergence

651
00:36:34,431 --> 00:36:37,191
Speaker 1: of the whistleblowers was treated with unrestrained excitement.

652
00:36:37,270 --> 00:36:39,230
Speaker 6: Well, guess what, there's four whistleblowers now.

653
00:36:39,270 --> 00:36:42,031
Speaker 10: Who say that they have new information about Benghazi and

654
00:36:42,111 --> 00:36:45,511
Speaker 10: what exactly happened that night and the county is.

655
00:36:45,591 --> 00:36:48,390
Speaker 1: The big ticket items expected from Hicks centered on two

656
00:36:48,471 --> 00:36:52,831
Speaker 1: separate points. First that the US military didn't do everything

657
00:36:52,871 --> 00:36:56,711
Speaker 1: it could to help the Americans in Benghazi, and second

658
00:36:57,111 --> 00:37:00,671
Speaker 1: that Hicks knew it was a terrorist attack immediately, even

659
00:37:00,710 --> 00:37:03,351
Speaker 1: as the Obama administration was going on about an anti

660
00:37:03,471 --> 00:37:09,431
Speaker 1: Islamic video. Tunsing promised fireworks on heraldo at large, she

661
00:37:09,511 --> 00:37:11,911
Speaker 1: and her husband and delivered what was essentially a promo

662
00:37:12,071 --> 00:37:13,391
Speaker 1: for their client's testimony.

663
00:37:13,791 --> 00:37:18,631
Speaker 2: This purported testimony is a game changer. Is it fair

664
00:37:18,791 --> 00:37:23,830
Speaker 2: to say that your clients will debunk the notion that

665
00:37:23,951 --> 00:37:28,791
Speaker 2: the scurreless anti Muslim video is what precipitated the violence

666
00:37:28,831 --> 00:37:32,151
Speaker 2: in Benghazi without a doubt, without a doubt.

667
00:37:32,431 --> 00:37:35,310
Speaker 4: This is cover up, one oh one, without a doubt.

668
00:37:35,351 --> 00:37:36,391
Speaker 4: That's why we got involved.

669
00:37:38,351 --> 00:37:41,190
Speaker 1: Greg Hicks told me that having an advocate as aggressive

670
00:37:41,190 --> 00:37:43,831
Speaker 1: as Victoria Tunsing made him feel less afraid.

671
00:37:44,831 --> 00:37:47,271
Speaker 3: It was a big watershed when I made the decision

672
00:37:47,351 --> 00:37:50,591
Speaker 3: to go forward and be a whistleblower, and with Victoria

673
00:37:50,591 --> 00:37:56,710
Speaker 3: as my attorney. Victoria is such a confident person in

674
00:37:57,071 --> 00:38:01,031
Speaker 3: such an accomplished lawyer that I just began to feel safer,

675
00:38:01,551 --> 00:38:04,151
Speaker 3: and I began to feel better that I was on

676
00:38:04,230 --> 00:38:07,230
Speaker 3: the right track, that I was doing the right thing.

677
00:38:07,671 --> 00:38:13,671
Speaker 3: She was instrumental in respect during my own natural self confidence.

678
00:38:14,351 --> 00:38:17,031
Speaker 1: I asked Hicks if he ever worried that associating himself

679
00:38:17,031 --> 00:38:20,230
Speaker 1: with Tunsing, with her long record of anti Clinton activism,

680
00:38:20,431 --> 00:38:24,230
Speaker 1: would undermine his credibility as a witness. He told me

681
00:38:24,311 --> 00:38:26,631
Speaker 1: he had barely thought about it, even if others did.

682
00:38:26,750 --> 00:38:29,831
Speaker 9: To an extent, I am fascinated by the sudden appearance

683
00:38:29,871 --> 00:38:33,911
Speaker 9: in the Benghazi story of Joseph Degeneva and Victoria Tensing,

684
00:38:34,311 --> 00:38:36,471
Speaker 9: who were two of the real stars of the anti

685
00:38:36,511 --> 00:38:39,031
Speaker 9: Clinton legal community in the nineteen nineties. When you want

686
00:38:39,031 --> 00:38:41,071
Speaker 9: to keep a scandal ginned up, you go to the pros.

687
00:38:41,111 --> 00:38:44,111
Speaker 1: Eventually, in the days leading up to the whistleblower hearing,

688
00:38:44,591 --> 00:38:47,591
Speaker 1: Fox News built up the anticipation, much like they did

689
00:38:47,631 --> 00:38:49,591
Speaker 1: with Clinton's testimony in January.

690
00:38:49,831 --> 00:38:51,911
Speaker 5: It was a well guarded secret. But we now know

691
00:38:52,031 --> 00:38:55,871
Speaker 5: the identities of the ben Ghazi whistleblowers, So will we

692
00:38:55,951 --> 00:38:58,551
Speaker 5: finally get answers about what happened?

693
00:38:58,631 --> 00:39:01,951
Speaker 1: We have nuans Even Alison Camarada, the reluctant weekend host

694
00:39:01,991 --> 00:39:05,391
Speaker 1: of Fox and Friends was excited to hear the whistleblower's account.

695
00:39:05,631 --> 00:39:08,551
Speaker 6: I thought, ooh good, this will be interesting. Like now

696
00:39:08,591 --> 00:39:10,831
Speaker 6: I'm going to hear what happened.

697
00:39:11,031 --> 00:39:18,790
Speaker 1: Finally, the hearing had come to order. Greg Hicks test

698
00:39:18,791 --> 00:39:21,071
Speaker 1: to fight in front of the Oversight Committee on Wednesday,

699
00:39:21,151 --> 00:39:26,270
Speaker 1: May eighth, twenty thirteen. The hearing was titled Benghazi Exposing

700
00:39:26,311 --> 00:39:30,991
Speaker 1: Failure and Recognizing Courage. Hicks was billed as the star witness.

701
00:39:31,831 --> 00:39:34,511
Speaker 3: I'm glad my bladder was much stronger in those days

702
00:39:34,511 --> 00:39:37,870
Speaker 3: because I literally sat in the same chair for six

703
00:39:37,911 --> 00:39:39,430
Speaker 3: and a half hours.

704
00:39:40,071 --> 00:39:43,151
Speaker 1: In his opening statement, Hicks spent a full half hour

705
00:39:43,270 --> 00:39:47,471
Speaker 1: recounting his experience on the night of the attack. Under questioning,

706
00:39:47,591 --> 00:39:50,190
Speaker 1: he expressed his belief that if military planes had been

707
00:39:50,230 --> 00:39:53,111
Speaker 1: sent to Benghazi that night, it was possible they could

708
00:39:53,151 --> 00:39:57,111
Speaker 1: have deterred the mortar attack on the CIA annex. Hicks

709
00:39:57,151 --> 00:39:59,951
Speaker 1: also described his reaction when he saw Susan Rice on

710
00:39:59,991 --> 00:40:03,710
Speaker 1: the Sunday shows, saying the attack had grown spontaneously out

711
00:40:03,710 --> 00:40:04,431
Speaker 1: of a protest.

712
00:40:04,911 --> 00:40:11,631
Speaker 3: I was stunned, my jaw dropped, and I was embarrassed.

713
00:40:12,710 --> 00:40:15,111
Speaker 1: There was one detail that stood out from the rest

714
00:40:15,111 --> 00:40:18,230
Speaker 1: of Hicks's testimony. It had to do with a decision

715
00:40:18,391 --> 00:40:20,430
Speaker 1: made on the night of the attack by the US

716
00:40:20,551 --> 00:40:26,310
Speaker 1: military's Central Command for Africa AFRICAM for short. Hicks testified

717
00:40:26,311 --> 00:40:29,031
Speaker 1: that a team of four Special Forces officers based in

718
00:40:29,071 --> 00:40:31,951
Speaker 1: Tripoli had been ready to get on a plane to Benghazi,

719
00:40:32,151 --> 00:40:35,111
Speaker 1: only to be told by someone at AFRICAM not to go.

720
00:40:36,111 --> 00:40:36,310
Speaker 3: Now.

721
00:40:36,391 --> 00:40:38,991
Speaker 1: Once again, this gets a little tricky, but as you

722
00:40:39,031 --> 00:40:42,551
Speaker 1: may recall, one team of agents from Tripoli did fly

723
00:40:42,671 --> 00:40:45,551
Speaker 1: to Benghazi during the attack. In fact, one of them

724
00:40:45,591 --> 00:40:48,871
Speaker 1: was killed at the CIA Annex. The team Hicks was

725
00:40:48,911 --> 00:40:52,351
Speaker 1: talking about in his testimony was separate. They were getting

726
00:40:52,391 --> 00:40:55,111
Speaker 1: ready to fly to Benghazi much later, closer to six

727
00:40:55,190 --> 00:40:59,991
Speaker 1: a m. After the attack was essentially over. But Hicks

728
00:40:59,991 --> 00:41:01,951
Speaker 1: saw the decision to keep them in Tripoli as a

729
00:41:01,951 --> 00:41:05,631
Speaker 1: grave mistake. As he put it, there was every reason

730
00:41:05,631 --> 00:41:08,271
Speaker 1: to continue to believe that our personnel were in danger.

731
00:41:10,270 --> 00:41:14,111
Speaker 1: Here's how Congressman Jason Chafitz asked about afrikam's decision to

732
00:41:14,151 --> 00:41:16,151
Speaker 1: hold back the Special Forces in Tripoli.

733
00:41:16,591 --> 00:41:19,671
Speaker 7: How did the personnel react at being told to stand down?

734
00:41:21,591 --> 00:41:26,071
Speaker 16: They were furious. Well, I will quote Lieutenant Colonel Gibson.

735
00:41:26,431 --> 00:41:29,951
Speaker 16: He said, this is the first time in my career

736
00:41:29,991 --> 00:41:32,831
Speaker 16: that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.

737
00:41:33,671 --> 00:41:37,750
Speaker 1: Hicks himself never used the phrase stand down order, and

738
00:41:37,791 --> 00:41:40,431
Speaker 1: he told me that he never thought the term was accurate.

739
00:41:41,351 --> 00:41:45,071
Speaker 1: But during the hearing, Republicans used the phrase repeatedly.

740
00:41:44,911 --> 00:41:46,631
Speaker 3: Where'd the standown order come from?

741
00:41:46,911 --> 00:41:50,071
Speaker 1: I believe it came from, and Hicks did not correct them.

742
00:41:50,111 --> 00:41:53,430
Speaker 16: Either Africom or South Africa, now I understanding is a general.

743
00:41:53,551 --> 00:41:56,350
Speaker 1: When the hearing ended, Hicks felt like he had done

744
00:41:56,391 --> 00:41:59,271
Speaker 1: his part to bring the truth about Benghazi to the public.

745
00:41:59,391 --> 00:42:04,071
Speaker 12: So with that, this hearing is closed, but this investigation

746
00:42:04,230 --> 00:42:04,830
Speaker 12: is not over.

747
00:42:06,351 --> 00:42:09,391
Speaker 3: I remember walking out of the ray Burn Building feeling

748
00:42:09,471 --> 00:42:12,951
Speaker 3: like the weight of the world had lifted from my shoulders.

749
00:42:14,391 --> 00:42:17,151
Speaker 3: I felt very good about what I'd said and about

750
00:42:17,431 --> 00:42:18,910
Speaker 3: how the hearing had transpired.

751
00:42:19,750 --> 00:42:23,591
Speaker 1: On MSNBC, the verdict was that Hicks's testimony had not

752
00:42:23,750 --> 00:42:26,991
Speaker 1: revealed much in the way of new informations. Fox News

753
00:42:27,071 --> 00:42:30,631
Speaker 1: was all geared up today to really capture the outrage.

754
00:42:30,871 --> 00:42:34,671
Speaker 1: It's been endless politicization, and today this was their blockbuster,

755
00:42:34,750 --> 00:42:37,430
Speaker 1: this was their watergate, and by two o'clock people were

756
00:42:37,471 --> 00:42:40,790
Speaker 1: like changing the chance but on Fox News, the big

757
00:42:40,831 --> 00:42:42,750
Speaker 1: takeaway was stand down order.

758
00:42:43,031 --> 00:42:45,710
Speaker 3: They were told to stand down. What do you mean

759
00:42:45,791 --> 00:42:47,951
Speaker 3: stand down? They're invading the place.

760
00:42:47,951 --> 00:42:49,870
Speaker 10: Who told the military to stand down?

761
00:42:49,991 --> 00:42:51,310
Speaker 3: You're telling people to stand down?

762
00:42:51,351 --> 00:42:52,351
Speaker 12: You have no idea when.

763
00:42:52,230 --> 00:42:52,990
Speaker 3: The attack ends.

764
00:42:53,911 --> 00:42:57,191
Speaker 1: Media matters. David Brock's website found that in the weeks

765
00:42:57,230 --> 00:43:02,071
Speaker 1: after Hicks's testimony, Fox's primetime programming mentioned the standown order

766
00:43:02,151 --> 00:43:05,750
Speaker 1: at least eighty five times. It didn't matter that the

767
00:43:05,750 --> 00:43:08,270
Speaker 1: team of Special Forces officers that was held back in

768
00:43:08,311 --> 00:43:10,991
Speaker 1: Tripoli wouldn't have gotten to bend Gaussie and time to

769
00:43:11,031 --> 00:43:13,871
Speaker 1: stand up to anyone. The fact that they could have

770
00:43:13,911 --> 00:43:18,671
Speaker 1: been sent and weren't was enough. Hicks's testimony reinforced an

771
00:43:18,671 --> 00:43:21,230
Speaker 1: idea that had been circulating in various forms since the

772
00:43:21,270 --> 00:43:25,391
Speaker 1: attack that the Obama administration had made a deliberate decision

773
00:43:25,871 --> 00:43:31,831
Speaker 1: not to rescue Chris Stevens and the others. Among the

774
00:43:31,871 --> 00:43:34,911
Speaker 1: Fox News anchors who talked about the standdown order was

775
00:43:34,951 --> 00:43:37,071
Speaker 1: Allison Camarata.

776
00:43:36,431 --> 00:43:38,230
Speaker 5: Right, So, I mean a shocking revelation. That was a

777
00:43:38,270 --> 00:43:43,111
Speaker 5: particularly stunning moment on Wednesday at the hearings, because either

778
00:43:43,151 --> 00:43:45,511
Speaker 5: we don't have contingency plans in place, I mean, I

779
00:43:45,511 --> 00:43:48,511
Speaker 5: think it is an American's assumption that the reason that

780
00:43:48,591 --> 00:43:53,031
Speaker 5: we have military stationed around the world is for events

781
00:43:53,270 --> 00:43:56,671
Speaker 5: like this, that when something terrible is going down, that we,

782
00:43:56,871 --> 00:44:01,230
Speaker 5: in a moment's notice, can at least attempt a rescue

783
00:44:01,431 --> 00:44:02,791
Speaker 5: of our fellowtail.

784
00:44:03,151 --> 00:44:06,710
Speaker 1: This is Camarata on Fox and Friends Weekend, raising questions

785
00:44:06,710 --> 00:44:09,751
Speaker 1: about the standdown order the Sunday after Hicks's hearing.

786
00:44:10,351 --> 00:44:12,470
Speaker 5: Right now, the next question, of course, by the way,

787
00:44:12,631 --> 00:44:16,230
Speaker 5: should have been, or is now today, who gave that

788
00:44:16,551 --> 00:44:20,231
Speaker 5: order to stand down? Who was it that said don't

789
00:44:20,270 --> 00:44:22,991
Speaker 5: send help to our people who were under attack?

790
00:44:23,391 --> 00:44:29,350
Speaker 6: Of who gave the stand down order? Became the catchphrase

791
00:44:29,431 --> 00:44:32,830
Speaker 6: that just kept on giving. It embodied all of it,

792
00:44:32,951 --> 00:44:39,511
Speaker 6: the outrage, the tragedy, the mystery. It just had it all.

793
00:44:39,871 --> 00:44:43,310
Speaker 6: It never got old. And I was very interested in

794
00:44:43,351 --> 00:44:45,871
Speaker 6: who gave the standown order. That was something that really

795
00:44:46,671 --> 00:44:49,551
Speaker 6: intrigued me and piqued my interest, and I wanted to

796
00:44:49,551 --> 00:44:52,390
Speaker 6: get to the bottom of it. And then during the

797
00:44:52,431 --> 00:44:58,111
Speaker 6: testimony it's clear that there was no standdown order given,

798
00:44:58,391 --> 00:45:03,830
Speaker 6: and that comes up and people debunk it, but it

799
00:45:03,871 --> 00:45:09,031
Speaker 6: never went away. At Fox, it was too valuable to

800
00:45:09,071 --> 00:45:12,151
Speaker 6: get rid of because that kept the viewers watching.

801
00:45:14,190 --> 00:45:17,870
Speaker 1: The phrase standdown order went through a strange evolution over

802
00:45:17,911 --> 00:45:21,350
Speaker 1: the course of the Benghazi scandal. It was almost like

803
00:45:21,391 --> 00:45:24,991
Speaker 1: it got detached from any one specific situation and started

804
00:45:25,031 --> 00:45:27,871
Speaker 1: getting used to refer to a bunch of different decisions

805
00:45:27,871 --> 00:45:31,151
Speaker 1: that were made on the night of the attack. For instance,

806
00:45:31,351 --> 00:45:34,591
Speaker 1: you might recall from episode three that the Benghazi CIA

807
00:45:34,710 --> 00:45:37,671
Speaker 1: station chief hesitated to send his men to the diplomatic

808
00:45:37,710 --> 00:45:40,831
Speaker 1: compound when they first got the distress call, and that

809
00:45:40,951 --> 00:45:45,231
Speaker 1: eventually they overruled him and just took off. Fox News

810
00:45:45,311 --> 00:45:48,111
Speaker 1: was calling that a standdown order as early as October

811
00:45:48,111 --> 00:45:52,151
Speaker 1: of twenty twelve. Separately, there was the decision not to

812
00:45:52,190 --> 00:45:54,591
Speaker 1: send jets to Benghazi from Italy because it would have

813
00:45:54,631 --> 00:45:57,631
Speaker 1: taken them too long to get there. That was referred

814
00:45:57,631 --> 00:46:01,671
Speaker 1: to as a stand down order too. After Hicks's testimony,

815
00:46:01,911 --> 00:46:04,190
Speaker 1: the phrase started being used in reference to that six

816
00:46:04,270 --> 00:46:07,671
Speaker 1: a m decision in Tripoli, and against the backdrop of

817
00:46:07,710 --> 00:46:11,190
Speaker 1: the other stand down orders, it just kind of tract.

818
00:46:13,911 --> 00:46:14,750
Speaker 13: And I'm curistic.

819
00:46:14,991 --> 00:46:16,951
Speaker 1: Were you conscious of at the time that there was

820
00:46:16,991 --> 00:46:19,551
Speaker 1: a sort of conflation happening around this term stand doown order?

821
00:46:21,270 --> 00:46:26,031
Speaker 6: You are way overthinking this. Once you have a handy slogan,

822
00:46:26,831 --> 00:46:31,190
Speaker 6: don't try to dissect it too closely, Like, all you

823
00:46:31,351 --> 00:46:35,191
Speaker 6: need to know is that somebody gave a standown order.

824
00:46:35,591 --> 00:46:40,591
Speaker 6: And maybe it's the CIA, maybe it's Hillary Clinton, maybe

825
00:46:40,591 --> 00:46:44,430
Speaker 6: it was President Obama, maybe it was Africom. But there

826
00:46:44,511 --> 00:46:47,271
Speaker 6: was a standown order. So the fact that it morphed

827
00:46:47,270 --> 00:46:51,350
Speaker 6: from one to the other, that's just a little consequence.

828
00:46:52,190 --> 00:46:54,790
Speaker 6: You just got to keep repeating it and repeating it

829
00:46:54,831 --> 00:46:55,831
Speaker 6: and repeating it.

830
00:46:55,991 --> 00:46:58,031
Speaker 5: Right, There's still so many questions. I mean, who gave

831
00:46:58,071 --> 00:47:00,591
Speaker 5: the order to stand down instead of trying to help?

832
00:47:00,631 --> 00:47:05,031
Speaker 5: And now who is looking for the perpetrators? Why hasn't

833
00:47:05,071 --> 00:47:06,431
Speaker 5: anyone been prosecuted?

834
00:47:06,471 --> 00:47:07,511
Speaker 6: Where is the justice?

835
00:47:07,551 --> 00:47:10,310
Speaker 5: We allow this to happen without justice? Is that who

836
00:47:10,311 --> 00:47:12,671
Speaker 5: we are now as a country when we have this.

837
00:47:12,871 --> 00:47:16,471
Speaker 1: Camarata's first show after the hearing coincided with Mother's Day.

838
00:47:17,311 --> 00:47:20,270
Speaker 1: To mark the occasion, Camarada's producers played a clip from

839
00:47:20,311 --> 00:47:23,111
Speaker 1: an interview with Patricia Smith, the mother of the IT

840
00:47:23,431 --> 00:47:26,871
Speaker 1: specialist who was killed in Benghazi, alongside Ambassador Stevens.

841
00:47:27,631 --> 00:47:31,111
Speaker 8: I want to wish Hillary a happy Mother's Day. She's

842
00:47:31,190 --> 00:47:34,710
Speaker 8: got her child. I don't have mine because of her.

843
00:47:34,911 --> 00:47:35,750
Speaker 8: I know that In the.

844
00:47:35,710 --> 00:47:39,311
Speaker 1: Months after the attack, Smith appeared on Fox News multiple

845
00:47:39,351 --> 00:47:42,991
Speaker 1: times speaking out about her son and her frustration with

846
00:47:43,031 --> 00:47:45,391
Speaker 1: those she believed were responsible for his death.

847
00:47:45,591 --> 00:47:49,270
Speaker 8: But the government doesn't care. They don't care about us

848
00:47:49,311 --> 00:47:51,631
Speaker 8: people at all. All they have to do is tell

849
00:47:51,671 --> 00:47:54,071
Speaker 8: me what happened, and I would have gone away, but

850
00:47:54,111 --> 00:47:58,190
Speaker 8: they didn't even bother. I was an unimportant person and

851
00:47:58,230 --> 00:48:00,991
Speaker 8: now I'm an unimportant person that doesn't have a child

852
00:48:01,951 --> 00:48:05,471
Speaker 8: for Mother's Day, and I'm I feel it so deeply.

853
00:48:06,511 --> 00:48:09,231
Speaker 8: They cannot understand how I feel.

854
00:48:10,190 --> 00:48:13,951
Speaker 5: That's heartbreaking, heartbreaking to hear on Mother's Day. But obviously

855
00:48:13,991 --> 00:48:17,351
Speaker 5: the victims' families are not satisfied and they want more answers.

856
00:48:17,871 --> 00:48:20,071
Speaker 6: Her grief was raw. Her grief was raw, and it

857
00:48:20,111 --> 00:48:23,230
Speaker 6: never got less raw. She just became this kind of

858
00:48:23,351 --> 00:48:29,151
Speaker 6: go to victim. I guess that Fox could keep exploiting

859
00:48:29,951 --> 00:48:38,351
Speaker 6: and holding up as this personification of grief, and I

860
00:48:38,351 --> 00:48:43,431
Speaker 6: found it really uncomfortable. And I did hope that she

861
00:48:43,551 --> 00:48:46,111
Speaker 6: got answers, you know, I mean, I could never have

862
00:48:46,190 --> 00:48:49,071
Speaker 6: said on the air, Wow, we're really exploiting her. I

863
00:48:50,031 --> 00:48:53,350
Speaker 6: just think that I did the best I could.

864
00:48:57,190 --> 00:48:59,710
Speaker 3: Was there a distance for you internally about that? And

865
00:48:59,831 --> 00:49:01,551
Speaker 3: did that contribute to your decision to leave?

866
00:49:02,710 --> 00:49:02,910
Speaker 8: Oh?

867
00:49:02,951 --> 00:49:05,671
Speaker 6: Every day, every day, But I mean it wasn't just Benghazi.

868
00:49:05,750 --> 00:49:09,871
Speaker 6: I mean every day I wrestled with being at Fox,

869
00:49:09,871 --> 00:49:15,270
Speaker 6: and I tried to leave many times, and Roger blocked me,

870
00:49:15,591 --> 00:49:19,310
Speaker 6: and I felt trapped. I still needed my paycheck. I'm

871
00:49:19,351 --> 00:49:22,511
Speaker 6: tap dancing pretty hard on the air, and I'm trying

872
00:49:22,551 --> 00:49:26,031
Speaker 6: to preserve my integrity. But you know, some days were

873
00:49:26,031 --> 00:49:29,391
Speaker 6: harder than others. I mean, it's just really unpleasant to

874
00:49:29,431 --> 00:49:32,830
Speaker 6: be part of that outrage factory. I didn't like it,

875
00:49:33,431 --> 00:49:36,351
Speaker 6: and I tried in my own meager ways to either

876
00:49:36,391 --> 00:49:39,750
Speaker 6: make it not an outrage factory, or to present a

877
00:49:39,750 --> 00:49:42,431
Speaker 6: different position, or to be the voice of reason, or

878
00:49:42,471 --> 00:49:46,191
Speaker 6: to add levity. I tried to deploy lots of different

879
00:49:46,311 --> 00:49:49,991
Speaker 6: coping mechanisms, and then at some point right after this,

880
00:49:50,871 --> 00:49:51,750
Speaker 6: they just ran out.

881
00:49:54,471 --> 00:50:02,470
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Camarata left Fox News in March

882
00:50:02,511 --> 00:50:06,190
Speaker 1: of twenty fourteen. At her new job at CNN, she

883
00:50:06,230 --> 00:50:09,391
Speaker 1: doesn't remember being asked to do any Benghazi coverage. The

884
00:50:09,471 --> 00:50:12,111
Speaker 1: fact that re a broader reluctance on the part of

885
00:50:12,151 --> 00:50:14,791
Speaker 1: the mainstream media to treat the attack as a scandal.

886
00:50:15,591 --> 00:50:17,871
Speaker 1: That's not to say that Fox was the only outlet

887
00:50:17,911 --> 00:50:20,951
Speaker 1: covering it. In just the month following the attack, The

888
00:50:20,991 --> 00:50:25,391
Speaker 1: New York Times put it on its front page eighteen times. Meanwhile,

889
00:50:25,431 --> 00:50:28,671
Speaker 1: two of the broadcast networks, CBS and ABC were so

890
00:50:28,831 --> 00:50:30,591
Speaker 1: eager to get in on the action that they ended

891
00:50:30,671 --> 00:50:33,951
Speaker 1: up airing stories that had to be retracted or substantially corrected.

892
00:50:34,911 --> 00:50:38,591
Speaker 15: The most important thing to every person at sixty minutes

893
00:50:39,071 --> 00:50:42,591
Speaker 15: is the truth, and the truth is we made a mistake.

894
00:50:43,671 --> 00:50:47,350
Speaker 1: Still, by far, the most expansive coverage of Benghazi came

895
00:50:47,391 --> 00:50:51,471
Speaker 1: from Fox News and other conservative outlets. According to David Brock,

896
00:50:51,710 --> 00:50:53,870
Speaker 1: this was a result of how much the media had

897
00:50:53,951 --> 00:50:57,111
Speaker 1: changed since the nineties and how much more awareness there

898
00:50:57,190 --> 00:50:59,991
Speaker 1: was and the part of mainstream journalists about how scandal

899
00:51:00,031 --> 00:51:00,831
Speaker 1: laundering worked.

900
00:51:01,831 --> 00:51:06,831
Speaker 12: My sense of it was by that point, because Fox

901
00:51:06,871 --> 00:51:09,671
Speaker 12: News was beating the drums so hard on it, it

902
00:51:10,311 --> 00:51:14,111
Speaker 12: had the inverse effect, and there was more skepticism in

903
00:51:14,151 --> 00:51:17,270
Speaker 12: the main media about picking it up because it had

904
00:51:17,270 --> 00:51:20,431
Speaker 12: been such a Fox phenomenon, And so I think it

905
00:51:20,511 --> 00:51:23,711
Speaker 12: was very different than what went on in the nineties,

906
00:51:23,750 --> 00:51:28,750
Speaker 12: when the path to getting something from a place like

907
00:51:28,791 --> 00:51:33,511
Speaker 12: The Spectator onto CNN was much easier.

908
00:51:34,951 --> 00:51:38,031
Speaker 1: Brock says that Benghazi was fueled by the same forces

909
00:51:38,311 --> 00:51:41,751
Speaker 1: and in many cases the same individuals that drove earlier

910
00:51:41,750 --> 00:51:44,270
Speaker 1: Clinton scandals like Whitewater and Troopergate.

911
00:51:45,671 --> 00:51:50,310
Speaker 12: The Clinton scandals, in the end, in my opinion, end

912
00:51:50,431 --> 00:51:54,511
Speaker 12: up having very little to do with the details. You know,

913
00:51:54,551 --> 00:51:57,111
Speaker 12: I think there's a direct line from what happened in

914
00:51:57,111 --> 00:52:02,190
Speaker 12: the nineteen nineties to twenty sixteen, and there was always

915
00:52:02,270 --> 00:52:07,910
Speaker 12: something that was beyond just normal politics about the way

916
00:52:07,951 --> 00:52:09,071
Speaker 12: they went after the Clintons.

917
00:52:10,071 --> 00:52:13,431
Speaker 1: What would you say was animating people like Victoria Tenzing.

918
00:52:14,031 --> 00:52:17,591
Speaker 12: I can't say for her exactly, but I can say

919
00:52:17,671 --> 00:52:21,471
Speaker 12: that there was kind of a joy in the hunt.

920
00:52:21,750 --> 00:52:25,350
Speaker 12: I guess you could see that too, that they were

921
00:52:26,831 --> 00:52:30,671
Speaker 12: in times of triumph, deliriously happy when they were able

922
00:52:30,671 --> 00:52:31,111
Speaker 12: to score.

923
00:52:32,991 --> 00:52:36,111
Speaker 1: It feels almost too pat to say the Bengazi scandal

924
00:52:36,230 --> 00:52:38,991
Speaker 1: was driven or propped up by a single news network,

925
00:52:39,791 --> 00:52:41,671
Speaker 1: like it shouldn't be possible for it to have been

926
00:52:41,791 --> 00:52:45,871
Speaker 1: so straightforward, And in fact, when Hillary Clinton was ensnared

927
00:52:45,911 --> 00:52:48,790
Speaker 1: in scandal much earlier in her career, it wasn't that

928
00:52:48,871 --> 00:52:52,911
Speaker 1: straightforward back then. In order for stories about Vince Foster

929
00:52:52,991 --> 00:52:56,471
Speaker 1: and Whitewater to gain traction, they needed to travel through

930
00:52:56,511 --> 00:53:01,071
Speaker 1: the media ecosystem from the margins into the mainstream. But

931
00:53:01,151 --> 00:53:05,671
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen that wasn't necessary anymore. People like Victoria

932
00:53:05,710 --> 00:53:08,631
Speaker 1: Tunsing didn't need to engage in scandal laundering to make

933
00:53:08,671 --> 00:53:11,671
Speaker 1: an impact. All they had to do was get on

934
00:53:11,750 --> 00:53:14,431
Speaker 1: Fox News and they would immediately be heard by millions

935
00:53:14,471 --> 00:53:17,271
Speaker 1: of people who would then post about it on social media,

936
00:53:18,591 --> 00:53:21,631
Speaker 1: and they would be heard by Republican congressmen, who, when

937
00:53:21,671 --> 00:53:24,710
Speaker 1: they weren't appearing on Fox News themselves, could turn the

938
00:53:24,750 --> 00:53:29,191
Speaker 1: network's outrage into official action. In my interview with Tunsing,

939
00:53:29,471 --> 00:53:32,071
Speaker 1: I asked her if she felt like her client, Greg Hicks,

940
00:53:32,151 --> 00:53:34,031
Speaker 1: had gotten what he wanted out of his time as

941
00:53:34,031 --> 00:53:34,790
Speaker 1: a whistleblower.

942
00:53:35,591 --> 00:53:38,270
Speaker 4: You often ask Greg how he feels, but that that's

943
00:53:38,311 --> 00:53:42,230
Speaker 4: not our practice of law. Really, So you know, is

944
00:53:42,831 --> 00:53:45,391
Speaker 4: your client still alive and is he working and is

945
00:53:45,391 --> 00:53:49,310
Speaker 4: he relatively happy? Is the criteria I use.

946
00:53:50,190 --> 00:53:52,710
Speaker 1: Well, but if your goal was to sort of help

947
00:53:52,871 --> 00:53:55,551
Speaker 1: chip away at this person that you felt was lying

948
00:53:55,591 --> 00:53:59,431
Speaker 1: and had done a terrible job and to keep them

949
00:53:59,431 --> 00:54:03,471
Speaker 1: from attaining more power, you guys did pretty well at that.

950
00:54:03,631 --> 00:54:07,951
Speaker 4: I thought, Yeah, Well, I mean, you know, if Greg

951
00:54:07,951 --> 00:54:10,471
Speaker 4: had really done a good job. He'd be vice president

952
00:54:10,511 --> 00:54:12,631
Speaker 4: is of company right now, and then you know that's

953
00:54:12,871 --> 00:54:15,111
Speaker 4: you can ask him how he feels about it. You know,

954
00:54:15,351 --> 00:54:18,551
Speaker 4: if he'd do it again, I think he'd say yes.

955
00:54:18,631 --> 00:54:22,111
Speaker 4: But you don't know. I found a patient, you know,

956
00:54:22,270 --> 00:54:24,711
Speaker 4: I was in the emergency room. I got a patient,

957
00:54:25,311 --> 00:54:28,790
Speaker 4: and he walked out of the emergency room. So that's

958
00:54:28,831 --> 00:54:30,671
Speaker 4: how I look at it.

959
00:54:30,671 --> 00:54:33,071
Speaker 1: It's true that Hicks is not the vice president of

960
00:54:33,151 --> 00:54:36,631
Speaker 1: a company, but after his testimony, he did manage to

961
00:54:36,631 --> 00:54:39,591
Speaker 1: get a job working for Devin Nunez, one of the

962
00:54:39,631 --> 00:54:44,190
Speaker 1: Republican congressmen who most voraciously chased the Bengazi scandal. As

963
00:54:44,230 --> 00:54:46,910
Speaker 1: Hicks told me, he knew his days of the State

964
00:54:46,951 --> 00:54:47,911
Speaker 1: Department were over.

965
00:54:48,391 --> 00:54:53,671
Speaker 3: I felt that I had faced pretty serious retaliation and pressure.

966
00:54:54,071 --> 00:54:58,230
Speaker 3: Ultimately that led to my retirement from the State Department,

967
00:54:58,431 --> 00:55:02,311
Speaker 3: and in August of twenty sixteen, when it looked quite

968
00:55:02,351 --> 00:55:05,151
Speaker 3: likely that missus Clinton was going to become president, and

969
00:55:05,270 --> 00:55:07,871
Speaker 3: I had no desire to ever work for her again.

970
00:55:09,111 --> 00:55:12,750
Speaker 1: And yet Hi says he never hated the Clintons, and that,

971
00:55:12,831 --> 00:55:16,071
Speaker 1: in fact, after his testimony, he stopped believing that they

972
00:55:16,071 --> 00:55:19,111
Speaker 1: had placed him under surveillance or that they were ever

973
00:55:19,230 --> 00:55:20,711
Speaker 1: considering having him killed.

974
00:55:21,351 --> 00:55:29,471
Speaker 3: It's hard to think that people are just evil. I

975
00:55:29,511 --> 00:55:34,391
Speaker 3: think that missus Clinton exercised very poor judgment in a

976
00:55:34,431 --> 00:55:39,631
Speaker 3: lot of instances over this incident. Beyond that, you know

977
00:55:39,750 --> 00:55:45,950
Speaker 3: Vince Foster, who knows kill lists. That seems far gone

978
00:55:45,991 --> 00:55:49,991
Speaker 3: to me. I've never actually seen a list of names.

979
00:55:51,391 --> 00:55:54,190
Speaker 3: Show me the names, give me the facts. Tell me

980
00:55:54,391 --> 00:55:58,191
Speaker 3: why why the Clintons would have had all these people killed.

981
00:55:58,671 --> 00:55:59,790
Speaker 13: Explain that to me. I don't.

982
00:55:59,831 --> 00:56:02,991
Speaker 3: I don't understand that there's a lot of hatred for

983
00:56:03,151 --> 00:56:05,631
Speaker 3: them out there from a lot of.

984
00:56:05,551 --> 00:56:09,031
Speaker 13: People that's not me.

985
00:56:24,431 --> 00:56:28,351
Speaker 1: On the next and final episode of Fiasco, the FBI

986
00:56:28,631 --> 00:56:32,191
Speaker 1: captures a Libyan man accused of helping plan the Bengazi attack,

987
00:56:32,991 --> 00:56:37,271
Speaker 1: while a congressional investigation surfaces a devastating revelation about Hillary

988
00:56:37,270 --> 00:56:39,191
Speaker 1: Clinton email gate.

989
00:56:39,710 --> 00:56:41,591
Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton has some explaining to do.

990
00:56:42,071 --> 00:56:46,671
Speaker 13: Hillary Clinton email mess This story is something for everyone.

991
00:56:47,710 --> 00:56:50,830
Speaker 1: For a list of books, articles, and documentaries we used

992
00:56:50,871 --> 00:56:53,631
Speaker 1: in our research, follow the link in our show notes.

993
00:56:54,551 --> 00:56:58,071
Speaker 1: Fiasco is a production of Prolog Projects, and it's distributed

994
00:56:58,111 --> 00:57:01,991
Speaker 1: by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons,

995
00:57:02,190 --> 00:57:06,791
Speaker 1: Ulla Kulpa, Sam Lee and Me Leon Mayfock, with editorial

996
00:57:06,791 --> 00:57:10,991
Speaker 1: support from Sam Graham Felsen and Madelin Kaplan. Our researcher

997
00:57:11,111 --> 00:57:14,511
Speaker 1: was Francis Carr. Our score was composed by Dan English,

998
00:57:14,671 --> 00:57:18,231
Speaker 1: Joe Valley and Noah Hecht. Additional music by Nick Sylvester,

999
00:57:18,631 --> 00:57:22,391
Speaker 1: Billy Libby and Joel Saint Julian. Our theme song is

1000
00:57:22,391 --> 00:57:26,711
Speaker 1: by Spatial Relations Audio mixed by Rob Buyers, Michael Raphael

1001
00:57:26,871 --> 00:57:30,351
Speaker 1: and Johnny Vince Evans. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks

1002
00:57:30,391 --> 00:57:33,991
Speaker 1: at Chips and y Copyright Council. Provided by Peter Yassi

1003
00:57:34,191 --> 00:57:39,791
Speaker 1: at Yasi Butler PLC. Thanks to Archive dot Org, Hannah Groach, Begley,

1004
00:57:40,391 --> 00:57:45,231
Speaker 1: Mark Thompson and Mark Zaid. Special thanks to Lubinari and

1005
00:57:45,391 --> 00:57:59,231
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. Binge the entire season of Fiasco

1006
00:57:59,351 --> 00:58:03,591
Speaker 1: Benghazi ad free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus sign up

1007
00:58:03,591 --> 00:58:06,430
Speaker 1: on the Fiasco Show page on Apple Podcasts or at

1008
00:58:06,431 --> 00:58:11,151
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1009
00:58:11,191 --> 00:58:15,431
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1010
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