CBS reviewing Benghazi report

CBS said Thursday that it is “reviewing” a report that prompted Republicans to double down on their accusations that the Obama administration was hiding the truth about the attack in Benghazi, Libya.

In a curt statement, the network said its flagship news magazine “60 Minutes” was “looking into” new information that “undercuts” its reporting. The statement comes as The New York Times reported that the main source for the CBS report had lied about his actions the night terrorists attacked the U.S. mission.

“60 Minutes has learned of new information that undercuts the account told to us by Morgan Jones of his actions on the night of the attack on the Benghazi compound,” CBS said. “We are currently looking into this serious matter to determine if he misled us, and if so, we will make a correction.”

{mosads}Jones — a pseudonym for a British security contractor whose real name is Dylan Davies — had told CBS that he went to the U.S. mission that night and confronted one of the attackers, taking him down with the butt end of a rifle. But just days after the attack, he told the FBI that he was nowhere near the compound that night, two unnamed senior government officials briefed on the investigation told the Times. 

In a report aired last month, Davies said the Obama administration was repeatedly warned of threats to the U.S. mission before the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Republicans jumped on the report to revive their criticism of the administration, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowing to hold up Obama’s nominees until lawmakers are granted access to Americans who witnessed the attack.

Even as questions about Davies’s credibility have emerged, Republicans have refused to back down.

“Outside his narrative of his own individual actions that night, [Davies’s] information about key Benghazi events appeared consistent with a well-established consensus of an inadequate security posture,” Frederick Hill, spokesman for House Oversight panel Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told The Washington Post last week.

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