Bogus Benghazi Tale Falls Apart as CBS News Apologizes and Retracts 60 Minutes Story

On CBS This Morning, Lara Logan of 60 Minutes apologized for and retracted the her bogus Benghazi story that Republicans have been using to smear President Obama.

Video from CBS This Morning:

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan apologized on CBS This Morning,

The most important thing to every person at ’60 Minutes’ is the truth, and today the truth is we made a mistake. That’s very disappointing for any journalist, it’s very disappointing for me. Nobody likes to admit they made a mistake, but if you do, you have to stand up and take responsibility and you have to say that you are wrong. And in this case, we were wrong. We made a mistake.

And, how did this happen? Dylan Davies worked for the State Department in Libya. He was the manager of the local guard force at the Benghazi special mission compound, and he described for us his actions that night, saying that he had entered the compound and had a confrontation with one of the attackers and he also said that he had seen the body of Ambassador Chris Stevens in a local hospital. And after our report aired, questions were raised about whether his account was real after an incident report surfaced that told a different story about what he’d done that night.

He denied that report and he said that he told the FBI the same story he told us, but what we now know is that he told the FBI a different story to what he told us and you know, that was the moment, for us, when we realized that we no longer had confidence in our source and that we were wrong to put him on air and we apologize to our viewers.

Logan claimed that 60 Minutes properly vetted Davies, but it is clear that they saw what they wanted to see. They wanted a big splashy Benghazi story. 60 Minutes bought into the right wing conspiracy, and produced a story that never should have aired. CBS News is trying to sell this as being misled by a source, when the reality is that they had ample opportunity to challenge Davies’ story before they aired it.

When are the corporate media going to learn when it comes to Benghazi? There is nothing to it. It is a right wing conspiracy theory that is used to smear the president and stop Hillary Clinton in 2016.

CBS News also never disclosed that Davies’ book is being published by a subsidiary of CBS. If 60 Minutes would have done even the most basic of investigations into their source’s ethical background, they would have found a liar who has changed his story numerous times. Like every other Benghazi story, Davies’ account lacked evidence and didn’t have a leg to stand on.

All of this should have given CBS News reason for pause, but it didn’t. It is one thing to get a story wrong, but it is quite another to look the other way and air and odious partisan story that is full of holes from the beginning.

CBS News deserves credit for one thing. Unlike ABC News, they apologized and retracted their story. The nation is still waiting for Jon Karl and ABC to apologize and retract their story about the Benghazi emails.

Another right wing attempt to smear President Obama and Hillary Clinton has crashed and burned, and it took the credibility of 60 Minutes down with them too.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association