CBS News Only Mainstream Media Outlet Sunday to Ignore Benghazi Whistleblower Podliska

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:31 pm

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CNN actually reported on the latest Benghazi investigation shenanigans Sunday as Jake Tapper talked to Major Bradley Podliska about his new revelations. This was a big step forward for the mainstream media.

Unfortunately, CBS News did not follow suit, and Media Matters for America reports that while CNN, NBC, ABC – and even Fox News – all mentioned Podliska’s accusation that the Benghazi Probe “Has Become A Partisan Investigation,” CBS did not.

CBS talked to Donald Trump instead, and on their flagship show Face The Nation let the Republican frontrunner repeat the ultimately self-defeating lie that shutting down the government is an effective tactic and will bend Obama to their will.

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Here is the Sunday rundown:

  • CNN’s State of the Union treated the story as breaking news and opened with an exclusive television interview of Podliska. In his CNN interview, Podliska said that the Benghazi probe “has become a partisan investigation,” that has shifted its focus “to go after Hillary.”
  • On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace questioned Benghazi committee member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) about the accusations made by Podliska.
  • On NBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd briefly mentioned Podliska’s accusations, noting that both Podliska and the Republicans on the committee “agree that Hillary Clinton was being targeted,” and asked, “doesn’t that hurt the committee?”
  • And on ABC’s This Week, Martha Raddatz asked Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) about Podliska’s statement that “he was fired from that committee because he was told to focus too much on Hillary Clinton instead of finding out answers about Benghazi.”

However, as Zachary Pleat of Media Matters points out,

“John Dickerson, the host of Face the Nation, failed to mention [Podliska] at all. The only mention of Benghazi came from panelist Ron Fournier, who also neglected to mention this news story, despite bringing up both Clinton and Benghazi”:

RON FOURNIER: Let me talk a little bit about emails if I could, which is her untrustworthy problem, and the Democrats are pointing at Republicans, and McCarthy is saying we just want to bring her down as mitigating for her. We have two sets of facts. One is, we know that the Republican Party did everything they could to destroy Hillary Clinton with Benghazi — hyper-partisan Republican Party. And they caught Hillary Clinton red handed creating a improper covert server that undermined the Freedom of Information Act, that subverted legislative oversight, and jeopardized U.S. secrets.

Both of those things can be true. As a matter of fact, both of those things are true, but the Democrats try to use the one thing to mitigate them, and the Republicans try to use the other to mitigate them. And meanwhile, both parties think that – most voters think that the leaders of the parties are lying to them, because they are.

How a news show could mention Benghazi and Clinton and somehow fail to mention the Podliska revelations deserves an investigation of its own. If you want scandal, look no further than CBS News.

Heck, even The New York Times was back to acting like a partisan political hack with its headline today, “Clinton Emails Became the New Focus of Benghazi Inquiry.” It would be a wonderful change of pace if actual facts became the focus of any Republican inquiry.

CBS’ own silence where facts are concerned can only be construed as willful, a conscious decision to avoid mention of Podliska. Why is anyone’s guess at this point, but it’s never a good thing when, by ignoring unpleasant facts, you let Fox News make you look like, well, Fox News.



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