Fox Hosts GOP Activist Toensing To Continue Pushing Benghazi “Cover-Up” Myth

Fox gave conspiracy theorist and Republican attorney Victoria Toensing a platform to revive repeatedly debunked myths about what happened after the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

On the August 21 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Toensing's claims included questions about the legitimacy of the independent Accountability Review Board's (ARB) report on the attacks as a “corrupt cover-up to protect Hillary Clinton” and the myth of Benghazi "whistleblower" and diplomat Gregory Hicks' demotion.

Toensing has propped up claims that have been proven false or misleading, misinformation that Fox News continues to peddle.

Her efforts to question the legitimacy of the ARB report are neither new nor credible. Toensing argued in a May 12 Weekly Standard blog post that the “report was purposefully incomplete and willfully misleading,” and she claimed that the investigation did not include interviews with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This claim has been debunked, notably by ARB chairman and career diplomat Thomas Pickering, who said he did speak with Clinton and that their conversation about the Benghazi investigation was “more than sufficient for the preponderance of evidence that we had collected to make our decisions.”

During a May 10 interview with radio host Steve Malzberg, Toensing stated that Hicks, her client and Benghazi “whistleblower,” was “effectively demoted” as a result of what happened during and after the attacks. This story conflicts with Hicks' own statement during congressional testimony that concerns for his family kept him from returning to Libya.