"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 News said in a statement issued this evening about Jones, who appeared in the Benghazi report the newsmag broadcast on October 27. "We are currently looking into this serious matter to determine if he misled us, and if so, we will make a correction."
The about face comes as details of an FBI interview with the man contradict the account he gave to the newsmag. Until today, CBS News has been aggressively defending the accuracy of the 60 Minutes report that focused on an account by the man who identified himself as Jones but who has since been identified as Dylan Davies. Davies, a security contractor claiming to have been at the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi Libya when it was attacked on September 11, 2012, described for 60 Minutes the role he played during the fighting, and having seen the body of dead ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens in a hospital. He claimed he confronted one of the attackers the compound and dealt him a blow to the face with the butt of a rifle, among other details. Davies also authored a book in which he gave a consistent account; that book, "The Embassy House" was published by a division of CBS Corp.
But Davies, who was in the employ of Blue Mountain security operation, which had been hired to help protect the mission in Benghazi, filed an incident report in which he said he did not go near the attacks that night and did not see the ambassador's body in person. He gave the same information in an interview with the FBI, details of which came to light recently, the New York Times reported. Davies told The Daily beast he had not written that incident report, and said he had lied to a boss about his participation on the night because he had been ordered to stay away from the scene.
CBS News chief Jeff Fager this week issued a statement saying he was "proud of the reporting" and confident the sources used "told accurate versions of what happened that night." Lara Logan, who had interviewed Davies on 60 Minutes, on Tuesday said in an interview with the New York Times this week the Davies only had "one story" and had never signed the incident report. She suggested the attacks on the news magazine's work on the Benghazi attack were politically motivated. "We worked on this for a year," Logan said, adding "we killed ourselves not to allow politics into this report."
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