In 2014, former House Speaker John Boehner used secret information involving the Benghazi investigation to control Fox News, a new book claims.
Boehner wanted to keep far-right conservative voices off the network because they were too “difficult” to control.
That’s according to the book, “American Carnage” by Politico’s Tim Alberta. The book claims Boehner tried to bait then-Fox News boss Roger Ailes in 2014 into pulling certain Republican lawmakers off the airwaves.
In exchange for pulling far-right conservatives off the air, Boehner promised to leak non-public information about the GOP-controlled House investigation into the Benghazi terror attacks.
“According to Alberta, Boehner met with Ailes to deliver a request: Stop booking guests from the fringe of the GOP — the members who only sought conflict and not solutions, including Reps. Louie Gohmert, Steve King, and Michele Bachmann,” reporter Yashar Ali said. “Boehner felt that by giving these members a platform on the most-watched cable news network, Ailes was making Boehner’s job as speaker more difficult.”
“Don’t worry about them,” Ailes reportedly told Boehner. “They’re just getting ratings.”
If he pulled the far-right conservatives like Boehner asked, the then-House speaker reportedly offered to give Ailes non-public insight into the upcoming Benghazi investigation. The House investigation was launched to probe the 2012 radical Islamic terror attack in Lybia that claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
The investigation focused on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s role in the deadly Islamic terror attack and the White House’s failed response.
Ailes then reportedly told Boehner that he didn’t want to discuss the information further, because former President Barack Obama’s administration was spying on him.
According to Boehner, the Fox News boss suddenly became “high-strung and wary of his surroundings.”
Obama was “monitoring him around the clock because of his views,” Ailes reportedly said.
That’s not all.
Boehner wanted the so-called “absolutist” conservatives off-the-air because they were making life difficult for him as House speaker.
Before he resigned, Boehner reportedly blamed many of his problems with conservative voters on conservative radio host Mark Levin. Boehner said that after the Sep. 11 terror attacks, Levin became “crazy right” — and it caused the rest of the media to do the same.
“Levin went really crazy right and got a big audience, and he dragged [Sean] Hannity to the dark side; he dragged Rush [Limbaugh] to the dark side,” Boehner told Alberta. “I used to talk to them all the time, and suddenly they’re beating the living s*** out of me.”
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