Boehner Reportedly Offered Roger Ailes Secret Benghazi Info to Stop Fox News Booking Fringe Republicans
Politico’s Tim Alberta has a book coming out titled American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump, and it’s already making waves in Washington (details about Paul Ryan and the behind-the-scenes account of the Trump campaign when the Access Hollywood tape dropped).
Friday night there’s a new detail coming out from the book involving former Speaker of the House John Boehner and the late chairman and CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes.
Yashar Ali reports Friday night on a new excerpt from Alberta’s book detailing that Boehner spoke directly to Ailes about the “fringe” Republican lawmakers Fox News kept inviting on, like Steve King and Louie Gohmert.
Apparently, Boehner had the idea of sharing some information with Ailes that “he thought would help sway him to stop booking the members of Congress who caused him angst”: inside information on the Benghazi investigation.
Per the report:
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…
It was no secret that Ailes despised Hillary Clinton. Boehner, according to Alberta, did not feel as strongly about her, but he was prepared to offer up a juicy morsel for Ailes to enjoy and to show that he wasn’t as weak as Ailes thought he was.
Boehner previously spoke with Alberta about what it was like to meet with Ailes, saying in a 2017 profile, “It was the most bizarre meeting I’d ever had. He had black helicopters flying all around his head that morning. It was every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard, and I’m throwing cold water on all this bullshit.”
Alberta’s book apparently notes that in response to Boehner offering the bait, mentioning Benghazi “tripped a switch” in Ailes and he started going off on the Obama administration.
You can read more here.
