Alleged Recantation
On August 6, 2007, the Weekly Standard's blog reported that Scott Thomas Beauchamp recanted under oath to Army investigators.
On August 7, The New Republic reported:
| “ | "We've talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army spokesman Major Steven F. Lamb and asked about an anonymously sourced allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, he told us, 'I have no knowledge of that.' He added, 'If someone is speaking anonymously, they are on their own.' When we pressed Lamb for details on the Army investigation, he told us, 'We don't go into the details of how we conduct our investigations.'" | ” |
Michael Goldfarb and the Weekly Standard stood by the story.
On October 24, 2007, the Drudge Report website published the transcript of a phone call that occurred on September 7, 2007 between Beauchamp and senior TNR staff, including Franklin Foer. In this conversation, Beauchamp refused to affirm the accuracy of his reports, despite pressure from Foer to do so. Foer confirmed the accuracy of the transcript, but asserted that Beauchamp did not recant his story and claimed that independent, anonymous sources have backed up Beauchamps's charges and therefore TNR will not retract the stories. Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online's editor also questioned the accuracy of Drudge's characterization of The New Republic interview as a recantation.
Hours later, the documents were no longer available at the Drudge Report. National Review Online posted the documents on its website. These documents, and other details of the Army investigation, in spite of being confirmed by National Review as real, were not officially released. "We are not going into the details of the investigation," Maj. Steven F. Lamb, deputy public affairs officer in Baghdad, wrote in an e-mail message. "The allegations are false, platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made."
Read more about this topic: Scott Thomas Beauchamp Controversy
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