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Dylan Davies, the disgraced contractor at the center of 60 Minutes' retreat on its story about the terror attack in Benghazi last year, has gone into hiding. That leaves CBS standing alone in the spotlight of continuing critique over the controversial story.
60 Minutes's October 27 report, since withdrawn, centered on Davies' tale of his actions that night: his sneaking into an Al Qaeda-controlled hospital, his striking a terrorist in the head with the butt of his rifle. As The New York Times and The Washington Post reported, Davies told both the FBI and his employer (contracting firm Blue Mountain Security) that he was never able to get to the diplomatic compound on the night of the attack.
That inconsistency prompted CBS to rescind its story and Simon & Schuster, the CBS-owned publisher producing a book by Davies, to take it off the shelves. Shortly before it did so, Davies made it impossible for anyone to question him further about his claims: He vanished. The Daily Beast's Eli Lake reports:
Davies wrote that on Sunday November 3 at 4:00 am, he was hand-delivered a note to his home address in Wales that said, “Stop talking now or your wife and son will disappear.” In the email to [Simon & Schuster vice president Jennifer] Robinson, he went onto say, “Due to this threat I will not discuss the book with anyone under any circumstances for the foreseeable future, I am not prepared to put my family in danger. I stand by my story however I understand that it continues to be rubbished, which I expected.”
This is his defense: having spoken truth to power, power is now fighting back.