JW Exposes Another NBC Scandal Days Before Brian Williams Debacle

The mainstream media’s credibility continues to deteriorate at a breakneck rate and now a major network television station—with recent transgressions exposed by Judicial Watch and a U.S. military newspaper—is serving as the poster child of this shameful movement.

It involves two popular and “respected” journalists at NBC, disgraced “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams and “Meet the Press” anchor David Gregory, two of the highest paid and most coveted personalities in the network’s history. A few days ago Williams stepped down in shame after being exposed by the military newspaper Stars and Stripes for lying about his aircraft, a Chinook, being forced down by enemy ground fire during a report on the Iraq war. Williams not only told the lie on his newscast, he repeated it in a number of outlets, including a radio broadcast and the David Letterman show where he said that “two of the four helicopters were hit, by ground fire, including the one I was in.”

When the military paper blew the scandal wide open, Williams was forced to admit that he was not aboard the Chinook that got struck by hostile fire but rather a flight from Kuwait that was nowhere near the conflict and experienced no problems. Incensed veterans present at the scene blasted Williams and he had no choice but to come clean and step down from his multi-million-dollar job. “Williams’ admission was an embarrassment for the veteran journalist who has been the face of NBC News since he became anchor for its main news show in 2004,” according to a follow-up article in Stars and Stripes. “NBC has not said whether he will face discipline for perpetuating a false story.”

Other skeletons are now crawling out of the disgraced newsman’s closet. A mainstream newspaper reported over the weekend that it appears Williams also lied about other dangerous encounters during his on-the-ground reporting. This includes claiming to see a dead body floating by after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005 and close encounters with rockets fired by the Hezbollah during hands-on reporting of Israel’s war with the Islamist terrorist group in 2006. The article, published in the Washington Post, recants how Williams described the Hezbollah incident during a 2007 interview: “There were Katyusha rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in.”

Just days before the Williams debacle exploded, Judicial Watch delivered NBC another black eye involving the other network big shot (David Gregory) named earlier in this piece. Gregory was ousted by NBC a few months ago, but for six years he hosted the popular political show Meet the Press. During a 2012 interview with the National Rifle Association (NRA), Gregory committed a serious gun law violation by exhibiting a 30-bullet gun magazine on the air. The stunt took place in Washington D.C. where it’s illegal to possess high-capacity magazines.

The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department repeatedly warned NBC News that using the high-capacity magazine in its segment would be illegal, but Gregory disregarded the law and did it anyways. After the violation, D.C. Police recommended a warrant for Gregory’s arrest but the D.C. Attorney General killed the idea. The Affidavit in Support of An Arrest Warrant confirms that D.C. Detective Wayne Gerrish believed there was probable cause that Gregory had committed a crime and requested an arrest warrant for Gregory, according to the documents obtained by JW.  Despite the detailed request, Andrew Fois, D.C. Deputy Attorney General for Public Safety, declined to the issue the warrant.

D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan subsequently sent a letter, obtained by JW, to NBC saying that his office would not prosecute Gregory, “despite the clarity of the violation of this important law.”  The Attorney General added, “There is no doubt of the gravity of the illegal conduct in this matter. . . .” That same year police arrested more than 100 people for charges that included possession of a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds, according to a Washington newspaper. Fifteen of those people were charged in cases that included a high-capacity feeding device or extended clip, the story further reveals. Clearly, Gregory received special treatment because he’s a celebrity.