The New Republic's "fact-checked" author recants

Michael Goldfarb is reporting in the Weekly Standard that Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the author of the New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist" stories has signed a sworn statement recanting those articles.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp--author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns--signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods--fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source.

Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad:

An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.

According to the military source, Beauchamp's recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military's investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, "I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name."

Wow. Simply wow.

If this is true (and I have no reason to believe it isn't) it is truly amazing. The New Republic was rather comprehensive in its statement from Friday about how much fact-checking they did before and after the publication of Beauchamp's pieces. If he has indeed recanted, the editors of the New Republic will have to explain their confidence in issuing that statement. For it is based not just on Beauchamp's assurances, but on their on their research.

In this process, TNR contacted dozens of people. Editors and staffers spoke numerous times with Beauchamp. We also spoke with current and former soldiers, forensic experts, and other journalists who have covered the war extensively. And we sought assistance from Army Public Affairs officers. Most important, we spoke with five other members of Beauchamp's company, and all corroborated Beauchamp's anecdotes, which they witnessed or, in the case of one solider, heard about contemporaneously. (All of the soldiers we interviewed who had first-hand knowledge of the episodes requested anonymity.)

Who is zooming whom?

John Podhoretz had said yesterday that TNR's research into rechecking the story might have been based more on people having heard the rumors of Beauchamp's original stories than having actually witnessed those events themselves. It's like a journalistic game of telephone where the person at the end is used as a witness for the veracity of the original storyteller.

I might almost feel sorry for the New Republic editors for being burned again in a Stephen Glass-type episode if it hadn't been for their attitude right from the beginning disparaging the questions from Michael Goldfarb and others as coming from right-wing bloggers. And their original fault in publishing this guy in the first place, as I said when this story first broke, was because his stories fit their preconceptions of how the war in Iraq was corrupting decent men. Just as Glass's stories of how young Republicans might behave when together fit their preconceptions so they didn't fact-check a story "too good not to be true," so the story of young men's essential decency corrupted by their service in Iraq "smelled good" to them. Foer's first defense of all the fact checking that they had done prior to publishing the story was, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, incredibly lame. Some of that fact-checking was asking other embeds if it "smelled good" to them. Well, let's find out who those embeds were who thought that the stories of American troops ridiculing an injured woman within her hearing sounds good to them or the story of a guy weaving his Bradley around so that he could take out stray dogs while on patrol in possible IED-infested streets. What reporters thought that that seemed just about right to them? We know that it sounded right to the editors of the New Republic. And that was the source of the whole problem, wasn't it?

And just for those who will doubt his recantation as submitting to pressure from the Army, Hot Air has some thoughts to clarify that question.

So Beauchamp was lying the whole time, and now that he has two entirely different stories, he was either lying to TNR, which probably paid him $50 per article and which can’t put him in prison for lying to them (because he’s not under oath when he’s spouting off to Franklin Foer), or he lied to the Army, which pays his entire salary and can and will put him in jail for quite a while if he lies to them (he is very much under oath when he’s being investigated by the US Army — for you liberals, that’s what “sworn statement” means).
So guess which one Beauchamp is more likely to have lied to — the people who couldn’t jail him, or the ones who could. And would.

Hot Air also links to an Army lawyer blogger who tells us that, sorta like in political scandals, the coverup is worse than the original crime.

Here’s the thing, if he was lying, there’s not much that he can be charged with. At most it would be some variant of an Article 92 violation for publication without permission or something similar (presuming such a prohibition existed within his command). At most, that’ll get him 2 years if it’s a general order, more than likely it’d be violation of an “other lawful order” which is 6 months max confinement.

Now some may argue that he’s lying to investigators but he told TNR the truth. Problem there is that the penalties for a False Official Statement are far harsher (7 5 yrs and a dishonorable discharge). Lying to investigators is often worse than the misconduct itself. So even if Beauchamp IS lying, he sure can’t ever say so while in uniform, as that subjects him to the more serious Article 107 charge.

UPDATE: TNR is standing by their story. They have this statement up.

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 [to The Weekly Standard], 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."

--The Editors

And Michael Goldfarb responds to TNR's statement.

The editors of the New Republic have responded here. Three points:

(1) They neglected to report that the Army has concluded its investigation and found Beauchamp's stories to be false. As Major Lamb, the very officer they quote, has said in an authorized statement: "An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims."

(2) Does the failure of the New Republic to report the Army's conclusions mean that the editors believe the Army investigators are wrong about Beauchamp?

(3) We have full confidence in our reporting that Pvt Beauchamp recanted under oath in the course of the investigation. Is the New Republic claiming that Pvt Beauchamp made no such admission to Army investigators? Is Beauchamp?

It's a battle of the two magazines. They're both standing by their sources. We'll have to see if the Army will be more forthcoming.