The nationwide media are rightly in a lather over the preposterous cornucopia of lies emanating from new GOP Congressman George Santos. However eight years in the past this week, the highest-rated information anchor in America — NBC’s Brian Williams — was taken off the air for the wild exaggerations and outright falsehoods he’d been telling for at the very least a decade.

The unraveling began January 30, 2015, when Williams ended his broadcast with a tribute to an Iraq warfare veteran who, Williams claimed, helped shield the anchor after the helicopter he was touring in was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. However because the army publication Stars and Stripes reported the next week, the anchor wasn’t wherever near the hazard: “Williams and his digicam crew had been really aboard a Chinook in a formation that was about an hour behind the three helicopters that got here beneath fireplace, in keeping with crew member interviews.”

Williams apologized on his February 4 newscast, suggesting it was a one-time error: “I made a mistake in recalling the occasions of 12 years in the past.” However it turned out that he’d been telling the chopper whopper for years — on Alec Baldwin’s radio present in early March 2013, and once more a couple of weeks later on CBS’s David Letterman present.

“Two of our 4 helicopters had been hit by floor fireplace, together with the one I used to be in,” he informed Letterman on March 26, 2013. “RPG and AK-47s.”

“No kidding,” Letterman interjected.

Video later surfaced of a much-earlier (2005) interview during which Williams informed the identical story with the weirdly particular declare that the “captain” of his helicopter “took an AK-47 spherical proper via the earlobe, Purple Coronary heart.” The pilot, Chris Simeone, wrote within the New York Put up: “I used to be the pilot in charge of the plane carrying Brian Williams. I do not need a Purple Coronary heart, and my ears are simply advantageous.”

Different implausible fables surfaced:

■ He secretly flew with SEAL Group Six to Baghdad: “I occur to have [had] the nice honor of flying into Baghdad with them firstly of the [Iraq] warfare [in 2003],” Brian Williams touted on NBC Nightly Information in 2011 after the SEALs efficiently killed Osama bin Laden. A former SEAL informed the Huffington Put up that was “fully preposterous…These guys don’t take journalists with them on missions.” CNN analyst Peter Bergen scoffed that “his account of being embedded with SEAL Group Six didn’t move the scent check.”

■ SEAL Group Six despatched him a trophy after the bin Laden raid: Williams informed David Letterman in January 2013: “About six weeks after the bin Laden raid, I acquired a white envelope, and in it was a thanks word — unsigned — and hooked up to it was a bit of the fuselage, the fuselage from the blown-up Black Hawk in that courtyard.” A former SEAL informed CNN: “There’s no manner on the planet that may occur. It will be prison.”

■ After Katrina, he had dysentery and gangs took over his resort: “My week, two weeks there, was not helped by the truth that I by accident ingested a few of the flood water. I turned very sick with dysentery, our resort was overrun with gangs,” he claimed in an interview for the Columbia Graduate Faculty of Journalism in 2014. However the supervisor of the Ritz Carlton the place Williams stayed stated her resort was not overrun with gangs: “Not one of the visitors had been at risk of being harmed,” supervisor Myra DeGersdorff informed the Washington Put up. “And none had been.”

As for the dysentery declare, a former metropolis well being director, Dr. Brobson Lutz, informed the New Orleans Advocate: “I noticed lots of people with cuts and bruises and such, however I don’t recall a single, solitary case of gastroenteritis throughout Katrina or in the entire month afterward….My canines drank it [the flood water], and so they didn’t have any issues.”

■ He noticed a useless physique floating by his resort: “Whenever you look out of your resort room window within the French Quarter and watch a person float by face down…” Williams informed former Disney CEO Michael Eisner in a 2006 interview. However there was little flooding within the French Quarter, and the Ritz Carlton supervisor informed the Washington Put up none of her employees had seen our bodies. Basic Russel Honoré, who led the rescue effort in New Orleans after Katrina, was doubtful: “If he was a newsman and noticed a physique floating by his resort, why didn’t he go seize it? Why didn’t he get any person and report it?” Honore questioned on CNN’s Dependable Sources, February 8, 2015.

■ He deliberate to commerce his life for Vienna sausage: In a 2006 particular on the Katrina anniversary, Williams additionally claimed: “I carried a case of Vienna sausage — cans of Vienna sausage as collateral in case we had a smash-and-grab carjacking. I used to be going to supply it to somebody in alternate for my life.” If that was actually his plan, it doesn’t sound like an excellent one.

Because the record of lies collected, Williams introduced on February 7, 2015 that he had “determined to take myself off of my every day broadcast for the following a number of days.” Three days later, NBC introduced Williams could be suspended with out pay from NBC Nightly Information for six months. He would by no means return.

A prolonged report in Vainness Truthful confirmed the depths of Williams’ denial: “‘He couldn’t say the phrases “I lied,”’ recollects one NBC insider. ‘We couldn’t pressure his mouth to type the phrases “I lied.” He couldn’t clarify what had occurred. [He said,] “Did one thing occur to [my] head? Perhaps I had a mind tumor, or one thing in my head?” He simply didn’t know.’”

One other supply informed the Washington Put up’s Paul Fahri that NBC’s investigation had discovered many lies: “A months-long inside investigation of Brian Williams by NBC Information has turned up 11 cases during which the anchorman publicly embellished particulars of his reporting exploits, in keeping with an individual acquainted with particulars of the probe.” However the community by no means launched the report, as an alternative opting to shift Williams to MSNBC.

No matter their true emotions, the cable networks’ high personalities acted thrilled that Williams could be becoming a member of them. Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski gushed, “I feel that it’s nice for the community.” Prime time host Rachel Maddow informed her viewers, “I’m actually completely happy that Brian Williams is coming right here to MSNBC.”

However they absolutely knew that Williams had grow to be a nationwide joke. TBS’s Conan O’Brien on February 6 arrange a joke video of Williams taking false credit score for the Miracle on the Hudson and for writing To Kill a Mockingbird.

However Williams, at the very least, had one champion. Ex-CBS Night Information anchor Dan Slightly, who himself was ousted after counting on phony paperwork for a campaign-season hit piece towards President George W. Bush, informed Politico: “Brian is an sincere, respectable man, a superb reporter and anchor — and a courageous one. I can attest that — like his predecessor Tom Brokaw — he’s an outstanding professional, and a gutsy one.”

For extra examples from our flashback sequence, which we name the NewsBusters Time Machine, go right here.