Amid controversy this week regarding whether the White House should publicly release photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse, several lawmakers claimed to have seen the photographs and attested they did indeed provide evidence of bin Laden's death.
But not so fast.
It seems that at least one senator, Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts, was duped by fake bin Laden photos, Michael Levenson reports for the Boston Globe.
"Let me assure you that he is dead, that bin Laden is dead," Brown told cable station NECN in an interview Wednesday. "I have seen the photos and, in fact, we've received the briefing and we'll continue to get the briefings."
"Listen, I've seen the picture," Brown said in a separate interview with Fox25. "He's definitely dead. And if there's any conspiracy theories out there, you should put them to rest." He described the photos as "gruesome."
But NECN posted a statement on its website Wednesday retracting Brown's assertion: "Senator Brown's office tells NECN this afternoon that the bin Laden photos the Senator mentions seeing about 2 minutes into the clip here were not authentic." And a similar statement appeared after the Fox 25 interview, Levenson reports.
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