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Trouble with '60 Minutes' Benghazi 'review'

POLITICO has learned that Al Ortiz, an executive producer for special events at CBS News, is conducting the "journalistic review" into the controversial "60 Minutes" report on Benghazi -- a fact that spokespeople at both CBS and "60 Minutes" declined to disclose. CBS Corporation is being kept abreast of the developments but has no direct involvement in the review.

That presents a problem for Ortiz, who is now tasked with conducting an investigation of his own boss, Jeff Fager. Fager is both the executive producer of "60 Minutes" and the chairman of CBS News, which means that any dirt Ortiz digs up on "60 Minutes" reporting will reflect back on the man who pays his check.

Fager is also the person who, initially, decided that no investigation would take place. Though CBS says the review has been underway since they first learned of "the issue," a spokesman told the New York Times last Sunday that Lara Logan's televised apology would be the network's last word on the matter. "[T]he CBS News chairman, Jeff Fager, who is also the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” has not ordered an investigation," the Times reported at at the time.

In conversations with network sources last week, Fager's dual role was cited as one of the factors that may have contributed to the "60 Minutes" error. The Sunday news magazine has gained more editorial freedom since Linda Mason, a senior network vice president responsible for standards, left in January of this year. Al Ortiz, who replaced Mason, was not given the same editorial control and was not consulted for the program’s package on Benghazi, sources said.