The Marine Corps worked behind the scenes last month in an attempt to convince Fox News to retract its false story claiming a Gold Star family was forced to pay $60,000 to ship the remains of a Marine killed in Afghanistan, according to emails obtained by Military.com.
A service spokesman notified the news network that it was pushing an incorrect story and accused it of using the grief of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee’s family to draw in readers, the email exchanges, released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request, show. Fox News eventually deleted the story with no correction, and it never reached out to the Gee family with an apology as the Marine Corps requested, the family said.
The Fox News story came from Republican Rep. Cory Mills, a freshman congressman from Florida, who claimed Gee’s next of kin were strapped with the $60,000 charge after a meeting with the families of Abbey Gate bombing victims, a suicide attack where 13 service members were killed outside of the Kabul airport in 2021.
Gee’s family never paid a dollar to transport her remains, and the Marine Corps let Fox News know — in no uncertain terms — that the July 25 story was false in a series of emails over the following days.
[I knew it was, at best a misunderstanding, at worst a dirty lie, the second I heard it and said so immediately, pointing out the obvious inconsistencies with the story based on my knowledge as a Gold Star family member myself and as a Marine. Fox should address what they’ve done and Congressman Mills needs to learn to jump to find the facts first, instead of the press for a moment of glory on camera. Shame on him. ~ Beege]
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