Fox and Biden Admin Coordinated in Benjamin Hall Evacuation

A forthcoming Fox News documentary on reporter Benjamin Hall, who was injured while reporting on the war in Ukraine last March, reveals details how Fox and the White House worked together to evacuate the gravely wounded journalist from the war zone.

In a teaser clip released this week, Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin talks about how President Joe Biden‘s administration worked hard on the injured Hall’s behalf.

“He was at the border guards’ hospital in Kyiv and it was a target of the Russians,’” explained Griffin, before going on to describe the process:

I turned to [John] Kirby and he said ‘Jen, the president gave a directive. We can’t go into Ukriane.’ And I said ‘Yes, but if I can get them to the border with Poland, can you get permission for them to be treated at Landstuhl [Regional Medical Center in Germany]?’

But those military facilities are reserved for U.S. troops, you can’t just be taken there as a civilian. So John Kirby immediately went to the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and began the process of getting permission. Lloyd Austin didn’t hesitate.

Hall was injured when the vehicle he was traveling in outside of Kyiv was damaged in a Russian missile attack that killed fellow Fox journalist Pierre Zakrezewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshinova.

“We slowed down at an abandoned checkpoint and out of nowhere the first missile came out of nowhere, lands about 30 feet in front of us. Immediately Pierre shouts, ‘Reverse the car! Reverse the car!,’” Hall told Fox’s Sean Hannity earlier this month. “We couldn’t go back and Pierre shouted, ‘Get out of the car! Everyone get out of the car!’ And the next second, the second bomb hits right in front of the left of the car. And that one, I went black.”

The injuries Hall sustained were severe. Several weeks after the attack, he reported that he had “lost half a leg on one side and a foot on the other. One hand is being put together, one eye is no longer working, and my hearing is pretty blown.”

“But all in all,” he added, “I feel pretty damn lucky to be here – and it is the people who got me here who are amazing!” Hall made it to Landstuhl within 48 hours of the attack thanks to the efforts of both colleagues like Griffin and officials such as Austin and Kirby, who was at the time serving as press secretary for the Department of Defense.

Hall then spent six months at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas before returning home.

The Fox documentary “Sacrifice and Survival: A Story From the Front Line,” will premiere on Fox News Channel on Sunday, March 19 at 9:00 PM Eastern Time.

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