Michigan Senate hopeful's bin Laden claim contradicted by his own account

Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers claimed in a fundraising email that he personally saw Osama bin Laden's body, but he was not present at the raid. Instead, he saw a photograph of the deceased al-Qaida leader. Rogers previously told reporters he was at home in Washington when the operation occurred.

Rogers's fundraising email claim directly contradicts his own account from the day after the 2011 raid, when he told reporters he was at his Washington home and learned of the operation via a phone call from CIA Director Leon Panetta. He was neither in Pakistan nor in the White House Situation Room, but was among a small group of officials shown a photograph of bin Laden's body.

The former House intelligence chair has a history of vague, self-aggrandizing references to his counterterrorism work. He publicly supported Obama's decision to withhold graphic raid photos, citing risks of inflaming Middle East opinion. In the current Senate race against Abdul El-Sayed, Rogers has made false claims about his opponent, including an assertion that El-Sayed believes America deserved 9/11, which the New York Times fact-checked as false.