Brian Williams is temporarily stepping down from the NBC news desk while the network conducts an internal investigation. INSIDE EDITION reports.
A new video has surfaced that could mean more trouble for embattled NBC anchor Brian Williams.
This is what he told a student reporter from Fairfield University in Connecticut in 2007: “I tend to forget the war with Hezbollah in Israel a few years back, where there were katyusha rockets passing just underneath the helicopter I was riding."
Is it another tall tale like the now refuted claim that the U.S. Army helicopter he was flying in was forced down over the Iraq desert in 2003?
He said to the student at Fairfield, “We go back to Iraq, and I look down the tube of an RPG that had been fired at us, and it hit the chopper in front of ours. And I’m so fortunate to be sitting here.”
Williams has now temporarily stepped down from anchoring the Nightly News while NBC conducts an internal investigation.
Lester Holt, who will fill in for him, made the announcement on Saturday. He said, "This afternoon Brian issued a statement that says, in part, '...it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions.'"
INSIDE EDITION asked body language expert Tonya Reiman to analyze Williams’ now notorious appearance with David Letterman in 2013 when he exaggerated his Iraq war experiences.
She commented on his arrival to the set, "So, right here he is pretty comfortable, but as the conversation deepens, that is when you start to see the tension go up."
Williams said to Letterman in that appearance, "Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47."
Reiman analyzed his body language when he said that. She concluded, "You notice he leans forward. You also see a slight left shoulder shrug. So, when you see that, that is also indicative of somebody who is feeling uncertain. When you shrug your shoulder that tells me you are uncertain in what you just said. That is a big indicator of anxiety and deception."
The Williams crisis is so serious there is growing speculation about who could possibly replace him if he is forced out for good. Some names are being mentioned, like Lester Holt and the Today show's Savannah Guthrie or her co-host Matt Lauer.
Watch the Pilot from the Helicopter Crash Break His Silence About Brian Williams
