Sean Hannity is demanding “accountability” for others in the media who supposedly got it wrong about the Mueller investigation –yet somehow Hannity let himself and Fox News off the hook for the lies spread when they tried to frame murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich for the leak of DNC emails to Wikileaks.
In case you’ve forgotten, Fox News, especially Sean Hannity, promoted a baseless conspiracy theory that Rich (i.e. not Russia) was the real source of the hacked DNC emails delivered to Wikileaks and that he was murdered by a Clinton operative as a result. Hannity continued promoting the fake news, even after Fox retracted the story and the Rich family had pleaded with him to stop.
The Rich family sued Fox News, though not Hannity, and, although the lawsuit was dismissed on technical grounds, the network was not at all vindicated.
One part of the “principal conclusions” of the Mueller report, as set forth in Attorney General William Barr's letter that he (and, apparently, the rest of Fox) overlooked is the part about how it was the Russians who leaked the hacked emails to Wikileaks:
"The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks."
In other words, unless Hannity and his Trump TV pals are going to start claiming Rich was a Russian agent, this means he had nothing, zip, nada to do with the crime Hannity and Fox News repeatedly accused him of.
Unlike Trump, who is a public figure with a long trail of suspicious behavior, Rich was a young murder victim not in public office, who left behind a grieving family for whom Hannity and Trump TV caused more grief. Yet even when Hannity finally announced on the air, “[O]ut of respect for the family’s wishes, for now, I am not discussing this matter at this time,” he announced that same day on Twitter, “Not only am I not stopping, I am working harder.” Where are the results? Filed away with Trump's Hawaii birther investigation?
Conveniently forgetting his own history, not to mention Trump's – or maybe figuring that by pointing fingers at others we’d all forget both – Hannity got on his High Horse of Hypocrisy last night (does he have any other?) and joined Trump administration crony, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and the Trump campaign in exploiting the Barr letter with McCarthy-ite attacks and an enemies list.
HANNITY: You know, I look at so-called competition in cable news, let’s start with Rachel Maddow’s audience. They have been sold one conspiracy theory night after night after night, lie night after night after night, 22 months. She has profited from these lies to her audience on a spectacular level.
Frankly, she and her so-called colleagues, so-called mainstream media, so- called journalists, they should be embarrassed tonight, they should feel humiliated tonight, they should be apologizing tonight to the American people as well as so many others in the media. It will take me months, but we will follow every lead and we will remind you what has been done here.
Now, the truth has been laid bare for all to see. No collusion, no obstruction, no truth to the lies that have been peddled daily. We, on this program, have been right all along because, unlike the mainstream media, we have been telling the truth with evidence to back it up. Many of you since yesterday have been writing me and you want me to spike the football tonight.
I am not in any type of celebratory mood here tonight in any way. This is a time—every American that now knows truth, you should be angry at what has happened here, all of America. I am pissed off and so should the rest of the country be over what has happened.
Just because, you know, this is—this is only the first chapter. This must be a day of reckoning for the media, for the deep state, for people who abuse power, and they did it so blatantly in this country.
If we do not get this right, if we do not hold these people accountable, I promise you with all the love I can muster for this country and our future for our kids and grandkids, we will lose the greatest country God has ever given man. We will lose it.
Where’s your apology, Sean?
Watch Hannity paper over his own media malpractice below, from the March 25, 2019 Hannity show. Underneath, watch an explanation of how Hannity promoted the lie about Rich, from ABC’s March 15, 2018 Good Morning America.
(Transcript excerpt via Fox News)
EXCLUSIVE: Parents of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich speak out about their lawsuit against Fox News over bogus story about their son. @TomLlamasABC has the story pic.twitter.com/HshSmyQ4C5
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 15, 2018
Pie’s moving boxes are stored in the closet, along with plans to remodel his office.
NOTE TO GRANDPA
You had to give yourself top billing for that upcoming docudrama. What percentage are you getting this time?
1. The investigation was more than justified by the behavior of the Trump campaign. George Papadopoulos set things in motion when he began bragging about their antics, and there were other suspicious activities, as the investigation has shown multiple times. Nobody forced Flynn to take the actions he did. Nobody forced these guys to work with Wikileaks and play dirty tricks games with them. Even the act of consorting with a group like Wikileaks would have put the Trump gang on the radar of investigators, for obvious reasons. So the Right Wing premise that this was an unfounded political hit job is ridiculous on its face and should be slapped away the moment it’s attempted.
2. Even from what little we know about the Mueller Report from Barr’s opinion sheet on it, this was NOT an exoneration. We need to see the actual report to know the exact language, but what we’ve seen so far indicates that Mueller saw extremely suspicious behavior but didn’t feel he could prosecute a sitting president for it under current DOJ guidelines. That’s not the same thing as “total exoneration” by any means. So the second Right Wing premise is as nonsensical as the first.
3. If angry Right Wingers want to hear an apology from anyone about covering a legitimate news story and an investigation where 37 indictments were brought and multiple convictions were landed, then we’re truly in upside down world. And while we’re there, let’s ask about the apologies and “accountability” from Right Wing media for their smear jobs about:
-Fast & Furious
-Solyndra
-The IRS and Lois Lerner
-Benghazi
-Hillary Clinton’s Emails
-Joe Sestak
-President Obama’s school transcripts
And I’m barely scratching the surface. The reality is that someone like Sean Hannity has absolutely no moral ground upon which to stand when he makes nonsensical claims like these. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was playing an elaborate practical joke.