Sean Hannity acted as though dire warnings about Russia’s interference in our elections from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, the Trump-appointed, Republican Director of National Intelligence, were little more than anti-Trump propaganda. He was aided and abetted by colleagues Newt Gingrich and Ed Henry.
Yesterday, Coats and other top intelligence officials gave testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee that should concern any decent American:
“Frankly, the United States is under attack,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that Russia is attempting to “degrade our democratic values and weaken our alliances.”
In unequivocal language, Coats said Russian President Vladimir Putin was emboldened by Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections and is targeting the midterms.
[…]
When asked whether Trump has directed efforts to counter the Russia threat, some of the intelligence chiefs demurred.
But Hannity ignored that sobering assessment. So did supposedly-objective “chief national correspondent” Henry who reported on the hearing during the Hannity show last night.
In his introduction to Henry’s report, Hannity ignored Coats’ warning with a bland overview, saying that the hearing had covered “a wide range of national security issues.”
Henry went along with the cover-up and he upped the partisan ante (transcript excerpts via FoxNews.com):
HENRY: …[A] lot of major ground covered as the nation’s top intelligence officials ran through a litany of grave national security threats that are piling up for the U.S. Yet all that many of the senators wanted to talk about was Russia, Russia, Russia.
Intel officials particularly sounding the alarm bells about North Korea being deadly serious about potentially using their nuclear weapons, bluntly saying we should not believe the North Korean smile campaign as some of the officials called it at the Olympics despite the gushing headlines we have seen in some media outlets. They also warned about the continued threat from Islamist militants from the Middle East and added cheaply made fentanyl being smuggled into the U.S., now being a major national security threat because the opioid crisis is killing thousands here in America every year.
Yet, those threats were not mentioned until the 19th paragraph of the New York Times write-up of this hearing because senators kept trying to hammer President Trump about alleged collusion in 2016 as the intel officials warned about the legitimate threat of Russia trying to disrupt the 2018 midterms, though they also noted that China, Iran, and North Korea are also waging cyber war.
Henry proceeded to play clips of Democratic senators questioning the panel of experts about Russia. He left out all the responses.
Hannity moved right along from Henry’s report to a discussion with near-nightly guest Gingrich. Neither said a word about either the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing nor about the growing Rob Porter scandal (which Hannity ignored throughout his show, though Henry briefly mentioned the revelation by FBI Director Christopher Wray). Instead, the two focused on the Trump-friendly conspiracy theory that the FBI is the real danger to democracy:
HANNITY: Mr. Speaker, I can’t get over two very important things here. And that is Comey and Strzok’s exoneration before investigation and then a FISA memo that they know Hillary bought and paid for, that’s unverified by anybody that is presented to a FISA court and then they don’t tell the FISA court that Hillary bought and paid for the Russia lies.
This is—this is scary—this is about impacting the elections and the absolute integrity of elections in this country.
[…]
GINGRICH: Look, I believe this is the clearest example we have had of, excuse me, the danger of a deep state. Here you have bureaucrats out of control with the power of the government, threatening, I think to undermine the entire process, including blocking, excuse me, blocking Trump from being President and protecting Hillary and it’s only an accident. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves. Very small number of people in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania changed history or we would have learned nothing about this.
You can watch the Henry segment at 21:24 in the full episode here. It’s followed immediately by Gingrich. But if you, like I, don’t have one of the approved providers and your free preview runs out, you can watch the Gingrich discussion separately below.
His humiliation is complete.