Sean Hannity lied his way through what purported to be an explanation of the just-released Nunes memo last night, evidently desperate to pretend that the dud was indeed the big bombshell he's been promoting.
Not only did Nunes’ memo not expose the anti-Trump bias at the FBI it claimed to expose, the memo actually “exculpates the Russia investigation,” as Vox put it.
But, of course, truth and honesty are for other people, not “opinion journalist” Hannity. He kicked off his show last night by calling the memo’s so-called revelations, “the biggest abuse of power, corruption case in American history.”
Think Progress has an excellent summary of Hannity’s deceit. I’ll just quote a bit of it but I highly recommend the rest for an understanding of just how blatantly dishonest Hannity was, without any apparent objection from Fox News:
“It proves that the entire basis for the Russia investigation was based on lies that were bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton”
The memo actually explicitly states the opposite. According to the memo, the FBI counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign’s connection was based on information the FBI received about George Papadapolous in July 2016. This had nothing to do with the Steele Dossier, which was paid for in part by Clinton. Rather, Papadapolous bragged about his connections with Russian operatives, who had promised him dirt on Hillary Clinton, to an Australian diplomat, who reported it to the FBI.
Further, the memo does not “prove” that everything in the Steele dossier is a lie. It does not even assert that without proof. The memo does not weigh in on the truth of the claims in the Steele dossier. Rather, it simply states it was included in submission to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking surveillance of Carter Page, a former adviser to the Trump campaign.
[…]
“The FBI misled and purposely deceived a federal court…”
The memo does not allege that anyone “purposely deceived a federal court.” It alleges that there were omissions in the filings, which were likely hundreds of pages long. It does not say that those omissions were purposeful nor that they misled the court in any way.
That was bad enough. But Hannity – perhaps to distract from anyone actually fact checking him – went on to maliciously and baselessly suggest that former FBI Director James Comey is on the verge of being arrested. Maybe deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Mueller investigation overseer and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, too. (Transcript excerpt below via FoxNews.com)
HANNITY: Crimes have been committed. There is no way that they did not know that the FBI was lying to a FISA court in order to spy on an opposition campaign during an election year. They have aided and abetted what is a massive Constitutional violation. Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein and others, all need to be investigated and, in many cases, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because these crimes have been committed.
Remember, Comey testified under oath, the dossier was salacious and unverified. Remember he told that to Donald Trump when he was the president-elect. If that’s the case, then why the hell did he use it two months earlier to get a FISA warrant? Now, of course, Comey is running scared. He is out of his mind right now, now that he is exposed with this memo.
He actually tweeted out today, “That’s it? Dishonest, misleading memo, wreck the House Intel Committee, destroy trust with the intelligence community, damage relationship with the FISA court and an excusably exposed classified investigation of an America citizen. For what? DOJ and FBI must keep doing their jobs.”
Here’s the problem. The only thing that was dishonest and misleading in this was Jim Comey. As I said last night, Jim, you might want to keep your mouth shut because anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. And do you have the right to an attorney.
Watch this disgusting attack on law enforcement officers with distinguished careers below, from the February 2, 2018 Hannity.
Fox News (TrumpTV) has been desperately data mining since Trump’s election to prop him up. Worse, their propaganda is being used by their most important viewer – The Donald – for his Twitter spews and actual administration policy. The so-called “liberal mainstream media” gives Trump’s Twitter spews wide dissemination which only serves to smoke up the room and confuse independents.
In this alternate reality environment, the 30% or so of the electorate who are hardcore Trump sycophants will remain so out of pure ignorance. Plus many independents are persuaded by the right-wing propaganda. Sad and I fear for the future of our democracy. 😣