Although I’m inclined to believe women who claim to have been sexually harassed and as much as it pains me to defend Sean Hannity, I have to say I’m skeptical about Debbie Schlussel’s claim to have been sexually harassed by him. UPDATE: Schlussel now says she was not sexually harassed.
In a podcast Friday, Schlussel claimed that Hannity asked her to come back to his hotel room at a booksigning of his that he asked her to attend before an appearance on his TV show.
According to Schlussel, it was suggestive that Hannity told her they would “double team” against the other guest, a Palestinian. The Daily News has more:
“And then every time I tried to open my mouth and say something, they yelled at me and said, ‘obey your host, you can’t say anything or else we’re gonna shut off your microphone.’”
After the show, Schlussel claims Hannity invited her back to his hotel room again. She says she declined once again.
“And then after that, I wasn’t booked on a show again. And he called me and yelled at me,” she said on the podcast.
Hannity has told the Daily News he has retained “a team of some of the finest and toughest lawyers in the country who are now in the process of laying out the legal course of action we will be taking against this individual.”
Despite the fact that Hannity has no regard for truth, I believe him here. As I wrote in a 2010 post, Schlussel is hardly a reputable source and she has a long-standing grudge against Hannity. In that case, I nonetheless believed Schlussel’s claims about the paltry sums paid out as scholarships from the proceeds of Hannity’s Freedom Concerts.
But in this case, it just doesn’t go with the rest of what I know about Hannity from many long years of closely observing him. Unlike O’Reilly, Hannity is not obsessed with policing other people’s sexual behavior. Notwithstanding his ongoing Spring Break series, Hannity rarely discusses sex at all. Second, as mentioned above, Schlussel really does have some kind of obsessive grudge against Hannity.
Hannity is a race-baiting bully who is abusive to his guests on the air. He has also promoted armed insurrection against the U.S. government, which I consider treason. But sexual harasser? I’ve just never seen it. But abusive is as abusive does. That means I’m keeping an open mind.
Listen to Schlussel on Pat Campbell's April 21, 2017 podcast below. Then watch Hannity have a bullyboy meltdown after a guest had the nerve to suggest, on September 10, 2008, that George Bush’s economy was in trouble.
4/24/17 UPDATE: In an interview with LawNewz today, Schlussel now claims that Hannity invited her back to his hotel, not his hotel room and that she "would never accuse him" of sexual harassment. Schlussel is also quoted as saying, “I never thought I was sexually harassed by Sean Hannity, I thought he was weird and creepy not someone I liked." She insists this has nothing to do with Hannity's threat to sue her.
I think the “something” Hannity has on Schlussel was his threat to sue her.
I need to post about Hannity blaming liberals tomorrow. I hoped to do it today but time ran out.
The man may not be a sexual harasser, but he is one hell of a bald-faced liar. He then sequed smoothly into going on and on screeching about how “liberal fascists” were trying to stifle all conservative voices.
You betcha, Sean, we’re “going after” conservative liars like you.
(This was then followed by yet another segment about Democrats saying mean things about poor little right-wing snowflakes— you know, that dastardly Obama remark many years ago about “bringing a knife to a gunfight,” or whatever it was, Tom Perez using a couple of shocking cusswords recently. And who does he bring on to discuss this gross incivility with him? Why, it’s none other than Michelle Malkin, one of the ugliest-mouthed people out there.)
