Yesterday, Hillary Clinton threatened to sue Fox News for defamation. Sean Hannity responded with a show of bravado that put only his bosses’ money at stake.

In case you missed it, Clinton said, in a speech at the New York Democratic convention yesterday that the more trouble Donald Trump gets into, the wilder the conspiracy theories about her. “Fox leads the charge with accusations against me,” she added, “And as an aside, they're getting awfully close to actual malice in their attacks.”

As I noted in my post about these remarks for Crooks and Liars, the phrase “actual malice” refers to the high bar public figures must surmount in order to prevail in a defamation case. If you watch the clip (embedded below this post), you can see that Clinton clearly knew what she was implying, though it seemed to go past the audience at the moment.

Fox viewers would have missed it at the time because the network cut away from Clinton when she began talking about the Big Lie (the one that Fox is already facing two, billion-dollar defamation lawsuits over).

But Hannity, caught it and he was ready to distract from the recent tide of bad news for his Bedtime BFF and weaponize the distraction.

First, Hannity regurgitated the ridiculous Fox meme that Clinton wants to run again for president:

HANNITY: Hillary Clinton smells blood in the water, while Joe Biden is clearly ailing. Hillary is now dreaming perhaps of another run, foisting herself back into the public spotlight. Only one problem: Hillary is one of the most corrupt, one of the most dishonest people on Earth, and now, she finds herself embroiled in yet another scandal.

The “scandal” Hannity was referring to, of course, was the bogus Durham “Russiagate” affair that Fox’s own panel of guests on Special Report pretty much debunked as a nothingburger the day before.

Hannity played a clip of Clinton’s “actual malice” remarks and then responded.

HANNITY: Bring it on. Malice, really? It's called news. Hillary, we invite you to bring it on.

Then he whined that Clinton “could not be bothered to answer any of FOX News's questions before bolting off the stage.”

Not surprisingly, the “question” was about the Durham matter and that served as a springboard for Hannity to keep hyping it – with the obvious hope that none of his viewers will pay attention to the fact that his BFF’s accountants just publicly called him a fraud, that he and his children were just ordered to testify about their business’ financial practices and that the January 6th Committee just released a new trove of texts further showing how two-faced Seanie-Pooh has been about January 6th. In fact, Hannity expressed such private, insider-y concerns about that day that the January 6th Committee considers him a “fact witness” with “advance knowledge” of the Trump team’s plans for that day and has asked for his cooperation in answering their questions.

But yeah, it’s all about the fake Hillary story.

You can watch Hannity dare Clinton below, from the February 17, 2022 Hannity show. And is it just me or does Hannity sound drunk to you?