While Sean Hannity was boasting about exposing the Russia investigation’s supposed “lies, conspiracies, and a hoax,” he gave his own self a pass for promoting lies, conspiracies and a hoax that slimed murder-victim Seth Rich in order to falsely blame him for leaking DNC emails to WikiLeaks, when we know it was the Russians.
Last night, Hannity boasted about his journalistic prowess in “exposing” the Russia investigation as little more than a conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump’s presidency:
HANNITY: [W]e have been in the forefront of peeling one layer of the onion after another after another after another. It has been arduous. It has been shoe-leather reporting, the way it should be done.
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This country came painfully close. This great Democratic republic, the greatest country God gave man. We came dangerously close to allowing a few people, reckless, lawless people to spread lies, conspiracies, and a hoax, and successfully, trying to undo the will of the American people.
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It is now officially over.
In reality, the Russia investigation was never proven to be a hoax and Donald Trump has colluded with Russia right in front of our eyes.
But there is one Russia-investigation conspiracy theory that we know for sure is a hoax and that is the one spread by Sean Hannity, designed to smear Rich in order to exonerate Glorious Leader Trump.
In March, even Attorney General (and Hannity pet) William Barr acknowledged that the Russians, not Rich, gave the hacked emails to WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange. In April, the Mueller report suggested that Assange blamed Rich in order to take the heat off the Russians.
As reporter Michael Isikoff noted (discussing his multipart podcast about the Rich conspiracy), Hannity and his Trump-toady colleagues began scapegoating Rich, a DNC staffer who was murdered in 2016 in what police believe was a botched robbery, just as special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed and “the Russia story is blowing up,” in 2017.
Hannity essentially admitted his motive was to take the heat off Trump: In May, 2017, he said his version of events “could completely shatter the narrative that, in fact, WikiLeaks was working with the Russians, or there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.”
Hannity continued promoting his fake news, even after Fox News had retracted its flimsy reporting and promised an investigation (which it has yet to produce) and the Rich family had pleaded with him to stop. What’s even more disgusting is that Hannity willfully and needlessly caused more grief for a tragedy-stricken family, for the sake of a lie to protect Trump.
Hannity hasn’t even had the decency to apologize.
By the way, he hasn’t apologized to President Barack Obama, either, in that case for promoting the birther lie, which had been thoroughly debunked before Hannity and his beloved Trump started up with it. There was absolutely no purpose for that hoax other than to, as Hannity put it, allow a few people to use lies to undo the will of the people.
Watch Hannity boast about his “shoe-leather reporting” below, from the July 24, 2019 Hannity show.