Sean Hannity repeatedly tried to validate Donald Trump’s baseless claim that voter fraud had tainted the Florida election and/or its recount but Hannity’s own legal besties acknowledged that no evidence of it exists.
In his unhinged monologue last night, Hannity was clearly more interested in backing up his Bedtime BFF, Donald Trump, than in telling the truth.
Earlier on Monday, Trump tweeted:
As The Washington Post noted, “Under state law, ballots from overseas and military voters have until Friday to arrive to be counted.” But the White House could or would not say what Trump was referring to: “White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about whether the president was referring to those ballots.” Furthermore, Florida Judge Jack Tuter, appointed to the bench by Republican governor Jeb Bush, “said that there was no evidence of voter fraud and that Brenda Snipes, the county election supervisor, needs to be allowed to do her job and finish the count.”
Clearly, Hannity sees his job as bucking up Trump and the truth be damned. Even worse, he pretended to be on the side of truth – while deliberately trying to frighten and rile up viewers as he lied through his waterboard-weaseling teeth:
HANNITY: All right. Buckle up, tonight, the sanctity of your vote in this country is at risk. As Americans, we have polls on Election Day, we expect our votes to be safeguarded, to be tracked, counted by diligent, honest officials in accordance with the law.
That did not happen in southern Florida. Since election night, nearly 100,000 uncounted votes have just magically turned up in liberal Broward and Palm Beach Counties. We have no idea where the votes came from, where they’ve been, why they weren’t counted last Tuesday.
[…]
Palm Beach, Broward Counties, we are witnessing a colossal disaster. Laws have been broken. Florida’s Constitution ignored. None of this was caused by a hurricane, but rather local officials who are incompetent, corrupt, and obviously feel they are above the law, that 65 other Florida counties, 65 of 67, adhered to.
In Palm Beach County, at least 15,000 new ballots were unearthed and counted after election night. And in Broward County, almost 75,000 so- called “uncounted votes” magically turning up day after day after day after the election. Tens of thousands of lost ballots just seemingly appeared out of thin air! The vast majority, of course, cast by Democrats.
Hannity yammered on in this vein until he got to his goal: undermining the electoral process.
HANNITY: We will never have any chance of knowing what the accurate vote tallies were from this past election now in the state of Florida. That has been ruled. That’s off the table.
Of course, Hannity only wants viewers to reject any election outcomes that are good for Democrats:
HANNITY: Now, make no mistake, when the dust settles here, [Republicans] Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis will take their rightful place as senator and governor of Florida. But tonight, Democratic operatives, they are trying to prevent all of that from happening. …
Rule of law means nothing to them.
Hannity next called on Trumpers Gregg Jarrett and Andrew McCarthy, both Fox News contributors. But they made it clear, even as they tried to throw up smoke screens suggesting otherwise, that there was no evidence of voter fraud or incorrect vote tallies.
JARRETT: So far, three agencies in Florida say we have no evidence of fraud. But, Sean, their investigation is in a premature stage and only cursory so far. So, it’s good that the Attorney General Pam Bondi is vowing in an extensive investigation.
[…]
HANNITY: Let me go to Andy. Look, it’s not even a question laws were broken.
[…]
MCCARTHY: And, you know, look, we have a situation where in Governor Scott’s case, somebody had a 50,000 lead on election night, it’s down to 12,500. There could be good explanations for that. There could be corrupt explanations in that.
And the problem is that the public has a right to know what is the explanation for it and the way that they conducted themselves, it makes it very difficult to give credit to this in terms of election system that has integrity.
[…]
HANNITY: We will never get a accurate count for Florida. It has already been tainted on many levels. Sixty-five of the 67 other counties, including the Panhandle—if it’s happened in the Panhandle, I might understand it. But if 65 counties continue to get it right in Florida, in 2012, 2014, ‘15, ‘16, and ‘17, the same players, the same nonsense, the same games, it is not fair to the rest of Florida what goes on here.
JARRETT: It’s not. And it tells you, Sean, that something is amiss here, when 65 counties can get it right. But just about every election, these two counties, Broward and Palm Beach can’t.
She missed, Brenda Snipes, every deadline that was set and everybody else met them. She commingled valid with invalid ballots. And astonishingly, tens and thousands of ballots suddenly and magically materialize out of nowhere with no proper accounting, no chain of custody. We have no idea when these ballots were casted and by whom.
And so, you know, this has got the nefarious look of corruption written all over it. I’m not saying that fraud was perpetrated. But it does need to be investigated given her track record.
Watch Hannity deliberately mislead his viewers and undermine democracy for the sake of promoting political rancor, divisiveness, distrust, anger and fear – all in service to his personal and political ambitions. And while neither of his lackeys would directly call him out on the lies, they wouldn't go so far as to support them, either. It’s all below, from the November 12, 2018 Hannity.
(Transcript excerpts via FoxNews.com)
Crossposted at Newshounds.us
