Sean Hannity worked himself into a major snit Tuesday night over the fact that his name came up in connection with the smear of former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. After playing numerous clips from MSNBC, Hannity shook his fist at CNN President Jeff Zucker, declared the whole thing "fake news," and readied another John Solomon smear of Joe Biden to distract his viewers.
"In reality, despite the obsessive fake news reporting by the media mob, I don't know anything about this woman," Hannity insisted. "She was barely mentioned but a few times on this program just in passing, basically, and to this day I haven't talked to anyone from Ukraine that I knew was from Ukraine -- no one!"
He added, "I certainly was not lobbying for her removal."
In the transcript of Marie Yovanovitch's testimony to the impeachment committee, Sean Hannity's name came up on eight different pages, generally in relation to the close relationship he has with senior administration officials such as Mike Pompeo, and Trump himself. The allegation was never that he talked to anyone from Ukraine, but that he was helping with a smear campaign to create an excuse for Trump to recall her.
"What I was told by [State Department official] Phil Reeker was that the Secretary or perhaps somebody around him was going to place a call to Mr. Hannity on FOX News to say, you know, 'what is going on? I mean, do you have proof of these kinds of allegations or not? And if you have proof, you know, tell me, and if not, stop,'" Yovanovitch testified.
In other words, Sean Hannity denied things no one accused him of. The testimony there was that Hannity was spreading the allegations, not that he spoke to Mike Pompeo directly.
Hannity went on to play four clips, all from MSNBC. The last one was John Heilemann comparing Hannity and Fox News with Soviet Tass in the mid-1970s. It was not well-received.
"He really is a dumb jackass!" Hannity exclaimed, obviously irritated. "For the record, by the way, I never talked to the Secretary of State or anyone from the State Department."
"All of what you saw shouldn't be surprising -- let's see -- it's a hoax, more fake news, more conspiracy theories. None of that happened," he assured viewers.
And then he pointed a finger at CNN President Jeff Zucker before he introduced a new John Solomon smear.
We know Hannity has pillow chats with Trump. We know he's friends with smear merchant Solomon and has promoted every smear and slur Solomon invents. We know he's close with the senior members of Trump's staff. So Hannity's insistence that he didn't talk to Pompeo ever just doesn't pass the smell test. At all.
