In the aftermath of the 2016 election, Sean Hannity was arguably one of the main culprits in spreading a conspiracy theory linking Hillary Clinton to the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. The theory, which Julian Assange had appeared to promote, posited that Rich was killed after leaking the infamous stolen DNC emails to Assange’s WikiLeaks, despite U.S. intelligence services concluding that the data theft was carried out by hackers connected to the Russian government. Hannity was subsequently sued by Rich’s family for his role in boosting the conspiracy theory in front of his millions of viewers; the suit will reportedly require that he be deposed later this month.
However, Hannity has apparently failed to learn his lesson when it comes to amplifying shady late-election controversies that may or may not contain the fingerprints of nefarious foreign entities, and that are designed to benefit Donald Trump and scandalize his opponents. On Tuesday night, Hannity went all in on the Hunter Biden laptop controversy (i.e. the New York Post story of dubious origins that claimed to prove Joe Biden used his political position to help his son and that coincidentally carries the byline of Emma-Jo Morris, a former producer on Hannity’s show). The host dispatched a Fox camera crew to wait outside the elder Biden’s home as he goaded the Democratic presidential nominee to “walk outside your house, leave your basement bunker, feel free to step out. Answer any of these pressing questions.”
Despite Hannity’s obsession with the story, his employers seem to have learned from the network’s retracted foray into conspiratorial waters. Fox’s news division was initially offered the purported dirt on Biden’s son but passed on the story, according to a Mediaite report. (The network still ran dozens of segments on the story across its news and opinion shows, and the president used Fox’s airwaves this week to essentially order his attorney general to investigate the Bidens). Beyond Trumpworld media, most mainstream outlets seem to have taken the same route as Fox’s news division and shown restraint in covering the story, as there are ongoing questions about whether it’s part of a targeted disinformation operation. The Post, which, like Fox News, is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, has since published various emails, photos, and files procured from the laptop that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden to portray the so-called October Surprise as a series of damning revelations.
Hannity, however, has been giddily breaking down almost every detail in the story since the Post published it several days ago. “Joe Biden, you have a lot of questions to answer,” the host said before revealing that his production crew was lined up outside the Biden home. “I know it’s 9 p.m. Eastern, Joe, but if you are awake, we have a camera right outside of your house right now…. We will be more than happy to hear you out.” Hannity, who recently fantasized about interviewing Biden and giving him the kind of “treatment” that Trump faced in his NBC town hall last week, went on to say that the stunt was conducted so that “we, the American people” can get to the bottom of “what is wrong with Joe Biden” and figure out what his campaign is “trying to hide” from voters. “Joe, if this is a really big smear campaign, as you suggested over the weekend when you got one hard question…come out and tell us why,” he added, offering the former vice president “a full hour of the show. It’s all yours.”
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