Having hitched his career wagon so closely to Donald Trump, Sean Hannity seems desperate to say anything to protect Dear Leader, no matter what high crimes and misdemeanors he may have committed.
Hannity is not a lawyer. He didn't even finish college. But because his sycophancy has earned him the role of unofficial chief of staff in the Trump White House, he apparently thinks he's a legal expert, too. And Fox News is letting him play that part on TV.
Last night, Hannity pretended to know more than special counsel Robert Mueller, who is not only a lawyer but a decorated Marine who served the second-longest term as FBI chief. Hannity, on the other hand, never spent a minute serving his country. He has, however, made big bucks spewing hate about those who have:
Actually, Mueller found hundreds of examples of disturbing behavior by the Trump campaign with Russians, along with many attempts to obstruct justice that more than 400 federal prosecutors, from both Republican and Democratic administrations, say they would have prosecuted as felonies had Trump not been in office.
But what would any of them know, compared to Hannity?
Hannity played a clip of Mueller stating “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not however make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”
That's hardly “cheering for impeachment,” especially since Mueller also made it clear he does not want to testify in any Congressional hearing. But Mueller did suggest Congress should carry the ball from here.
So Fox's prime time propagandist grasped at what may have been the only straw available to him: Pretend to know more on the subject than Mueller:
That means the attorney general of the United States under Nadler and company's new law, he has the final say, and we already know his answer. The Attorney General Barr, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the nonpartisan Office of Legal Counsel, all crystal clear on this matter. They all concluded the president did not obstruct justice, not because of some Justice Department rule or guideline, or some constitutional restriction. They actually were very clear on this point, but because there was no crime, period.
Yes, they were very clear on that point but a) Barr testified he had not reviewed the underlying evidence and b) Mueller, who gathered the evidence, had made a similar statement, that he specifically did not exonerate Trump, in his report.
And speaking of partisan hacks who don't know the law, Hannity seems to have forgotten about the fact that the Constitution gives Congress oversight over the executive branch, including Barr, just like Mueller said.
Not only did Fox allow Hannity to put forth this lie in a pre-scripted commentary, the network allowed him to tout himself as a truthteller. “Unlike the hate-Trump media mob, we are working hard every single day with great ensemble cast here to bring you truth, every single night, every single week,” Hannity boasted.
Watch Hannity pretend to be a legal expert below, from the May 29, 2019 Hannity, via Media Matters.
Published with permission of Newshounds.us
