Slow news day, huh?
In addition to the fallout from Trump’s Syrian airstrikes, the ongoing Mueller probe into Russian election interference, Trump administration shakeups, and the Stormy Daniels-Trump affair saga (she’s doing The View on Tuesday, by the way), Trump’s embattled lawyer/fixer, Michael Cohen, revealed in court on Monday that his secret third client is none other than Sean Hannity.
The revelation raised a number of questions. Late-night comedian Stephen Colbert posed the question—since Cohen’s other two clients, Trump and former RNC finance chair Elliott Broidy, used Cohen to pay off alleged mistresses—“Who did Sean Hannity have sex with?” CNN’s Anderson Cooper, meanwhile, called out Hannity for criticizing the FBI’s Cohen raid on air and reporting on him a number of times on his Fox News program without disclosing that he was, at least according to Cohen, one of his clients. “Not disclosing a business or legal relationship with someone you report on and have had on as your guest at least 16 times since Donald Trump declared his presidency, that doesn’t sound either fair nor balanced,” Cooper said.
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Jimmy Kimmel also weighed in on the Hannity news on his Live! program Monday night.
“Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, was in court today desperately trying to keep his small client list private,” said Kimmel. “Cohen has three known clients: One of them is Donald Trump, for whom he paid Stormy Daniels. Client No. 2 is Elliott Broidy… Michael negotiated a $1.6 million payment to a Playboy model he had an affair with… and impregnated, by the way, and she had an abortion, so he’s a good dude. And this morning, Michael Cohen was forced to reveal the name of a mystery third client. He tried everything to keep it secret, but the judge ordered him to reveal the name of Client No. 3. And shockingly, that client turned out to be my pal Sean Hannity of Fox News.”
A gleeful Kimmel added: “Isn’t that interesting? That he would need advice from Michael Cohen?”
Hannity, as is his wont, has been going nuts on Twitter over the reveal, so Kimmel read out loud Hannity’s sorta-denial: “Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.”
“That sounds normal. He has a lawyer he doesn’t pay,” offered Kimmel. “Hannity was tweeting furiously this afternoon—to distance himself, as you might imagine, from a lawyer whose only job seems to be paying women out.”
Kimmel then pointed to another of Hannity’s tweets that read, “I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third party.”
“What kind of legal advice doesn’t involve a third party, unless… maybe Sean Hannity was thinking of suing himself?” cracked Kimmel. “Besides the implications that are raised, Sean Hannity’s been the chief propaganda guy for Trump’s legal team, yet he never disclosed that he’s also represented by a member of that legal team. If this is the biggest witch-hunt in history, as they say it is, we’re running out of spots on the broomstick. It’s getting very full. We may have to add an extension to this thing.”
If you recall—or blessedly missed it—Kimmel and Hannity had a disappointing back-and-forth recently, with Hannity first taking shots at Kimmel, calling him “a despicable disgrace” for lightly mocking Melania Trump’s accent, and then Kimmel firing back. Hannity then completely lost the plot, pulling up several old Man Show clips while repeatedly branding the comic “Harvey Weinstein Jr.” for participating in an admittedly sexist—albeit scripted, and consent-given—comedy show a decade-plus ago. This was especially rich behavior coming from Hannity, who’s not only defended accused serial sexual predators Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, Donald Trump, and Roy Moore, but openly campaigned to have O’Reilly return to Fox News.
Well, it looks like Kimmel is getting the last laugh.
