Calling into Fox News’ pre-hearing coverage of Wednesday’s Senate testimony of Attorney General William Barr, Fox News primetime host Laura Ingraham slammed Fox News anchor Chris Wallace for the horrific crime of not echoing Fox News primetime’s pro-Trump talking points.
Earlier Wednesday morning, Wallace was on-air asserting that Republicans “will have to do some rehabilitation to try to restore” Barr’s reputation following news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote Barr to complain about his initial summary of the Mueller report. The Fox News Sunday host added that Democrats will grill the attorney general because they “feel he has misled the country on the essential contents of the report.”
Later in the broadcast, Ingraham called in and described the Mueller letter as a “non-story” while openly bashing her colleague.
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“The idea that Bill Barr set about to fundamentally distort and misrepresent a 448-page report that he knew would be almost in its entirety released except for redactions that were agreed upon; the idea he would set about to do that to what, ruin his entire career and be roundly ridiculed, is preposterous,” she declared.
Ingraham continued: “Now, I know Chris Wallace at the top of your hour was indicating that I guess that he kind of agrees with these other cable networks that this was an attempt by the DOJ to spin what the conversation was between Barr and Mueller. So I don’t know if Chris Wallace has information that I don’t have, but that he is saying that Barr is perpetuating a lie about this conversation between him and Mueller?”
She went on to say that Mueller is a “big boy” and would have come forward if he thought the investigation was being distorted or harmed in any way before saying that she finds the “reporting on this and much of the commentary on this to be harmful and frankly very disturbing.”
“And I’m watching this in real-time and this is not spin by the way,” the pro-Trump host added.
Hours later and shortly after the hearing ended, Wallace appeared on Fox News anchor Shepard Smith’s broadcast and returned fire.
“I know there are some people who don’t think this March 27th letter is a big deal and some opinion people, some opinion people who appear on this network who may be pushing a political agenda but, you know, we have to deal in facts,” the Fox News Sunday host declared Wednesday afternoon.
Wallace went on to note that the Mueller letter reveals that the special counsel was “very upset” with Barr's summary of the investigation's findings and found it “inaccurate.”
“A lot of people, having read now the full report or as much as it has been not redacted, you know, agree that he didn’t reveal what was fully in the report,” the Fox News anchor concluded. “Again, those aren’t opinions. That’s not a political agenda. Those are the facts.”
