Fox News star Sean Hannity is currently under fire from MAGA media types for having floated the idea to Donald Trump that he should issue a presidential pardon to Hunter Biden in an effort to heal political wounds the day after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
During Thursday night’s primetime congressional hearing, the House committee released investigating the Capitol riots showed Jan. 7, 2021 text messages between Hannity and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. In one exchange, Hannity discussed the post-riot conversation he had with the outgoing president.
“He was intrigued by the pardon idea!! (Hunter),” Hannity said at one point.
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The Daily Beast reported on Friday that the “Hunter” in question was President Joe Biden’s son, who has long been a prime target of right-wing media and Hannity himself.
According to sources, Hannity proposed that Trump issue Hunter Biden a pardon as he walked out of the White House door—essentially as an olive branch to Democrats to help “smooth things over” after the Capitol attack.
Hunter Biden, whose foreign business dealings were the focus of Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to meddle in the 2020 election that led to Trump’s first impeachment, is currently under federal investigation for potential tax evasion and money laundering. So far, the younger Biden has denied any wrongdoing and has yet to be charged with any crimes.
While Hannity was one of the leading conservative voices publicly pushing Trump’s election fraud nonsense ahead of the insurrection, previously released texts show he increasingly expressed concern about the president’s state of mind as the certification day approached. Additionally, along with the pardon idea—which an earnest Hannity proposed because he “genuinely wanted some healing”—the one-time Trump “shadow chief of staff” pressed the outgoing president to drop his stolen election rhetoric.
This was all a bridge too far for the America First crowd, who took to social media to express their anger and disapproval of Hannity for seemingly selling out his principles—especially when it came to the right’s favorite bogeyman.
Pizzagate conspiracist and alt-right disinformation peddler Jack Posobiec called out the Fox News star following The Daily Beast report, posting on Twitter and other social-media channels that we “now know that [Sean Hannity] told Trump to pardon Hunter Biden and stop talking about the 2020 election.”
He added in another post on Telegram a photo of Hannity partying with CNN anchor Don Lemon, alongside the caption: “Are you paying attention yet?”
Darren Beattie, a former White House speechwriter who was terminated for attending a white nationalist conference, took a pointed shot at Hannity and his penchant for wearing law-enforcement pins on his lapel.
“He earned his CIA pin,” Beattie tweeted on Monday.
Beattie, meanwhile, is a frequent guest on Hannity’s colleague Tucker Carlson’s show. In fact, he was one of the key “experts” for Carlson’s Jan. 6 revisionist special Patriot Purge, which claimed that the Capitol attack was a “false flag” by federal agents in an effort to entrap and marginalize “legacy Americans.”
One of the most vocal organizers of the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the insurrection and a sympathetic subject of Carlson’s Jan. 6 documentary not only blasted Hannity but called on conservatives to abandon Fox over the Biden pardon idea and a recent segment about a trans child.
“Turn off Fox News,” Ali Alexander posted on his Telegram channel. “They support rigged election, transitioning and sterilizing 5 year old girls, and Hunter Biden. End cable news. Permanently.”
Former “ultra-MAGA” GOP Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, a Stop the Steal rally attendee whom Hannity repeatedly slammed during last month’s Pennsylvania primary, also got in on the action.
“Can we just all agree now that it is time to STOP taking advice from @SeanHannity?” Barnette snarked on Twitter.
David Wohl, a former Fox News contributor and father of internet hoaxster Jacob Wohl, wondered “how the hell does Hannity still have a show,” calling the primetime cable star “an absolute POS” in a since-deleted tweet.
It was only a matter of time, though, before Fox News wannabe rival Newsmax took a swing at Hannity over the pardon idea. For years, the little-watched MAGA channel has attempted to build an audience by appealing to disgruntled Trump supporters who feel the conservative cable giant is not sufficiently loyal to the twice-impeached ex-president.
"At least it's giving us a bit more insight into what's really going on behind the scenes over at Fox News, as apparently Sean Hannity, of all people, get this: he actually texted Donald Trump asking him to pardon Hunter Biden to make up for the Jan. 6 riot,” Newsmax anchor Jenn Pellegrino declared at the top of her show Monday night.
And just for good measure, she referenced fired Fox News editor Chris Stirewalt’s appearance at Monday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing and his boastful remarks about Fox’s accurate Election Night call for Arizona, which is still a sore subject for Trump loyalists.
“Now if that's not disturbing enough, listen to how excited former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt got when he talked about his controversial decision for the fox to call Arizona on election night for Joe Biden before any other network even dared to,” she added, referencing the ex-editor
