I have a history with Sean Hannity

I realize I am breaking no new ground when I point out that Mr. Hannity is a liar, a hypocrite, a scoundrel and a fiend but I thought it useful to get the primary descriptive matters out of the way up front.  I’m sure you are aware that he is in the news because of the text messages he sent to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows before, on and after the assault on the Capitol on January 1 of last year that were released by the 1/6 Committee yesterday.  I should note at the outset that I find myself flabbergasted that Hannity appears to have been the only (marginally) sane voice around He Who Shall Not Be Named.  I mean, we’re talking about Sean Hannity here, folks:  along with such Fox luminaries as Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, he has been responsible for spreading more lies to more people about more matters of consequence such as vaccines against COVID and the assault on the Capitol than anyone currently walking on the face of the earth.

Among the texts sent by Hannity was this one on December 31: “We can’t lose the entire WH counsels office. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told. After the 6 th. He should announce will lead the nationwide effort to reform voting integrity. Go to Fl and watch Joe mess up daily. Stay engaged. When he speaks people will listen.”

The text is notable for several reasons: 

One, it was sent on New Years Eve.  As I’m sure you are aware, most people are not at work on that date.  Meadows and Hannity appear to have been busy at their jobs – Meadows serving the interests of his boss the president, and Hannity serving the same interests of the same boss, which is significant all by itself.

Two, Hannity appears to have been cognizant of brewing dissension in the office of the White House Counsel that would come to a head three days later in the Oval Office when White House Counsel Pat Cippolone, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, his deputy Richard Donoghue, and Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Clark met with (then) President He Who Shall Not Be Named about alleged voting fraud in multiple states.  Rosen was threatened with removal as Attorney General if he wouldn’t go along with demands that he send threatening letters from the Justice Department to voting officials in Georgia and elsewhere.  This caused Rosen and Donoghue to threaten to resign along with most of the top officers of the Justice Department, and Cippolone and his deputy threatened to resign as well.  How Hannity was aware of this 2021 version of a “Saturday Night Massacre” is unknown.  However, what is known is that he never reported his knowledge of what was going on within the White House to his viewers on Fox News, choosing instead to warn Meadows of the inadvisability of this disaster being allowed to occur.

Three, the text implies a familiarity between Hannity and Meadows in his language advising that “he,” meaning the president, should “go to Fl (Florida).”

On January 5, the night before the assault on the Capitol, Hannity sent what the 1/6 Committee described as a “stream of texts” to Meadows, including this one: “I’m very worried about the next 48 hours.”  The Committee informed Hannity it would like to interview him about why he was “worried” what would happen the day before the assault occurred at the Capitol.  I’m sure Hannity’s Fox viewers would be interested as well, especially in light of the fact that he has spent the months subsequent to the assault playing it down, dismissing its significance, and taking the side of those arrested at the Capitol for assault on police officers and other offenses.

There are several other interesting aspects of the Hannity texts, the first being that they were provided to the 1/6 Committee not by Hannity, but by former Chief of Staff Meadows.  This seems to indicate that Meadows privately believes his former boss is going down, and he doesn’t want to be caught on the sinking ship with him.  The thing the texts show quite brightly and cleanly is that there were other Republicans who had to have been as aware as Hannity about what was planned for January 6.  How do we know this?  Because Hannity had to have come by his suspicions and fears of the pending insurrection from talking with someone, and the people he talked to were and are almost exclusively Republicans.  Some may have been in the Congress, but most were probably, like Meadows, on the White House staff.  The 1/6 Committee has made clear in its subpoenas and letters requesting testimony that they have already interviewed multiple cooperating witnesses who worked in the White House before, during and after the assault on the Capitol, which does not bode well at all for He Who Shall Not Be Named.

That Sean Hannity finds himself in the crosshairs of the 1/6 Committee should come as a surprise to no one.  He appeared at rallies during the campaign and has admitted to serving as an informal adviser to the former president.  His participation in spreading the Big Lie since Biden won the presidency has been shameless and non-stop.

Which brings us to my own history with Mr. Hannity.  I appeared regularly on what was then called the “Hannity and Colmes Show” on Fox News practically from the first days it was broadcast in 1996.  Back then, Hannity was the “conservative” host and Alan Colmes was the “liberal,” and the show regularly featured guests on both sides of issues they discussed.  I was invited on the show to comment on gun control, the ongoing “controversy” about gay people in the military, and many other issues.  Because I lived in Los Angeles where it was 3 hours earlier than broadcast time in New York and it was easy for me to get to the Fox studio, I was frequently called to substitute for guests who couldn’t make the broadcast for one reason or another. 

This went on until the fall of 1998 when I made what turned out to be my last appearance on the Hannity and Colmes show.  I was on a book tour making a stop in Dallas when I got a call from a booker for the show asking if I could make it to the Fox studio in that city for an appearance that night.  I could and I did.  The topic had to do with women in the military, and I was prepared to take the “liberal” side against whoever they got to criticize what I recall was the subject of the differing physical training requirements for men and women in the Army and Marines.

When the show began, Hannity didn’t even take the time to announce the topic of the segment before he launched into a lie-filled oration about my own military service, accusing me of having been a “drug dealer” in the Army, telling his audience that I had been court martialed for the offense of selling drugs to my own troops.  I was, to say the least, surprised by this load of utter and complete bullshit and was starting to respond to Hannity’s charges when suddenly the show went to a commercial.  A producer in New York began apologizing to me in my earpiece, telling me the producers had no idea Hannity was going to launch into his fact-free attack on me.

They told me they were going to change the segment to another topic with other guests when the show resumed, but I told the producer I wanted a chance to respond to Hannity’s lies.  When the show returned from its commercial break, I looked into the camera’s eye and told Hannity I had never been court martialed for anything and wasn’t going to dignify his lies any further, other than to challenge him to provide evidence from Department of the Army that what he said was true.  Hannity started to read some new bullshit from a piece of paper he held on the desk in front of him, but the control room in New York cut him off and the show went to commercial again.

I told the producer in New York that I wanted to speak to the executive producer of the show.  When his voice came into my earpiece, I told him that Fox News would be receiving a letter from me demanding a written and on-air correction from both Fox News and Hannity himself.  He started to apologize again, but I took off my earpiece and mic and left the studio.

Later that week after I returned home from the book tour, I sent a letter to Fox News demanding the correction.  I didn’t see the segment, but I was informed by Fox that Hannity had issued a correction and an apology on his show, and I received a letter from the executive producer of Fox News, Roger Ailes himself, apologizing for Hannity’s outburst.

I was never invited on the show again.  Within a few years, Fox News took a sharp turn to the right. Alan Colmes was let go and the show became Hannity’s alone.  The following year, I was in New York to receive a Humanitarian Award from CORE, the Congress For Racial Equality, at a banquet at the Hilton Hotel, for championing of my Hemings cousins as descendants of Jefferson.  The keynote speaker for the evening was George W. Bush, who was in the midst of his campaign for president.  He gave his speech and I spoke next. 

Hannity was sitting on one of two lower daises reserved for distinguished guests and big donors.  I ran into him at the after-party in the “presidential suite” at the Hilton.  He had been studiously avoiding me until I managed to corner him against one of the windows looking out on a glorious view of downtown Manhattan.  “How’s it going, Sean?” I asked him, smiling.  He mumbled something I couldn’t hear.  “Want to have me on your show to discuss the Hemings/Jefferson thing?” I asked him.  “I promise I’ll bring my Humanitarian Award so you can congratulate me on the air.”

He turned and walked away.  I never did get that invite to go on his show or any Fox News show to discuss that subject or any other.  Fox News moved on, so did I, and unless I miss my guess, Sean Hannity will soon be a recipient of a subpoena from the 1/6 Committee.