Propagandist-in-chief on Fox, Sean Hannity, did his best to downplay the bad news for Trump in the newly released Manafort and Cohen memos, while continuing to attack the Mueller investigation as a "witch hunt" this Friday.
December 8, 2018

Fox's Sean Hannity looks more desperate by the day as the Mueller probe continues to close in on Trump, his businesses and members of his family. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, Hannity opened his show this Friday night railing against Mueller as conducting a witch hunt, trying to downplay the Manafort and Cohen memos released that same day, and insisting the memos prove that Mueller "has nothing on Trump."

HANNITY: Alright, we have major developments tonight from the Mueller witch hunt. Here's what you need to know. First, the Special Counsel’s memo on Paul Manafort is out. It is heavily redacted. We do know, however, that Robert Mueller believes that Paul Manafort breached his plea deal and lied to investigators all surrounding alleged crimes, none of which have anything to do with president Trump, none of which have to do with Russia or anything to do with collusion.

Instead, a source with knowledge of the investigation tonight telling Fox News that much of the redacted information likely includes potential criminal allegations, we are told against Tony Podesta. That would be John Podesta’s brother, Democratic lobbyist, John Podesta, of course the Clinton campaign chair. Absolutely nothing.

Now we’re talking about in the Manafort case, tax evasion, other charges, bank loan applications dating back to 2007. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders issued this statement. It said “The government’s filing in Mr. Manafort’s case says absolutely nothing about the president. It says even less about collusion and is devoted almost entirely to lobbying-related issues.” and I’ll add long before Paul Manafort ever met Donald Trump.

And also breaking today, two separate sentencing memos were filed against one time Trump attorney Michael Cohen. First, the Southern District of New York completely rejecting Cohen’s pleas for leniency, writing that “a substantial term of imprisonment” is warranted and then the memo continues “Cohen’s decision to plead guilty rather than seek a pardon for his manifold crimes does not make him a hero.”

In exchange for Cohen’s guilty plea, the prosecutors recommended only a slight reduction to the suggested five-year prison sentence. And meanwhile, the next memo from the Special Counsel, well that focused on Cohen admitting that he lied under oath to the federal government, writing “the sentence imposed should reflect the fact that lying to federal investigators has real consequences.”

Let’s be clear, the one thing that these two filings have in common, nothing to do with Russia or collusion at all. Zero evidence in any of these documents of Trump-Russia collusion, zero. Now today, the president, he applauded the ruling. He tweeted “Totally clears the president. Thank you.” Ant the president’s attorney, Rudy Guliani, called these findings “a complete exoneration of the president. They have nothing. We are happy about it.”

And the president and Guliani are right about this. Legal scholar, Alan Dershowitz, very passionate tonight, echoing a lot of these sentiments, including, by the way saying, don’t ever think about making a deal with Mueller because it’s not going to work out too well for you. Take a look.

DERSHOWITZ: Right now it does not sounds like it’s good news from Mueller. Doesn’t sound like in Cohen they have found a witness that will give them the key to the kingdom. So far the only solid evidence he has provided is the campaign contribution issue, and it’s a very, very weak case.

HANNITY:  Tonight, we have two men facing years behind bars, a third, George Papadopoulos, was released from prison today after serving his twelve day sentence for lying to Mueller's investigators. Meanwhile, we had American hero Michael Flynn, well, he plead guilty for lying to investigators, and will become a convicted felon, but only after his reputation and his finances were totally destroyed, and the question is for what?

When you read these documents, we hear about taxi medallions, fraudulent loan applications, tax evasion, lying about a potential project in Moscow that never got off the ground and whether they stopped talking about it in January in 2016 or June in 2016. Wow, the horror. How will America ever recover?

Clearly an election was stolen by all this information after months of intense investigations, millions and millions and millions of your dollars spent, seedy perjury traps, legal coercion? We have absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing by the president of the United States.

And then you ask yourself this question, do you feel safer tonight? Do you feel safer that a low-level campaign volunteer, he spent his twelve days in jail for allegedly lying to the omnipotent Robert Mueller? Do you feel safer that American military hero, Lieutenant General Flynn, that he had to sell his house to pay his legal bills? Oh, the thanks one gets for thirty three years of service to his country, five of those years in combat.

By the way, neither Comey, Page, Strzok or anybody in the FBI thought he lied. But of course, they put the screws to General Flynn and he had to compose a lie about lying, and he did it to protect his family and to get out of the mess economically that they were putting him in.

Do you feel any safer than Michael Cohen is going to go to prison for a significant amount of time? Let's see, for lying to Congress? Lying on a bank loan application, taxi medallion loans, not paying taxes. Do you feel safer knowing that Manafort might spend the rest of his life behind bars because, again, tax fraud and lies on loan applications? Had nothing to do with Russia. Years before he met Trump. Do you feel safer that everyone surrounding the president is seemingly targeted, and those on the left get away every single day Scot-free? Is that the America we want to live in?

Of course, in Hannity's world, the FISA warrants they've been raving about for years, and Clinton's emails are the real scandal, as he continued to parrot Trump's ridiculous claims that she was the one that actually colluded with the Russians.

Expect him to to sound more and more unhinged, and to continue to defend the lawbreaking from this administration as the Mueller investigation winds down, and as he helps his party make a complete farce of the notion that any of them ever cared about law and order. They only care about law breaking when it's done by one of their political opponents, and when it can be used as a political cudgel against them.

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