Sean Hannity Gaslights America: Spins Trump’s Treasonous Remarks As ‘A Genius Setup’

Every aspiring dictator worth his salt has a media enterprise at the ready to peddle his version of an obviously fabricated, self-serving reality. And for Donald Trump that has always been Fox News. The network that was born as a propaganda tool for right-witn purveyors of policies that benefit only corporations and the wealthy quickly adapted to the Era of Trump and aligned their most prominent, primetime shills with the White House approved messaging.

Fox News, Sean Hannity

Leading the pack of StormTrumpers at Fox News is Sean Hannity, a sycophant so devoted that the shows up to speak at Trump’s cult rallies and appears in his campaign videos. Hannity has proven that he will do and say anything to support Dear Leader, no matter how deceitful, immoral, ar absurd.

So naturally when Trump takes a gaping bite out of his own bone-spur infested foot, Hannity is right there with the ketchup and a Diet Coke to help wash it down. On Wednesday Trump essentially confessed to George Stephanopoulos that he unlawfully received information from Russia and would be happy to do so again with any hostile foreign nation. It was an unambiguous admission of a “high crime” that would merit impeachment. Hannity’s response to this criminal treachery was to herald it as a brilliant ploy to discombobulate the hapless Democrats saying that “In many ways that was a genius setup because the media mob will fall right into his trap” See? Trump was only pleading guilty to treason in order to punk the libs. And Hannity continued (video below):

“Listening is much different than, let’s see, lying, spying, and paying for Russian lies and spreading it through the media by ‘deep state’ operatives and then using it as a basis for a FISA warrant … Why are they not so outraged about Hillary paying for Russian lies, disinformation, Comey generously using the unverifiable data from Russia to spy on the Trump campaign and get a FISA warrant? No doubt, by the way, this will all get another round of fake, phony, moral selective outrage over that interview, but it’s a perfect setup because if they are outraged about that then how can you not be outraged over what I just said?”

Needless to say, that voluminous disgorgement was nothing but more of the fantastical mythologies that Hannity is famous for. His first goto deflection is to bring up some old, debunked lies about Hillary Clinton. And his defense of Trump isn’t that he’s innocent, but that he’s only as guilty as (he says) Clinton is. That’s like Ted Bundy defending himself by claiming that the fictional Hannibal Lecter was way worse.

If this is the best that Hannity and Fox News can do to persuade their Deplorable, and easily fooled, viewers that Trump didn’t actually admit that he has taken, and will gladly take in the future, disinformation from operatives working for foreign enemies, then it’s clear they are running on empty. They are now having to literally scrape the bottom of their propaganda barrell. It’s a pathetic spectacle, but one that was inevitable considering how much bullshit they’ve been spreading around for the past few years.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

COLLUSION: Trump is Committing Treason in Order to Resuscitate His Floundering 2020 Campaign

It is impossible to understate the profoundly evil nature of what Donald Trump told George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday. In an extended interview, Trump not only justified his prior collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, he also placed an open call for hostile foreign governments to do the same thing in 2020. It’s an unambiguous attempt to seek assistance from America’s enemies. This is Trump’s reelection campaign strategy.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

The interview was an astonishing performance by an unabashed traitor to American laws and principles. What follows are a few of the most egregious segments that are profoundly disturbing and utterly inexcusable.

Stephanopoulos: But should [Don Jr] have gone to the FBI when he got that email?
Trump: Okay, let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the FBI? You don’t– I’ll tell you what. I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the FBI. In my whole life. I don’t–you don’t call the FBI.

Actually, Trump has called the FBI at least twice according to FOIA documents, but only when it’s to his personal benefit.

Stephanopoulos: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He called the FBI.
Trump: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book. This isn’t– this is somebody who said, “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the FBI. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.

It’s not different. The information that Trump was seeking (Clinton’s and DNC emails) was also stolen information on his opponent. And calling the FBI is precisely the way it works, even according to Trump’s own FBI director, Christopher Wray. So Trump responded that…

Trump: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it doesn’t happen like that in life.

Trump: If somebody comes into your office with oppo research– they call it oppo research–with information that might be good or bad or something, but good for you, bad for your opponent, you don’t call the FBI. I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had meetings–if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected.

Here Trump is trying to conflate normal opposition research with his collusion with foreign governments, which is illegal. Then he cites some statistics that he’s pulled from his – assumptions and justifies the criminality because, as he says, everybody does it. So therefore it’s okay?

Stephanopoulos: Your campaign this time around, if foreigners, if Russia, if China, if someone else offers you information on opponents, should they accept it or should they call the FBI?
Trump: I think maybe you do both. I think you might want to listen, there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, “we have information on your opponent.” Oh, I think I’d want to hear it.

Norway? It’s funny how Trump can’t bring himself to mention Russia. But more to the point, what he’s describing here is collusion, plain and simple. He goes on to say that he wouldn’t report it to the FBI because “the FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it.” Sure, because there are only 13,412 special agents and 20,420 support professionals.

Trump may have point. 33,000 FBI agents might not be enough to investigate all of the crimes that he has committed. In this interview he said once that he might alert the FBI to unlawful communications with foreign governments. But he said four times that he wouldn’t. And he said it again in a series of tweets on Thursday morning:

Notice that the examples he uses are our allies. Once again, he refuses to implicate Vladimir Putin and his pals in the Kremlin. He also fails to mention whether these talks included getting dirt on his opponents. He is deliberately trying to deflect from the real issue. And unfortunately, that will work on his Deplorable followers and his shills at Fox News.

The bottom line is that Trump’s remarks are a direct invitation to our enemies to engage in hacking or other illegal activities and pass along what they steal to Trump. He has already told them that he’d listen. So why wouldn’t they do it? He is unambiguously soliciting a criminal act. And for that alone Trump should be impeached and imprisoned.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.