Fox News host Sean Hannity was sitting on what would seem to have been a major story in the days before the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection: There was concern about mass resignations in then-President Donald Trump’s White House Counsel’s Office.
Hannity did not share this with his viewers, mind you. And as has been revealed of other Fox News hosts, he provided those same viewers with a perspective markedly different from the one he was espousing privately.
“We can’t lose the entire WH counsels office,” Hannity said in a Dec. 31 text to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, as detailed by the House Jan. 6 committee Tuesday night. Hannity added, apparently referring to Trump, “I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told.”
Hannity in a Jan. 5 text again referenced departures from the White House Counsel’s Office: “Pence pressure. WH counsel will leave.”
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It wouldn’t be until months later that we got real detail on what Hannity might have been talking about. A Senate committee in October released an interim report stating that White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone indicated that both he and his top deputy, Patrick F. Philbin, would resign if Trump followed through on an attempt to install a voter-fraud-claim-supporting loyalist as attorney general. The threat came during a tense Jan. 3 meeting at the White House.
But even that doesn’t account for Hannity discussing potential resignations from the “entire WH counsels office” four days before that Jan. 3 meeting. Nor does it account for him, on Jan. 5, appearing to tie potential departures not to the attempted installation of Jeffrey Clark as attorney general, but to pressure on Vice President Mike Pence (apparently regarding Pence’s role in potentially trying to overturn the election on Jan. 6, which he refused to do).
The issue, as with Fox host Laura Ingraham, whose texts to Meadows also were revealed by the Jan. 6 committee after he turned them over, isn’t so much that Hannity’s private comments contradicted what he said publicly — though in both cases there is some of that. It’s that they bore almost no resemblance to the thrust of his coverage both before and after Jan. 6.
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When Hannity returned from vacation on Jan. 4, he made no mention of the turmoil in the White House Counsel’s Office or the problems with Trump’s Jan. 6-related efforts that he talked about privately. In contrast, Hannity played up the looming Jan. 6 protests in Washington and the electoral college objections that senators such as Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) would offer that day as part of the same Trump effort.
“This is a critical. This is a necessary step in an election that is clearly wrought with serious issues,” Hannity said of what Cruz and Hawley were doing. He added that “we have major institutional failures with no curiosity whatsoever.”
Nor did Hannity dwell on the “Pence pressure” he had seemed concerned about. Pence was mentioned twice on Hannity’s Jan. 4 program: once when the show featured a Trump rally in Georgia in which the then-president said he hoped “Mike Pence comes through for us” and once when guest Newt Gingrich credited Pence for assisting in the Georgia special elections for U.S. Senate.
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Hannity sent his “Pence pressure"/"WH counsel will leave” text the next evening, according to the committee. In another text the same night, Hannity said he was “very worried about the next 48 hours.”
But his show that same night mentioned neither such worry, nor Pence, nor the White House Counsel’s Office. What it did include was talk about “irregularities” and potential voter fraud in the Georgia elections happening that day. Hannity welcomed Cruz, fellow Fox host Mark Levin and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to breathe life into what were still baseless claims undergirding the Trump campaign that Hannity seemed quite concerned about.
“So we may only have 180 precious minutes tomorrow to make our case that there was real voter fraud, a case the media says we can’t possibly make,” Gaetz said.
It’s not clear exactly what Hannity was “very worried” about — Trump’s plot blowing up, the prospect of violence, resignations or anything else — but he certainly had a forum to discuss that and did not.
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Pence was mentioned only infrequently on Hannity’s show moving forward. By Jan. 11, Hannity delved into the issue a little more. Hannity condemned the Capitol rioters who called for Pence’s hanging, but he layered it with suggestions that maybe Pence could legally have helped overturn the election.
“A lot of smart constitutional conservatives — even the great one, great friend of this program, great personal friend, pointed out that in his view, Pence didn’t have the authority. This is largely a ceremonial role,” Hannity said, before adding: “But good, honest people can have honest disagreements.”
Hannity echoed this on Jan. 14.
“I didn’t like the attack on Mike Pence. They’ve been a great team for four years. They had different legal opinions on the issue of whether Mike’s role was ceremonial or whether it wasn’t,” Hannity said. “I agree with Mark Levin. He said he didn’t have any power. Others believe otherwise. Honest disagreement.”
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Again, a good opportunity to talk about the pressure campaign he apparently had some insights on and apparently worried might lead to resignations. But it was almost entirely absent from his show. It was instead described as a situation in which reasonable people could disagree about whether Pence could help overturn an election.
The last Hannity text we’ll mention came on Jan. 10. In it, Hannity suggested to Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that he was again worried about Trump’s continued campaign to question the election results. He went so far as to say Trump should stop talking about the election altogether.
“Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days,” Hannity said. “He can’t mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say, and I don’t like not knowing if it’s truly understood. Ideas?”
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Ingraham privately expressed concern about Trump’s delayed response on Jan. 6 but said nothing to that effect on her show. Hannity privately expressed concern about Trump’s plotting and his election theories and also said nothing.
It all reinforces the extremely blurred lines between these hosts being journalists and being allies of the Trump administration. Not disclosing these concerns and important information publicly serves the latter’s purpose, but not the former’s. It’s possible Hannity understood these communications to be “off the record.” But even if he didn’t disclose them, he could have talked in general terms about the very weighty matters he was apparently quite concerned about. The purpose of “off the record” is to inform your coverage, not to assist your sources.
Hannity’s attorney signaled Tuesday night that the Jan. 6 committee’s request for information from Hannity raises concerns about “freedom of the press.” There is no question that would be the case if Hannity were engaging in actual journalism.
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But there is no evidence he was acting in any true journalistic capacity. Rather, as before with Hannity (who has intermittently said he’s not a journalist, when that has been convenient), it was clear he was acting as an informal adviser. And he was acting as an informal adviser who was plugged in to extremely important events he was quite concerned about, while keeping his mouth shut publicly for the good of the team.
And in that role, he has plenty of company. Now would seem a great time to address what those texts were about — since we still don’t know a whole lot about the events as Hannity described them — but Hannity will apparently fight having to do so. And during his show Tuesday night, he characteristically made no mention of the whole thing.
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