Hannity Says He Didn’t Believe Election Lies Despite Pushing Them on His Show

The Fox Information host usually featured election deniers on his present within the weeks after Trump’s 2020 election defeat.

Fox Information host Sean Hannity, who invited visitors on his program to hawk false claims of election fraud within the weeks after former President Donald Trump misplaced the 2020 presidential election to President Joe Biden, advised a courtroom on Wednesday that he by no means believed the lies that he perpetuated on his present.

Hannity made his comments during a pre-trial court hearing in Delaware. Dominion Voting Methods, which provided voting machines in a number of states and which has been falsely accused of interfering with the 2020 election by Trump loyalists, is suing Fox Information for defamation over its function in disseminating lies about their product.

On November 30, 2020, practically 4 weeks after the 2020 election, Trump-aligned lawyer Sidney Powell appeared on Hannity’s Fox Information program, wrongly stating that Dominion’s machines “trash[ed] large batches of votes” for Trump to assist safe Biden’s win. Powell claimed that the corporate was doing so in coordination with the Venezuelan authorities.

There is no such thing as a proof that the corporate ever manipulated ballots or labored with overseas international locations to vary the outcomes of any election.

Hannity acknowledged the absurdity of Powell’s feedback in court docket earlier this week. “I didn’t imagine it for one second,” Hannity said under oath.

So as to show that Fox Information engaged in defamation, Dominion must exhibit that the conservative media channel intentionally unfold false and disparaging claims about their firm, leading to hurt to their model. Hannity’s feedback recommend that no less than a couple of Fox Information staff had been conscious that the election fraud claims had been unfaithful and determined to broadcast them anyway.

The trial towards Fox Information is ready to formally begin in April. Hannity’s feedback on Wednesday had been a part of a pre-trial deposition to address several issues that have to be resolved before the trial begins.

Though Fox Information and different right-wing retailers have decreased protection of baseless claims of election fraud, Trump continues to wrongly insist that election fraud was accountable for his loss to Biden two years in the past.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump falsely claimed that Twitter had interfered with the 2020 presidential election. In the identical publish, he claimed, with out proof, that the Obama administration “spied” on his marketing campaign through the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Trump then vaguely instructed that the treatment for these alleged abuses was to take away Biden from workplace, which might presumably reinstate him as president.

“What ought to be performed about such a horrible factor, or ought to we let somebody who was elected by dishonest and fraud keep in workplace and proceed to destroy our Nation?” Trump requested in his publish.

Earlier this month, Trump referred to as for the U.S. Structure to be “terminated” in order that he may very well be reinstated as president — a suggestion that ought to disqualify him from operating for president in 2024, authorized specialists have mentioned.

“Trump’s introduced intention to trash the USA Structure means he can by no means be trusted to obey the Structure’s Oath to protect and defend it,” Harvard Regulation professor emeritus Laurence Tribe mentioned on the time.