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This Bombshell Private Email Reveals Sean Hannity’s Alleged ‘Disgusted’ Feelings Towards Trump

Rupert Murdoch revealed in an email that Fox News host Sean Hannity was actually “disgusted” by then-president Donald Trump, but was more worried about keeping viewership numbers up, Insider [1] reports.

This bit of news came out after segments of emails Murdoch fired off in 2021 were published Monday in a court filing from Dominion Voting Systems. One exchange was between Murdoch, his son Lachlan Murdoch, currently the CEO of Fox Corporation, [2] and Paul Ryan, who sits on the board [3] at Fox Corporation. That email was dated January 12, 2021, six days after the Capitol riot.

In the email exchange, Ryan, former Speaker of the House, told the Murdochs that after the 2020 election, “some high percentage of Americans” were convinced that the election was stolen from Trump because of right-wing media.

“Thanks Paul. Wake-up call for Hannity, who has been privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers,” Rupert Murdoch wrote. Of course, Hannity anchors one of Fox News’ most popular shows, right behind The Five and Tucker Carlson Tonight.

In response, Ryan told Murdoch he hoped Fox and its anchors would try to “put down the echoes of falsehood from our side.”

“I truly hope our contributors, along with Tucker, Laura, and Sean get that and execute,” referring to Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Hannity.

Murdoch responded that he thought that “everyone” at Fox News was “disgusted” with the false accusations of voter fraud, especially in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, according to Dominion’s court filing.

Dominion Voting Systems alleges that Fox defamed the company by spreading false claims about its role in the 2020 election. It’s seeking $1.6 billion.

In his deposition, Murdoch conceded [4] that Fox News hosts disseminated false news about the election, yet denied that Fox Corporation endorsed these false claims.

But Dominion clearly has the proper ammunition and has cited in its court filings exhibits and depositions that Fox News hosts, especially Hannity, have, in private, [5] disagreed with pro-Trump election conspiracy theorists. But he still gave them a platform anyway. At one point he called [6] Trump-allied lawyer Rudy Giuliani an “insane person” in a November 2020 text message when Giuliani began pushing baseless voter fraud misinformation, according to a filing from Dominion in February.

And most of us are aware of how Hannity freaked out behind the scenes before and during the Capitol riot. That’s well-documented. The House committee investigating the failed insurrection made public a series of panicky text messages [7] from Hannity. Those texts illustrated just how “worried” Hannity was at the time about what could happen on January 6, 2021, and how he tried to persuade [8] Trump to stop the violence at the Capitol as it happened.

I doubt Hannity did this for any altruistic reason. He likely knew his neck was on the line here for helping to get the more fanatical among Trump’s supporters all fired up.

A spokesperson for Fox responded to Insider’s inquiries about Hannity and Ryan by blaming Dominion for trying to “publicly smear” the company simply reporting the news.

Well, Fox certainly does “report” the news. Sort of. But it’s very clear that if Hannity, Ingraham, and others were ever taught about journalistic ethics, they seem to have forgotten the lesson. Because journalistic ethics are a thing, but they are something that’s largely been forgotten by the mainstream media.

So, courtesy of Stanford University [9] and the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, [10] I’m including a bit of information.

But Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, and others at Fox News have trampled all over this. We’ve seen this time and again as its hosts promote racist stereotypes, [11] election lies, climate change misinformation, [12] and scores of other falsehoods. And Media Bias/Fact Check [13] notes that Fox News leans heavily to the right and has failed a number of fact checks.

Murdoch, Hannity, Ryan, and others associated with the cable news network could have done the right thing. But they chose viewership over accuracy, and the sad fact is, too many viewers accept whatever these people say without question. For the most part, this really isn’t their fault because lies here are presented as fact and since this is supposed to be “news” they don’t really question what they are hearing.

Fox News fair and balanced? Yeah, right.