Last year, GOP strategist Rick Wilson released an amazing book titled, “Everything Trump Touches Dies.” You may have seen the hashtag #ETTD across social media.
For the past several years, we’ve seen the outcome for those who entrench themselves too deeply into the operations of and in service to Donald Trump.
From Carter Page to Michael Cohen, and everyone in between, we’ve seen how associating with this abominable mistake of a presidency can result in ruin.
Nobody gets out unscathed.
So let’s talk about the sycophants and professional toadies in the Trump loving media. None are more slavish and pathetic than American Pravda’s Sean Hannity.
Hannity has ridden the Trump train from early on, and has become a favorite of the Branch Trumpidian cult, based on his “hardball” exclusives with the president, asking such visceral, deep-diving questions as:
“Is it true you’re the greatest president this nation has ever seen?”
“How do you manage to be so amazing, at everything you do?”
“You really smell nice, don’t you?”
“I love you.”
If you were able to control your gag reflex for a bit, on Thursday night you may have witnessed another such exclusive, as Hannity brought on President Trump to allow him time to rebut the testimony of his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen.
Cohen appeared before Congress on Wednesday. That was the second day out of three interviews, with the third being Thursday, behind closed doors.
Cohen’s appearance was marked by the agenda of the Democrats, as well as the Republicans who apparently had one goal: Attack.
Between the two, there were some scraps of actual testimony to be gleaned.
One point that emerged was whether Cohen’s current anti-Trump stance has to do with the fact that he wasn’t offered a position with the Trump administration.
Cohen insisted he wasn’t looking for a position with the administration, even if he’d spent the last decade of his life acting as Trump’s doormat.
Cohen is preparing to begin his 3 year prison sentence in May, on multiple charges, including campaign finance law violations, based on the hush money payoffs of two of Trump’s mistresses, porn star Stormy Daniels, and Playboy model, Karen McDougal.
The payoffs happened a month before the 2016 election.
Cohen brought the canceled checks, one signed by Trump, that he says were reimbursement for paying off the women.
On the Thursday night Hannity interview, the host sat and commiserated with his idol about just how awful and disloyal Cohen was.
He also sought to comfort the president by letting him know he had his back.
The unusual point they chose to push was that Cohen, a man with a wife and children, decided to pay what amounted to around $300,000 to these women completely on his own, with no direction from his client, Trump.
“I can tell you personally, he said to me at least a dozen times that he made the decision on the payments and he didn’t tell you,” Hannity said.
Trump agreed with Hannity that Cohen had made that decision independently.
At least a dozen times?
I’m trying to figure how that works. Did Cohen kick off every meeting with Hannity with, “I paid off Trump’s mistresses on my own”?
We do know Hannity was a client of Cohen’s (client #3), although we don’t know the extent of work Cohen did for him.
We also know that shortly after Cohen rolled on President Trump, Hannity inexplicably deleted all his old tweets from social media, regarding Cohen – a man he had on his show multiple times, so that they could both sing the praises of their liege.
It would seem, however, that by inserting himself into this particular case, he has caught the notice of members of Congress, some of whom still want to get to the bottom of Donald Trump’s multiple ethical entanglements.
One member of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative David Cicilline (D-R.I.) saw the interview, and took great interest in what amounted to Hannity making himself out to be a witness.
“Sean Hannity is now volunteering himself as a witness,” Cicilline, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted. “I look forward to his testimony.”
So will they call Hannity to testify before Congress?
Sean Hannity is now volunteering himself as a witness. I look forward to his testimony. https://t.co/eOjhlkg4mU
— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) March 1, 2019
Let’s hope they do.
Hannity has gone from simply giving opinion and commentary to acting as an unofficial adviser to the president.
He denies this, but there have been multiple cases where Trump takes to his social media pages to regurgitate lines directly from Hannity’s show.
There are also reports that Hannity and the president share phone calls to discuss policy.
This is because Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing, and as is his way, he’ll always listen to those who lavish him with praise before those who simply want to talk facts.
So let’s hope Rep. Cicilline was serious, and that someone in Congress gets the ball rolling to get Hannity in front of them.
Note to Rep. Cicilline, or anyone else listening: Keep in mind that in late January 2018, Sean Hannity’s Twitter account was temporarily dropped. A Texas woman, out of boredom, created a fake Sean Hannity account, that was so believably unhinged, that it fooled MANY into believing this was the real Sean Hannity.
Of those who believed it to be Hannity was WikiLeaks boss, Julian Assange.
Assange reached out to the fake Hannity account and offered information on Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat with the Senate Judiciary Committee, at the time investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
After a bit of small talk about the kind of day “Hannity” was having:
Assange told the fake Hannity, “You can send me messages on other channels. Have some news about Warner.”
It didn’t come across as if this was the first time the head of a Russian cutout company had reached out to the host. I mean, I don’t want to insinuate anything, I’m just saying…
It would be sweet justice to see Hannity, who has used his platform to force Trumpism on the American public, foiled by his own ugly ambitions and quest for undue influence.