Donald Trump’s presidency was enabled by the “liberal mainstream media’, who have in some cases actively prevented the truth from being exposed, said Sean Hannity.
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While the Times’ magazine piece had long been rumored to be coming, no one’s said what to expect except that it will not be a standard, establishment valedictory.
This apparently goes for the Chicago Tribune.
Sean Hannity said during an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show: “I think Michael Gerson writing the latest round of Op-Eds in the Washington Post is doing the Obama administration dirty work for the special prosecutor’s office. I know a lot of people at the Obama administration have people on the special prosecutor’s office.
“Gerson’s piece was like a big smoke and mirrors op-ed that really, I think, if the shoe fits it can fit. The most damning part of the piece to me was what happened to Lois Lerner.”
Lerner is a former Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the scandal over agents failing to enforce the law against aiding and abetting Tea Party and other groups who exceeded the funding limit for their campaigns.
It is at least the second time that House Republicans have demanded an investigation into Lerner’s handling of the Tea Party organizations in 2010. In April 2014 the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed all IRS records relating to the issue, including those pertaining to Lerner’s authority as commissioner of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations division.
But they were never produced and Lerner was never called to testify at a public hearing. The issue was thus effectively dropped.
In the meantime Lerner learned that Lerner’s personal e-mails had been subpoenaed, which she used to draw up her resignation letter. Her head was swiftly reduced to a strip of loaves and fishes and she was soon out of her job.
What the stakes have been elevated since Lerner’s resignation of duty remains the major unanswered question over the scandal.
Donald Trump claimed during the 2016 campaign that they had helped out, that the IRS was no longer persecuting him. But according to one congressman, it still was.
“The day after the IRS commissioner resigned, Lois Lerner was allowed by the inspector general to keep her Security Clearance despite already working with congressional investigators, even though she was being investigated in regards to the very same issue that had brought down the commissioner,” said Raul Grijalva.
In August 2017, the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to US attorney Rod Rosenstein requesting that Lerner be subpoenaed to testify before a public hearing.
Some observers wondered if that might be the thread that would lead Obama supporters to publicly acknowledge that it was they who ruined Lerner.
That said, there remains no indication that investigators were interested in this aspect of Lerner’s role in the affair, which is where Hannity has located his conspiracy mongering.
Grijalva said: “Here we have Lerner making more money for herself after she got rid of her job and gave herself a retirement bonus – higher than any manager ever received because of her disgraced and discredited history at the IRS. She still gets her tax return and she lives in a nicer house than everyone else.”
According to the most recent tax return reported by CNN Money, Lerner earned $443,133 in 2015.
Hannity also called into question some of the motivations of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department official who is leading the investigation into the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“He and his team have been in the business of bringing down Republicans for years,” Hannity said. “It’s just a pattern.
“How can you run a criminal investigation while at the same time being in a criminal activity?”
Not long after, the Fox Business News show hosted by Lou Dobbs tweeted a statement from the Department of Justice refuting Hannity’s claim.