Fox News host Sean Hannity was confronted on-air Monday night with news that the New York Times had obtained dozens of questions special counsel Robert Mueller was interested in asking President Donald Trump — and it did not go well.
“I am told by my sources tonight, that the New York Times is full of crap,” said Hannity “A lot of those questions are not the questions that the special counsel is asking. Clearly a leak by the special counsel’s office again with anonymous sources.”
It’s unclear who Hannity’s sources are given that he routinely insists he is not a journalist and prefers the label of “talk show host.”
“It is a disinformation campaign,” Hannity added later. “How stupid is it? They want to get in the president’s mind.”
Hannity’s talk of an anonymous leak from Mueller’s team contradicts the conventional wisdom that the questions were leaked by someone from the Trump legal team — likely in an effort to make the president reconsider his earlier eagerness to sit down with Mueller under oath.
In his own report, Times reporter Michael Schmidt said that he had been provided the questions from someone only after they were read over the phone and transcribed by the Trump legal team.
The NYT bombshell, which dropped during Hannity’s show last night, revealed several juicy nuggets and lines of inquiry that Mueller would go in on if he ever got Trump alone in a room.
Among the subjects covered — which you can read here — were how much and when did Trump know about Gen. Michael Flynn’s involvement with Russia, details about Trump’s interactions with ex-FBI director James Comey, and what he knew about the tick-tock of that meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower.
Many of the questions are the direct results of tweets or press interviews the president has given since he took office.