The two faces of Sean Hannity: Fox host privately advised Trump to go back to Florida while publicly attacking our democracy

Sean Han­ni­ty, in his own words, “nev­er claimed to be a jour­nal­ist,” but the FNC pun­dit has proven to be one of Don­ald Trump’s chief pub­lic mouth­pieces and font of soft­ball ques­tions before, dur­ing and after four degrad­ing years of the “Fox presidency.”

The Trump can­di­da­cy res­cued Han­ni­ty in 2016 at a time when his mes­sage had become par­ty-line pre­dictable, night after night, and his rat­ings had begun to slip.

In turn, Han­ni­ty turned over the air­waves to Trump, served as a pri­vate sound­ing board, and even loaned his pri­vate jet to bring Indi­ana Gov­er­nor Mike Pence togeth­er with Trump.

Unbe­liev­able as it may seem, how­ev­er, Han­ni­ty briefly offered Trump sen­si­ble advice in clos­ing days of his scan­dal-rid­den pres­i­den­cy, accord­ing to a trea­sure trove of emails obtained by the House Selec­tion Com­mit­tee to Inves­ti­gate the Jan­u­ary 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The com­mit­tee now wants Han­ni­ty to come in and answer “a spe­cif­ic nar­row range of ques­tions.” On what sub­ject? Hannity’s “detailed knowl­edge about Pres­i­dent Trump’s state of mind.” And whether Han­ni­ty had “advance knowl­edge regard­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s and his legal team’s plan­ning for Jan­u­ary 6th.”

The emails, direct­ed most­ly to White House Chief of Staff Mark Mead­ows, indi­cate that Han­ni­ty rec­og­nized that the forty-fifth pres­i­dent was los­ing it.

Trump was schem­ing to install a pli­ant attor­ney as act­ing Attor­ney Gen­er­al as part of his bid to over­turn the 2020 election.

Such a course was dis­as­trous, Han­ni­ty told Mead­ows. “We can’t lose the entire White House counsel’s office,” warned the bull-necked pun­dit. “I don’t see Jan­u­ary 6 hap­pen­ing the way he (Trump) is being told. After the 6th (sic). He should announce will lead the nation­wide effort to reform vot­ing integri­ty. Go to Flori­da and watch Joe mess up dai­ly. Stay engaged. When he speaks, peo­ple will listen.”

After the insur­rec­tion, Han­ni­ty reached out again with a mes­sage to Mead­ows and U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jim Jor­dan, R‑Ohio, loud defend­er of Trump.

“Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days,” said Han­ni­ty. “He can’t men­tion the elec­tion again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say. And I don’t like not know­ing if it’s tru­ly under­stood. Ideas?”

The rev­e­la­tions, with “dozens of text mes­sages” where those came from, take your breath away like a U.S. Capi­tol cop being choked by insur­rec­tion­ists on the 6th.

The emails indi­cate that Han­ni­ty knew full well that Trump was out-of-con­trol and more than a lit­tle bit off his rocker.

Han­ni­ty did not con­vey this to view­ers. Nor did he men­tion that on Jan­u­ary 5th, he was “wor­ried about the next 48 hours.”

He dared not share his inside knowl­edge with his true believ­er audi­ence. Fox view­ers expect pro­pa­gan­da with­out nuance and react with sus­tained abuse at any devi­a­tion from the par­ty line. Many will believe any­thing Trump says, and instant­ly turn on any doubter or seem­ing­ly unfaith­ful Republican.

As with oth­er “lead­ers” in the Repub­li­can Par­ty, most notably House Minor­i­ty Leader Kevin McCarthy, Han­ni­ty has paid slav­ish post-elec­tion trib­ute to Trump. He has become a pur­vey­or of the anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic fic­tion that Trump was robbed in an elec­tion he lost by sev­en mil­lion votes. Tuck­er Carl­son has gone fur­ther, sug­gest­ing that Deep State provo­ca­teurs egged on the mob.

Like a fish, the Trump move­ment is start­ing to rot from the head. The sense here is that the Select Com­mit­tee is hon­ing in on and nail­ing down respon­si­bil­i­ty. Its vice chair, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Liz Cheney, R‑Wyoming, revealed Sun­day that first daugh­ter Ivana Trump twice walked in on the 45th pres­i­dent, while he watched the insur­rec­tion on TV, and begged him to call off the attack­ing mob.

Nor­mal­ly supine Repub­li­can sen­a­tors were urg­ing Trump to call off his anniver­sary news con­fer­ence at Mar-a-Lago on Thurs­day. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Sen­a­tor Shelly Moore Capi­to, R‑West Vir­ginia. Sen­a­tor John Cornyn, R‑Texas, deputy Repub­li­can Sen­ate leader, declared in politi­cian speak: “I think that’s where we ought to focus our efforts, is on get­ting things done for the Amer­i­can peo­ple and not re-lit­i­gat­ing issues that have already been decided.”

Trump called off his Jan­u­ary 6th media event, which would have appeared a bad sideshow com­pared to solemn and seri­ous obser­vances at the U.S. Capitol.

He took a shot at the Select Com­mit­tee and respond­ed to Hannity’s “clear path to land” email by say­ing: “I dis­agree with Sean on that state­ment and the facts are prov­ing me right.”

What facts are those? Not those being metic­u­lous­ly gath­ered by the Select Com­mit­tee. The pan­el is show­ing increas­ing bold­ness in slap­ping down the legal tac­tics of delay. If Han­ni­ty won’t talk, the emails are talk­ing for him.

Han­ni­ty has so far main­tained an icy silence on his emails. His Fox show on Tues­day night was devot­ed to the usu­al par­ty line.