Fox News’ Sean Hannity launched his interview with House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes (R-CA) with a cryptic opener, indicating he knows behind the scenes information about Nunes’ reportedly secret meeting with a key former Ukrainian prosecutor in 2018.
“I’ve gotta to be honest, I know more about this than maybe you want me to reveal, so I will let you say it in your own words. I saw the report about you. I happen to know a lot of it is outright lies,” Hannity said, before giving Nunes the platform to issue more blanket denials of the latest reports from CNN and the Daily Beast, which he also vowed to sue next week.
Nunes announces plan to bring CNN and Daily Beast to court with another one of his sham lawsuits pic.twitter.com/Ne3aYqufbb
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 26, 2019
In recent days, Nunes has found himself at the center of the impeachment inquiry that he’s currently involved with on the House Intelligence Committee. Last Wednesday, the Daily Beast reported that an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani helped Nunes arrange calls and meetings in Europe in 2018 to pursue his “investigations.” Over the weekend, CNN reported that Nunes met with a Ukrainian former prosecutor general, Victor Shokin, in Vienna in December 2018. Shokin is at the heart of the conspiracy theory that Giuilani and Trump have cited in urging Ukraine to investigate the Biden family.
Nunes told Hannity that the reports were “demonstrably false” and argued the media is just grasping at straws after the last two weeks of impeachment hearings were a “disaster for them.” Nunes has filed numerous similar baseless lawsuits in the past year, against Twitter trolls, local newspapers in his hometown and even his own constituents, arguing he’s trying to make it easier for public figures to sue for defamation. Many view the litigation as just a fundraising effort for the longtime lawmaker who barely eked out a win in 2018.
