Fox News host Sean Hannity appears to admit he was duped into covering a lie about the Bidens after the FBI informant at the center of bribery accusations against the president was arrested for lying to the bureau.
Right wing media, especially Hannity, spent months accusing Biden and his son Hunter of accepting bribes to enrich themselves while the elder Biden was serving as vice-president. They say the bribe was to push for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor in order to protect Hunter who was sitting on the board of Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.
Hannity and other right wing media outlets claimed a “credible” FBI informant had evidence to support this conspiracy theory. Hannity’s show aired at least 85 segments promoting the bribery theory last year, according to watchdog group Media Matters.
Turns out the informant, Alexander Smirnov 43, made the entire thing up. He was arrested this week at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas and charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record.
On his radio show Friday, Hannity said he was “stupid” to have trusted Smirnov, but his opinion of the ‘Biden crime syndicate’ remains unchanged despite Smirnov’s arrest for lying.
“It appears that Alexander Smirnov was not to be trusted,” Hannity said.
“‘See! Hannity didn’t tell the truth about the FBI informant!’ I guess I was stupid. I should’ve learned from Christopher Steele,” he added. “They have a bad taste in picking out FBI informants. That’s on the FBI. That’s on the FBI. What we reported on the FBI was factual, until they told us this week that it wasn’t factual. It doesn’t negate any part of the Biden family syndicate.”
