Preet Bharara was investigating Fox News when Sean Hannity urged Donald Trump to fire him
We’re still piecing together the sequence of events that transpired from the time U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was asked to remain in his job under the Donald Trump administration, to his firing. But we do know that the night before the move was made, Trump’s most trusted cable news pundit — Sean Hannity from Fox News — used his show to urge Trump to fire Bharara and his colleagues. And now we know that Bharara was investigating Fox News.
It is customary for an incoming president to replace some holdover U.S. Attorneys with new appointees. But back on November 30th, Donald Trump personally asked Preet Bharara to stick around during the new administration (source: New York Times). And we know that Sean Hannity used his Fox News show on Thursday night – a show which Trump regularly watches – to urge Trump to fire any holdovers from the Barack Obama era. The next morning, Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions abruptly fired Bharara and forty-five of his colleagues, in a reckless move which left the DOJ with far too few remaining attorneys and no replacements ready to go.
Despite the White House’s inevitable protestations, it’s nearly a given that Donald Trump ordered the move as a result of having watched Sean Hannity’s on-air plea the night before. We’ve consistently observed Trump tweeting views as his own which Hannity had espoused verbatim just hours earlier. That leads to the question of what Hannity’s motivation may have been. As it turns out, Preet Bharara was investigating Hannity’s own network Fox News (sources: CNBC, CNN) at the time of his firing. And that certainly adds another layer of context.
So the question is this: did Sean Hannity of Fox News suddenly call on Donald Trump to get rid of the Obama-era holdovers because he knew it would include the ouster of the U.S. Attorney who was investigating his own television network? Or was it just a lucky coincidence for Fox News that it’s now off the hook as a result of Hannity’s on-air plea? Contribute to Palmer Report
