If the Robert Mueller investigation into Donald Trump and associates were a TV show, critics would pan it for being too far-fetched.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Monday, April 17, Trump\u2019s lawyer, Michael Cohen, appeared in federal court for a hearing in connection with documents seized during an FBI raid on his office, home, and hotel room. While it was public knowledge that Cohen represents Trump and disgraced Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, the judge demanded Cohen reveal his third \u201cmystery\u201d client who wished to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n
The third client is Fox News host Sean Hannity.<\/p>\n
The revelation raised questions about Hannity\u2019s journalistic integrity. Hannity has regularly defended Cohen amid his mounting legal conflicts without disclosing their relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many also wondered why Hannity would work with Cohen, a man known as a \u201cfixer\u201d who paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels to remain silent about an alleged affair with Trump. Cohen also arranged a $1.6 million dollar payout\u00a0from Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy to a former Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair.<\/p>\n
The Hannity revelation was a big surprise to\u00a0the folks\u00a0at Fox News.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shep Smith referred to the story as the \u201celephant in the room\u201d at Fox. \u201cOf course, for us, the elephant in the room is that Sean Hannity is said, according to court documents, to have been a third client of Michael Cohen,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere\u2019s a statement at \u2018The Hollywood Reporter\u2019 supposedly from Hannity that says, \u2018We\u2019ve been friends a long time. He did some legal work for me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHannity\u2019s producers are working to contact him,\u201d Smith continued. \u201cSince it\u2019s\u00a0now part of the story, we\u2019ll report on it when we know the rest of it. A lot of people here know his number, so we\u2019ll get on that in just a second.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hannity made a statement about his relationship to Cohen later on Twitter.<\/p>\n
\n\nFox\u00a0released a statement the following day, but it ignored the ethical consequences of Hannity\u2019s relationship to Cohen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Fox News was unaware of Sean Hannity\u2019s informal relationship with Michael Cohen and was surprised by the announcement in court yesterday, we have reviewed the matter and spoken to Sean and he continues to have our full support,\u201d a spokeswoman for Fox News said.<\/p>\n
Samuel Freedman, a professor at Columbia Journalism School who specializes in ethics, thinks Hannity\u2019s failure to reveal his relationship with Cohen is a clear ethical violation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so blatant, it\u2019s\u00a0not even a hard call,\u201d Freedman\u00a0told CNBC. \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0think [Fox News will] do it, but I think they should fire him,\u201d Freedman said. \u201cThis is a major breach. This isn\u2019t even a hard call.\u201d<\/p>\n
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If the Robert Mueller investigation into Donald Trump and associates were a TV show, critics would pan it for being too far-fetched.\u00a0 On Monday, April 17, Trump\u2019s lawyer, Michael Cohen, appeared in federal court for a hearing in connection with documents seized during an FBI raid on his office, home, and hotel room. While it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}