Fox News’s Sean Hannity ripped his critics and the mainstream media on his nationally syndicated radio program Tuesday, saying, “I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com, I retracted nothing.”
His reaction came hours after Fox News retracted a story regarding the 2016 killing of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich after massive outcry over sharing conspiracy theories about the 2016 shooting death.
Right-wing news outlets have sought to link — without evidence — the 27-year-old’s death to Democrat Hillary Clinton‘s presidential campaign and the WikiLeaks release of hacked emails from her campaign and the DNC.
“For those accusing me of pushing a conspiracy theory, you are the biggest phony hypocrites in the entire world,” Hannity said Tuesday.
“This issue, it’s so big now that the entire Russia collusion narrative is hanging by a thread,” he said, referencing media coverage of the investigations into the Trump campaign and possible ties to Russia’s meddling in the presidential election last year.
“If in fact, take Seth out of it, there was a whistleblower within the DNC — a truth-teller that was actually the source for WikiLeaks, not Russia — working with the Trump campaign. These are questions that I have a moral obligation to ask, and I will do the mainstream media’s job like I have most of my career.”
Hannity has been arguing for days that heavy media coverage of the Trump-Russia investigation is hypocritical because no evidence has been found directly linking the campaign to Russia thus far.
“You’re trying to take down a president, and I’m trying to get to the truth,” Hannity said on his radio program.
“I have an agenda to get to the truth,” he continued. “I’m not saying I have answers yet, but I’m digging deep, and I have a lot more information than all of you do at this point.”
“For all of you in the media, I’m not going to stop doing my job and asking questions, because I know the lies you’re telling, and the conspiracies you’ve spun, with no evidence, to destroy a president in conjunction with the deep state,” Hannity added.
Fox News on Tuesday retracted a story regarding Rich’s death after a massive outcry over sharing conspiracy theories.
“On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich,” the retraction reads. “The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.
“Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.”
Fox did indicate, however, it will continue investigating the story.
The family of Rich wrote a letter to Hannity’s executive producer urging the prime-time program to stop pushing the conspiracy theory.
“Think about how you would feel losing a son or brother. And while dealing with this, you had baseless accusations of your lost family member being part of a vast conspiracy,” Seth’s brother Aaron Rich wrote in the letter, which was provided to CNN.
“As the family, we would hope to be the first people to learn about any such evidence and reasons for Seth’s death,” he continued.
“It is a travesty that you would prompt false conspiracy theories and other people’s agendas rather than work with the family to learn the truth.”
The Rich family thanked Fox for the retraction.
“The family would like to thank Fox News for their retraction on a story that has caused deep pain and anguish to the family and has done harm to Seth Rich’s legacy,” a family spokesman told CNN.
“We are hopeful that in the future Fox News will work with the family to ensure the highest degree of professionally and scrutiny is followed so that only accurate facts are reported serving this case.”
This article originally appeared on The Hill.
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