Fox News host Sean Hannity shot back at a claim that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought his input in an effort to remove the United States envoy to Ukraine.
The House Intelligence Committee released on Monday the transcript of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch‘s impeachment testimony, showing that she believed Pompeo or “somebody around him” reached out to Hannity on allegations that she was undermining President Trump.
Hannity called this claim “fake news.”
“Apparently, I’m being accused of making some kind of allegations against the ambassador and that Secretary Pompeo or someone from the State Department called me about it. No, that never happened. That’d be fake news,” Hannity said on his evening show.
“The ambassador was barely ever mentioned on our show, we went back and looked. I don’t know anything about this woman, to be honest. Her name came up a few times on the show. She was an Obama holdover. I did ask one question about a news report if she was involved in something. It was a question. We do news here. I never talked to Secretary Pompeo about Ukraine. I never talked to anyone at the State Department about this ambassador,” he said.
Hannity also criticized CNN, which covered this aspect of Yovanovitch’s testimony, and showed a tweet he sent earlier in the day with a screenshot of their coverage that said, “Biased Zucker needs to start paying me.”
“Breaking fake news! Never ever talked to Secy Pompeo about Ukraine PERIOD! Fake News CNN trying to boost their ratings by showing me. Biased Zucker needs to start paying me. pic.twitter.com/PwYsXZNYnZ
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) November 4, 2019
“My only focus in the country of Ukraine was surrounding the obvious Biden family corruption,” he said, referring to alleged corruption by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. “Jeff Zucker, you’re losing it,” he added in reference to the CNN president.
Hannity’s name came up in Yovanovitch’s Oct. 11 deposition when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff asked about whether she found out whether Pompeo would defend her from “attacks” against her by Donald Trump Jr. and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani before she was removed from her position in May.
“What I was told by [State Department official] Phil Reeker was that the secretary or perhaps somebody around him was going to place a call to Mr. Hannity on Fox News to say, you know, what is going on? I mean, do you have proof of these kinds of allegations or not? And if you have proof, you know, telI me, and if not, stop,” she said.
“And I understand that that call was made. I don’t know whether it was the secretary or somebody else in his inner circle. And for a time, you know, things kind of simmered down,” she added.
