Hannity admitted $7 trillion "mistake"; credited "liberal hate-conservative groups" for pointing it out

On the August 2 edition of his nationally syndicated ABC Radio show, host Sean Hannity conceded that, in the course of his regular attacks on Senator John Kerry's voting record in the area of intelligence, he had "made a mistake" when he asserted on the July 30 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes that Kerry "voted to cut our intelligence by $7 trillion."

From the August 2 edition of The Sean Hannity Show:

HANNITY: And by -- apparently last week, I, by accident, once said seven trillion. And some liberal hate-conservative groups -- "That -- see, he lied!" It was an accident. Seven billion, it wasn't seven trillion. You should have known by the number. But, uh, I made a mistake.

While Media Matters for America did not claim, as Hannity averred, that "he lied," MMFA did correct Hannity's erroneous assertion on August 2, in which he "grossly overstated even his own distorted estimate of cuts in intelligence that Kerry proposed." MMFA's August 2 item also pointed out that Hannity's standard claim (often repeated by conservatives), that Kerry attempted to cut intelligence spending by $7 billion, is a misrepresentation that echoes a March 2004 RNC Research brief.

—J.C.