Chris Wallace says unnamed “right-wing media” spread smears against Yovanovitch. He's talking about his colleagues at Fox.
Written by Eric Kleefeld
Published
Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace, one of the more respected members of the network’s purported “news” side, obfuscated Fox’s own role in spreading smears against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, during a break in Friday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.
“Then we went into the details of what the smear campaign that came from Rudy Giuliani and some of his cohorts and was repeated in some outlets in right-wing media — that she says are completely untrue,” Wallace said on the November 15 edition of America's Newsroom. “That she was badmouthing the president, that she was putting a list of protected people — do not prosecute people — she says none of that is true. Perhaps the Republicans will have evidence of that. We'll see. So far, there has been no such evidence presented.”
Wallace’s use of the term “right-wing media” to describe the smear campaign against Yovanovitch seemed to cleverly elide an obvious fact: Fox News was a major driver of that campaign. In fact, Fox host Sean Hannity and now-Fox News contributor John Solomon were directly mentioned in Friday’s questioning for their past circulation of Ukraine smears, which Trump had also tweeted.
As Media Matters has documented, Hannity has denied having any role in the smears against Yovanovitch, even though he and Giuliani associate Joe diGenova spread them on his Fox News TV show.