Hannity says he is “making progress” investigating Seth Rich's death, calls critics the real conspiracy theorists

Hannity: “We will have a lot more coming probably sooner than later”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Fox News host Sean Hannity resurrected his conspiracy theory alleging Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was killed for leaking DNC emails to WikiLeaks. On May 23, Rich’s parents wrote a plea in The Washington Post asking “conservative news outlets and commentators” to stop peddling “discredited conspiracy theories” about their son. Fox News retracted its online story about the murder, saying the May 16 article “was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.” Hannity was forced to walk back his own remarks, saying, “Out of respect for the family's wishes -- for now -- I am not discussing this matter." Days later, Hannity claimed he would continue to investigate the murder on the May 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): I have to start tonight on a personal note about something that happened last week. Now, I was asked by the family of the DNC staffer that was killed in July to pull back covering the story of the death because their son and their family was hurting. And now their family, out of consideration, seeing the pain that they were going through, they told me a number of times what was happening with them, and I was honestly glad to accommodate them. Because as a father I know that I would probably never recover if I lost one of my kids. I honestly don't think it is possible. I cannot imagine the pain this family has gone through. Now out of respect for the family's wishes, well, I decided for the time being not to discuss it unless there were further developments. But I also promised you, my audience, my loyal audience, that I will not stop investigating. I will not stop asking questions. And at a very high level, the bottom line here is the family wants the truth and I think the country deserves the truth, because this impacts so much of what the narrative in this country is now about, which is the left and their conspiracy theory. Now I can report, I am making progress. We will have a lot more coming probably sooner than later.

Previously: 

How Sean Hannity became the champion of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory

These are Sean Hannity's advertisers

Hannity repeatedly pushed stories after Fox backed away from or retracted them