ALI VELSHI (HOST): Gabe, what do you make of this? You of course have covered Fox News very closely. It is no secret, nor should it be a secret to anybody, that there’s a close relationship between Fox News and President Trump. Probably none closer than that between Sean Hannity and President Trump. But we didn't know it was this close. We didn't know they share a lawyer.
GABRIEL SHERMAN (VANITY FAIR REPORTER): Yeah, it is a pretty remarkable development although not entirely surprising when you actually connect the dots. You know, this is a very fast-moving story, so I am going to be doing a lot more reporting.
VELSHI: Sure.
SHERMAN: But what I have heard so far is that at some point last year, Sean Hannity hired Michael Cohen to help defend him against left-wing groups that were calling for boycotts in the wake of Bill O'Reilly's ouster from Fox News under pressure from advertisers and left-wing groups.
My sources said Hannity got very, quote, “paranoid” and hired Cohen, and perhaps other lawyers and/or private investigators to look into these groups that were calling for boycotts and trying to get Hannity off the air. Now, this could be very interesting because oftentimes private investigators are hired by law firms because it allows attorney-client privilege to be maintained. So there is a scenario in which if they seized Michael Cohen's documents inadvertently we might be able to learn to what degree did Sean Hannity try to go after his enemies with shady tactics like private investigators.
