Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, hosts at Fox News, sent texts to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol, the Jan 6. Committee revealed.
Both hosts spoke out against the committee releasing their messages Tuesday evening, said NBC News.
Hannity – who reportedly sent a message asking if former President Donald Trump should make a statement asking people to leave the Capitol – said that he felt the release was “an invasion of privacy.”
Ingraham said on her show Tuesday night that the committee and media have misrepresented her actions on Jan. 6.
“The entire Jan. 6 campaign has become one of revenge and defamation, of false characterization and false equivalencies,” she said.
During a Fox News interview of Meadows Tuesday, Hannity said “we’ve been telling you, this is a waste of your time and money,” regarding the Congressional committee investigation into the deadly Capitol insurrection. Through the riot, Trump supporters hoped to prevent the certification of votes for 2020 presidential election winner and current President Joe Biden.
Hannity has criticized the committee for being partisan. Out of nine members, two are Republican.
Meadows provided the messages to the committee. They were read Monday evening by Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of the two Republicans on the panel. NBC News said at least three Fox News hosts were urging Meadows to get Trump to call off the rioters, per the texts.
"Mark, the president needs to tell the people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” read Ingraham’s text.
Hannity said that Cheney is attempting to smear Trump and “purge him from the party,” and Ingraham said release of the texts “ignores the facts of that day.”
Brian Kilmeade of Fox also texted Meadows during the riot to get Trump on T.V. as he was “destroying everything you have accomplished.”
Members of the Jan. 6 committee released the messages Monday along with others from unnamed Republican lawmakers who “apparently worked to delay or halt the counting of electoral votes,” said NBC. Then, the committee advanced a criminal contempt referral for Meadows after he defied a subpoena to testify.
As of Tuesday, the house had voted to refer the measure to the Justice Department.
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