Is Trump Briefing Hannity on Details of Iran War Footing, But Not Congress?
January 8, 2020
Is Trump leaking insider information to Sean Hannity? Is Hannity egging Trump on? (Gage Skidmore)
By Ellen Brodsky
The other night, Sean Hannity repeatedly signaled that he has inside information about US plans for escalating military action against Iran – and he didn’t mind spilling it on national television. This is not the only time we have seen such hints.
As I’ve previously reported, Hannity closed the disturbing interview with Iran war hawk Nikki Haley by suggesting inside knowledge of further escalation: "I think Rouhani and the mullahs, they need to go to the refineries. Just go visit. Hang out there for a few days.”
During his monologue earlier in the show, which was nine and a half minutes of war fever, Hannity more overtly indicated that he possessed inside information. Apparently, the chickenhawk was just too excited about the upcoming war he’s been salivating for to keep from boasting. Not too excited to say whether his own military-aged kids will be enlisting, though. More on that in my next post.
Hannity also fashioned himself as a military expert:
HANNITY: And no, we can't and we won't be going with boots on the ground in Iran. That's not going to happen. And, frankly, it's not necessary.
Instead, the president has been clear: we will strategically take out the mullahs’ ability to continue this reckless behavior, this saber-rattling, these attempts to bribe other countries or get paid or blackmail other countries. They are not gonna be able to disrupt the lifeblood of the world's economy, oil, as much as they have been trying.
Now, we are not -- and let me be clear -- I do not support boots on the ground. After Vietnam and Iraq and the swamp creatures, they send our brave men and women, our national treasure door-to-door, endless wars, and then they say "never mind" -- those days must forever be over. I've been saying this for some time.
This is about what I've been calling the next generation of weaponry, offensive and defensive, much of which is already at our disposal. In other words, that can and will be utilized to strike Iran's dictatorship where it will hurt them the most. They've got three major oil refineries and we know where they are. They have nuclear facilities, we know where they are.
We know Iran's terrorists network. Maybe even the mullahs themselves, maybe the mullahs - they're so brave - maybe President Rouhani, maybe he and the mullahs can hang out in one of those three major refineries. Good luck if they do, because at this very moment, I can promise you, the United States military has the power to wreak total, complete havoc to this hostile regime in Iran.
And, by the way, they can do it in a control room right here, in an air-conditioned room in Tampa, or maybe Nevada, anywhere in the continental United States, and they can do so in a matter of minutes. That's a fact.
My suspicions about Hannity were first aroused when he called into his show Friday night, the night Soleimani was killed. The supposedly vacationing host had garnered an astonishing amount of information that he claimed to have confirmed from a large array of sources in a very short period of time.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy's Spidey sense is also tingling. In last night’s Reliable Sources newsletter, he wrote, “It's fair to ask: Has Hannity been briefed? Does he know more about the US' plans with regard to Iran than some members of Congress?”
According to The Daily Beast, Trump couldn’t resist blabbing to his pals at Mar-a-Lago over New Years about the “big” response to the Iranian regime that they would learn of very “soon.” So it would hardly be a surprise if he told all to his unofficial chief of staff and Bedtime BFF Hannity.
You can watch Hannity look a lot like an armchair general below. He also hinted at the end of the complete transcipt of the Haley interview that the Iranian oil fields might be bombed by the US. The video and partial Haley transcript are from the January 6, 2020 Hannity show.
January 6 Hannity partial transcript of interview with Nikki Haley, in which she asserts, “The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat[ic] leadership, and our Democrat[ic] presidential candidates”:.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: I watch this, and I'm thinking, wow, -- do they want to bribe the mullahs again? The Clintons bribed Kim Jong-il. That didn't work out. Bribing the mullahs didn't work out.
And, by the way, there was never any place, any time inspections anyway associated with that 10-year deal that expired, for $150 billion.
To me, the Iranians have been at war with the world. They want Iranian hegemony.
Am I wrong?
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: You know, I mean, you’ve got to look at the fact that the general provisions of the Iran deal were going to end in October. So, we're going towards a time where we have to bring them to the negotiating table anyway.
But make no mistake, Sean. What the president did left the Iranian regime completely flat-footed. They did not see this coming. They thought they could continue to do their multiple strikes.
But when it got to the lives of Americans, the president is never going to allow that to happen. It happened with the contractor. When they started to threaten our diplomats at the embassy, our military personnel, the president put a stop to it.
You could see the ayatollah crying today, because that was his number one strategist. That was the number one guy that has literally told all of the proxies in all of these countries who to kill, when to kill, how to kill. And that guy is now gone.
HANNITY: And killing Americans.
HALEY: So, Iran is having to regroup and figure out, now what?
So, make no mistake. They're shaking in their boots. They're trying to figure this out.
HANNITY: Well --
HALEY: And I think the president showed great decisiveness, great resolve.
And I think that this was a long time coming. If you look back two years ago, I gave a speech at the U.N. on Soleimani, and talked about the threats. The president has had restraint all of this time since we gave that speech.
And I will tell you, we said then, he was not -- by the entire Security Council, he was banned from leaving Iran. What was he doing in Iraq anyway?
Trying to move in.
HANNITY: Great question, yes.
What -- do you agree with -- listen, I have always liked General Petraeus. He's a great general, patriot, hero in this country. He said, it's impossible to overstate the importance of this particular action. It's more significant than the killing of bin Laden, even the death of al-Baghdadi.
And he said Soleimani was the architect, operational commander of the Iranian effort to solidify control, the so-called Shia crescent stretching from Iran to Iraq, through Syria and Southern Lebanon.
I think that's the reason why the Jordanians, Egyptians and Saudis now are working with the Israelis, which I don't think anybody saw coming.
HALEY: Well, and I will tell you this. You don't see anyone standing up for Iran.
You're not hearing any of the Gulf members. You're not hearing China. You're not hearing Russia. The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership, and our Democrat presidential candidates.
HANNITY: That is sad.
HALEY: No one else in the world, because they knew that this man had evil veins. They knew what he was capable of. And they saw the destruction and the lives lost based from his hands
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Posted with permission