The recent public hearing by the House Committee on the Capitol insurrection revealed that several hosts on Fox News were texting Mark Meadows, urging to stop the riots. Following the damning text messages, the hosts were criticized by netizens for their contradictory condemnations of the insurrection.
Rep. Liz Cheney, the House Committee’s vice-chair, read out text messages sent by Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, and Sean Hannity to Meadows. All three were telling Meadows to get twice-impeached former President Donald Trump to call off the insurrection as the siege was ongoing. Netizens blasted the trio for pinning the blame on Antifa and Black Lives Matter in public while blaming the former president in private.
“The most damning part of this is that of course, these people KNEW BETTER. At Fox, hosts like Hannity, and Laura, in the White House, in Congress, even in Trump’s own family – they all KNEW BETTER. Then. And now. And they still defend him,” said analyst S.E. Cupp.
“Dear Brian @Kilmeade (Fox News), If Donald Trump had nothing to do with the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol why the F*** were you TEXTING Mark Meadows on January 6 and telling him to tell Trump to send his soldiers home?” tweeted Don Winslow.
“And Hannity and Ingraham were so horrified by the violence and attempted coup they saw unfolding in real-time and which was instigated by Trump that they went on Fox the evening of Jan 6 and blamed the BLM protesters and Antifa for the Capitol siege,” tweeted Tim O’Brien.
Hundreds of Capitol insurrectionists have since been detained and arrested, with some requesting to have their trials moved out of Washington DC. However, according to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, the attempts to have their cases moved out of Washington DC would backfire on the insurrectionists.
Speaking with NBC4 Washington reporter Scott MacFarlane, Kirschner explained that the defendants requesting to have their cases moved out of the DC courts is a tactic to move the cases to part of the country where residents have not heard of the incident. Kirschner noted that hardly anyone would not be aware of the insurrection that occurred.