In the wake of the 2021 Capitol protest, Fox News host Sean Hannity suggested to outgoing President Donald Trump that he pardon Hunter Biden.
On Tuesday, the Daily Beast confirmed the “Hunter” mentioned by Hannity in a Jan. 7, 2021 exchange with then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany is in fact the son of President Joe Biden.
Hannity pitched Trump’s spox on a Hunter pardon because he “genuinely wanted some healing,” Daily Beast noted in their report.
The outlet also said that the idea to pardon Hunter was not Hannity’s idea, but he pitched the plan to McEnany.
More details of this report from The Daily Beast:
On Thursday, the Jan. 6 Committee released text messages between Hannity and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. In those text messages, Hannity appears to debrief McEnany on a conversation he had with Trump the day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
One item from that conversation: “He was intrigued by the pardon idea!! (Hunter)”
A person familiar with the conversations confirmed to The Daily Beast that the “Hunter” in the text was, in fact, Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden and a longtime target of conservative critics—Hannity foremost among them.
According to the source, Hannity had proposed that Trump issue a last-minute pardon for Hunter Biden, whose business dealings had two years prior been at the center of the ex-president’s campaign to extort an investigation out of the Ukrainian government—efforts that led to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.
Hannity pitched the idea in a Jan. 7 conversation, framing it as a gesture that might help “smooth things over” after the insurrection’s traumatic rift, this person confirmed. But ultimately, the idea, like others in the text to McEnany—such as “no more stolen election talk” and “attending inauguration”—ultimately went nowhere.
“It died on the vine,” the person recalled, adding that, despite Trump’s initial interest, the pardon was “never seriously considered.”
Sadly, this appears to be actually true. Hannity secretly proposed in a text to Trump spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany that Trump pardon HUNTER BIDEN, who Hannity slams almost every night on his show as a corrupt reprobate #GOPSwamphttps://t.co/sJjF0Ztzv6
— Paul Sperry (@PaulSperry30) June 11, 2022
Ultimately, however, President Trump did not issue the pardon.
Sources: Thegatewaypundit, Daily Beast