Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham lashed out at the Jan. 6 committee Tuesday night for releasing text messages they sent to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
NBC News reports the messages — provided to the committee by Meadows and read aloud Monday evening by Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., during a committee meeting — showed that at least three Fox News hosts were urging Meadows to get President Donald Trump to call off the rioters and end the violence on Jan. 6.
Hannity said Tuesday that a message asking whether Trump could "make a statement asking people to leave the Capitol" was "one of" the texts he sent to Meadows. But he focused his criticism on what he described as the committee’s partisan work, and he said the release of his texts was an invasion of privacy.
“I am an honest, straightforward person. I say the same thing in private that I say to all of you. Liz Cheney knows this. She doesn’t seem to care. She’s interested in one thing and one thing only — smearing Donald Trump and purging him from the party,” Hannity said.
The nine-member committee includes two Republicans: Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
Cheney on Monday also read from a text that Ingraham sent to Meadows.
"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," Ingraham texted.
Ingraham said on her show Tuesday night that the committee and media reports 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.
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade also texted Meadows during the riot.
"Please get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished," he texted.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mail reports Bill O'Reilly, a veteran former Fox News host, on Tuesday night accused his previous channel of being timid and afraid of rigorous debate. He also condemned the hosts - Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade - who sent texts to Donald Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows on January 6 during the Capitol riot, saying that journalistically he did not think it was wise to get involved. O'Reilly said he was disgusted by the Capitol riot, and was dismayed that Fox executives did not make their presenters condemn the insurrection in more forceful terms.
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