CNN's Jim Acosta sharply rebuked Fox News anchors Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade for their texts to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 6, saying, "Guys, you've been busted on your bulls**t."
Acosta's criticisms are the latest to be directed at the Fox News personalities, who have continued to air conspiracies about the integrity of the electoral process even after privately denouncing the attack.
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Acosta said:
"What’s even more disgusting is that Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, they’ve been caught red-handed, acting like North Korean state television, lying to their viewers about what happened on that day, covering up the misdeeds of a wannabe dictator, blaming antifa sympathizers for Jan. 6 and downplaying the violence in the days that followed."
"Guys, you’ve been busted on your bulls**t, on your betrayal.”
Acosta then reminded his viewers that the ongoing investigation into the attack, which took place after former President Donald Trump's supporters attacked the United States Capitol on the false premise the 2020 general election had been stolen, is central to the country's interests:
“The move by the Jan. 6 committee to release text messages from some members of GOP Congress and some Fox News personalities that were sent to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows around and during the Jan. 6 insurrection has exposed what may have been a broad effort to overturn the 2020 election, and then deceive the public about that."
"And we need to talk about that as a country."
Last week, the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the attack released text messages from the three Fox anchors showing they'd condemned the attack in private.
None of them acknowledged the messages on their programs the evening after the contents of their texts were revealed.
Ingraham, for instance, told Meadows that the “president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
Kilmeade, meanwhile, told Meadows that the attack was “destroying everything you have accomplished.” Hannity make a statement urging Meadows to encourage then-President Trump to "make a statement" asking his supporters to leave the Capitol.
But publicly, all three of them have continued to stoke the flames of Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 general election had been stolen, courting the former President's devoted base on their programs even as allegations of election fraud have fallen apart in courtrooms and in the wake of numerous audits affirming that the election was both free and fair.
The gravity of the situation was not lost on Acosta's viewers, who praised him for his statements and said the three Fox hosts should face charges of their own.
Hannity and Ingraham have since acknowledged the texts on their respective programs though they did so only to attack the integrity of the House committee and downplay their roles during the attack.
Amid the controversy, Meadows has accused the House committee of "leaking" the texts, telling the far-right news outlet Newsmax that they are currently being "weaponized" as part of a smear campaign against him.
The House of Representatives has voted that Meadows be charged with contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with the investigation, following the House committee's recommendation.
Acosta, for his part, has spent considerable airtime debunking the "Big Lie" about the 2020 election, once criticizing former President Trump as "an exiled Twitter junkie who is jonesing for a platform."
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