Fox News Host Sean Hannity's Comments About Trump Come Back to Haunt Him

Fox News host Sean Hannity's past comments about former President Donald Trump's foreign business affairs are coming back to haunt him following a report from House Democrats that found Trump received millions of dollars from governments overseas while in office.

During a December episode of The Sean Hannity Show, the conservative talk show host spoke about the Republican-led investigations into President Joe Biden. House GOP members have launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden over allegations that the president profited during his time as vice president off of his son Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. While Republicans maintain that the president benefited from an alleged bribery scheme, there has been no evidence presented that directly ties Biden to his son's business.

Speaking about the investigations into the president and his family, Hannity told a caller on his show on December 11, 2023, that he thinks "we're making a big mistake if we don't get to the bottom of this."

"I cannot, for the life of me, you know, imagine what the media and how the country and the left in this country would be reacting if Donald Trump and The Trump Organization or the Trump family were making tens of millions of dollars from our top geopolitical foes like China and Russia," Hannity continued, as reported by progressive news site Media Matters. "I can't imagine the left in this country not going insane, but lo and behold, here we are."

Media Matters posted a clip of Hannity's comments in an article Thursday in response to the 156-page report released by House Democrats on the Oversight Committee that accuse Trump and his business, The Trump Organization, of receiving at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments while president. The foreign entities, which included some U.S. adversaries like China, paid the money to various properties attached to Trump's business, including the Trump International Hotel sites in Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as Trump Tower in New York City.

The report pointed to documents that Democrats obtained through years of subpoenas against Trump's accounting firm, Mazars, and was signed by House Oversight Ranking Member Jamie Raskin. According to receipts reviewed by the lawmakers, the most amount of foreign money spent at Trump's businesses came from the Chinese government, including from the Embassy of China Delegation, the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Chinese state-owned airline Hainan Airlines Holding Company.

In total, Democrats said, Trump received over $5.5 million from the Chinese government.

"Article I Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts of any kind whatever from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains the Consent of the Congress to do so," read the report. "Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's press team via email on Thursday. A request for comment was also sent to Hannity on Instagram.

Trump's middle son, Eric Trump, who works at his father's hotel business as part of The Trump Organization, attacked the House report as "a joke" in a post to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

"What a joke! All foreign government profits, for stays at our hotels and other properties while my father was in office, were voluntarily donated to the United States Treasury," he wrote.