After explosive evidence from Giuliani associate Lev Parnas is released, Fox News scrambles to downplay its impact

On January 14, new evidence emerged revealing more details about President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating one of his political rivals, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Since the release of the documents, Fox News personalities have either largely ignored the story or insisted that the news isn’t important.

“Dozens of pages of notes, text messages and other records lay out work conducted by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and his associate Lev Parnas on behalf of the president” to pressure Ukraine, The New York Times reported. The documents include a May 2019 letter Giuliani wrote to the Ukrainian president requesting a meeting and stating that Trump had “knowledge and consent” of his actions. Other documents underscore the administration’s efforts to remove former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who has previously testified to Congress about the right-wing smear campaign that led to her ousting. Some reveal “eye-popping new details” about Giuliani’s campaign to get rid of Yovanovitch, including texts from a Trump donor that implied he had access to people tracking her movements. 

Despite the gravity of the newly released documents and the implication that there is possibly more evidence to be found, some Fox personalities are dismissing the allegations as nothing new or of importance. Fox & Friends, the president’s favorite morning show, ignored the revelations entirely.

Fox prime-time host Laura Ingraham dismissed the documents as “scribble scrabble,” adding, “This is ridiculous. This has nothing.” 

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Citation From the January 14, 2020, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Oh, Lev Parnas, you know --

DEVIN NUNES: Lev Parnas is a --

INGRAHAM: We got these notes of, like, scribble scrabble in a Ritz Carlton Vienna notepad, and we're all supposed to all think oh, the Democrats have a smoking gun?

This is ridiculous. This has nothing.

On another “news”-side program, Fox News @ Night, Fox contributor Marc Thiessen said that the evidence doesn’t do “very much” to impact Trump’s defense, adding that it “underscores how rushed and sloppy and partisan the House impeachment process was.” He concluded that the evidence “really undermines” the Democrats’ case. 

Fox host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity went on a rant about the evidence, saying, “This 25th hour of desperation reeks of more pathetic Trump rage psychosis and derangement.”  

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Citation From the January 14, 2020, edition of Fox News' Hannity

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Finally, Nancy Pelosi, speaker in name only, and the House Democrats have finally agreed to send over their BS articles of impeachment to the Senate tomorrow. Because Democrats know these articles are so laughably weak, they have now decided to include brand new, a trove of documents that were not presented during their Schiff sham impeachment proceeding. This 25th hour of desperation reeks of more pathetic Trump rage psychosis and derangement. And get this, all the new documents, they center around quid pro and quo and Joe and his son, zero experience, Hunter and the international pay-for-play scheme. Now, remember what I've always said that a president, any president, does have a sworn duty to faithfully execute the laws of the land. Please remember that little part, put that in the compartment in your brain. But if you read these new findings, you will quickly see how politically skewed their new information, their trove of documents is. 

On Fox “news”-side program The Story with Martha MacCallum, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume dismissed the evidence as sounding “very much like evidence that we’ve already heard.” 

On America’s Newsroom, co-anchor Bill Hemmer allowed Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) to argue that Democrats’ “concerns about new evidence … fall on deaf ears” because “they have so trashed the process” of impeachment.