The following article by Lachlan Markay and Asawin Seubsaeng was posted on the Daily Beast website February 1, 2018:
Donald Trump continues to get his policy advice from the people on ‘the shows.’
President Donald Trump is at odds with his own chief law-enforcement officers over a controversial memo fueling Republican allegations of a conspiracy against the Trump presidency. But by all indications, the president is less amenable to the concerns of his own FBI than those shared by a less formal, more bombastic adviser.
That adviser is Sean Hannity, who has been hyping the so-called Nunes memo all week, and with whom the president continues to speak regularly.
According to three sources with knowledge of their conversations, Trump has been in regular contact with Hannity over the phone in recent weeks, as the Fox News prime-time star and Trump ally has encouraged the prompt release of a controversial four-page memo crafted by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. Hannity has gone to the wall to push for the public release of the memo, which the intelligence panel and its chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), authorized this week in a party-line vote despite the classified information therein.
Sources say Hannity’s persistent advocacy reinforced Trump’s already growing determination to get that memo into the public realm—despite huge potential fallout within the law enforcement and intelligence arms of his own administration.
In their conversations, Trump and Hannity discussed the Nunes memo’s supposed bombshell-level significance, and how it could shed light on the alleged anti-Trump bias and “corruption” at the FBI. On these calls, Trump has directly referenced specific recent Hannity segments related to #ReleaseTheMemo, according to one of three sources with knowledge of their conversations.
The White House press office did not respond to requests for comment, and Hannity declined to comment. Sources, two in the White House and the other an outside adviser, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Trump not only deeply values the private, after-hours political and policy advice and gossip from his favorite cable-news hosts, but is a notoriously avid consumer of their broadcasts, particularly highly sympathetic shows like Hannity and Fox & Friends. As he has inched closer to publicly releasing the Nunes memo—he has privately said it’s all but a foregone conclusion—cable news and right-wing media have shaped his views on the issue, as they have on many other topics, far more so than the briefings or private intelligence provided by those within his administration, White House officials say.
View the post here.