Stelter blasts Hannity for ‘escalating' the 'war on Robert Mueller’

CNN host Brian Stelter on Sunday ripped Fox News, and network host Sean Hannity in particular, for attempting to undermine special counsel Robert MuellerRobert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE and his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

“The pro-Trump media is escalating its war on Robert Mueller. ... The worse it seems to get for Trump, the wilder the conspiracy theories get, the crazier the counternarrative from Trump’s allies,” Stelter said on his show “Reliable Sources.”

Stelter played a series of clips of Fox News hosts downplaying the Mueller investigation and instead focusing on alleged anti-Trump "secret societies" linked to the FBI.

The montage featured Hannity saying the full details of political bias within the FBI will make Watergate look like “an afterthought,” and adding “you can’t make this up in a spy novel.” 

“Fiction writing actually sounds like a great fit for Sean Hannity, because he’s no good at the facts,” Stelter said.

Hannity went viral late last week when he initially called a New York Times report that Trump sought to fire Mueller a distraction.

Minutes later, Hannity acknowledged Fox News sources confirmed the Times’s reporting.

“You know, we’ll deal with this tomorrow,” Hannity said, cutting to a video of a car chase.

Stelter said Sunday that Hannity and others at Fox News make it difficult for viewers to keep up with what's actually happening in Mueller's investigation.

“The challenge for us as news consumers and the challenge for people like me as reporters is to refuse to be confused,” Stelter said. “To refuse to fall for all these traps, all these theories, all this noise and instead stay focused on the huge story that’s unfolding in Washington.”