Fox News host Sean Hannity got fact-checked to his face Wednesday evening when he tried to spread Russian propaganda about the United States having built “biowarfare” labs in Ukraine, which forced Vladimir Putin to launch an invasion of the country.
Specifically, Hannity referenced Soviet-era bioweapons research labs that were constructed in Ukraine, remarking that “we never got clarity” about what became of those facilities:
“Jennifer, but we do know that Victoria Nuland admitted that labs existed. What exactly they’re for, we never got clarity on, correct?”
That’s when Fox Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin called Hannity out for being duped into parroting Russian lies:
“Well, we do have clarity, I have a fact sheet—that’s what I was just reading—from the Pentagon. It is a long program that has existed where the Pentagon has partnered with these biolabs. These were Soviet-era labs that—remember the Nunn-Lugar Bill and trying to deal with proliferation when the Soviet Union ended—that is part of this effort to try to clean up those Soviet-era labs and make sure that nothing escapes from those labs. And so the U.S. has been very open about its involvement there with that. But what Russia does is they take that information, distort it, turn it around, and turn it into disinformation, and that is what has U.S. government officials concerned.”
This is just the most recent instance of Griffin pushing back on lies being broadcast by Fox hosts who seem bound and determined to take the side of Russia, ABC News notes:
Griffin, who has reported for Fox News Channel since 1996, has attracted attention over the past two weeks as she has publicly corrected or contradicted several Fox analysts and hosts on the air about the crisis in Ukraine. When Tucker Carlson suggested this week that some reporters are acting as flacks for the Pentagon, some interpreted that as a criticism of his colleague.
