Fox News host Sean Hannity hired a pair of lawyers last year that have been linked to President Trump.
Hannity retained attorneys Victoria Toensing and Jay Sekulow to send a cease-and-desist letter to a Tulsa, Okla.-based radio station last May, The Atlantic reported Tuesday.
Sekulow has been serving as Trump’s personal lawyer, working on special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. And Toensing, along with her husband Joseph diGenova, were announced to have been joining Trump’s legal team for the probe earlier this year before the decision was quickly reversed over conflicts of interest.
{mosads}
The cease-and-desist letter was sent after conservative activist Debbie Schlussel said on the Pat Campbell show on KFAQ last April that Hannity was “creepy” toward her and had invited her to his hotel room.
Hannity called the claims “100 percent false and a complete fabrication.”
The letter was sent before Sekulow joined Trump’s legal team.
Toensing told The Atlantic that she was Hannity’s lawyer “at that time” but declined to say if she still represents him.
“I’ve just learned in the press that anybody who is Sean Hannity’s lawyer is going to be blasted so I think this phone call is over,” Toensing said. “I’m wondering what attorney-client privilege means to anybody. I don’t say who my clients are, sometimes I do, and many times, most of the time, I do not.”
Sekulow did not immediately return The Atlantic’s request for comment.
Hannity declined to answer The Atlantic’s questions, instead sending links to stories in NewsBusters and the Daily Caller on ethical issues in mainstream media.
“I don’t have time for these silly questions,” Hannity told the magazine.
Toensing, Sekulow and diGenova are all frequent guests on Hannity’s Fox News show.
The new report comes one day after it was revealed that Hannity was a client of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer of Trump.
Hannity had ripped the FBI raids of Cohen’s office, home and hotel room in the days before the relationship between the two men was announced in court.
The Fox News host said in a statement Monday that Cohen had never represented him professionally.
“I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective,” Hannity said, adding that the conversations were “almost exclusively about real estate.”
Fox News said Tuesday that the network was unaware of Hannity’s connection to Cohen before it was revealed in court, but that Hannity “continues to have our full support.”