Trump ally Sean Hannity claims 'foreign dirt' interview was set up to create 'phoney outrage'

President's friend turns controversy onto Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump’s most loyal defender in the media, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, has claimed an interview in which the president said he would accept dirt about an opponent from a foreign power, was a “set-up” intended to trigger “phoney moral outrage”.

Just hours after segments were released of a jaw-dropping interview the president gave to ABC News in which he said he may not inform the FBI if a foreign power contacted him, Mr Hannity went to bat for Mr Trump.

His foil, as ever, was Mr Trump’s 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, whose campaign had been one of the groups that paid for former British spy Christopher Steele to collect information about the Republican candidate.

The information – much of which remains unverified – formed part of the evidence the FBI used to obtain a warrant to carry out surveillance on Carter Page, an advisor to Mr Trump.

“Why are they not so outraged about Hillary paying for Russian lies, disinformation, Comey generously using the unverifiable data from Russia to spy on the Trump campaign, again, a FISA warrant,” said Mr Hannity.

“No doubt, by the way, this will all get another round of fake, phoney, moral selective outrage over that interview, but it’s the perfect set-up because if they’re outraged about that, then how can you not be outraged over what I just said?

He added: “Of course, that’s all to be expected. In many ways that was a genius set-up because the media mob will fall right into his trap breathlessly spewing fake, phoney outrage over a non-story for days.”

In his interview, Mr Trump was asked whether he would contact the FBI if he was approached with dirt on an opponent from a foreign country.

“I think maybe you do both,” he said. “I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening.”

He added: “If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’ – oh, I think I’d want to hear it.”

Another Fox News’ Trump defender, Laura Ingraham, suggested the president’s aides were to blame for agreeing to the interview

“Setting aside the question of why you would have George Stephanopoulos standing over the president in the Oval Office––I don’t know who approved that––what about this notion of accepting foreign intel about an opponent,” she said.

“Is that a risk for president Trump, getting pulled back into Mueller? Again, why he was put in that situation is beyond me.”