- Sean Hannity embraced election fraud claims in text messages to Mark Meadows, according to a CNN report.
- "There is no way Biden got these numbers. Just mathematically impossible," he texted Meadows.
- "Everyone knows it was stolen. Everyone," he wrote in another message.
Weeks after Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Fox News host Sean Hannity had his team "digging into the numbers" as he claimed to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that the victory was "mathematically impossible."
In text messages sent to Meadows on November 29, 2020, Hannity appeared to embrace false claims about the 2020 election that former President Donald Trump spread. By then, Fox News, along with every other major network, had already declared Biden as the election winner.
"I've had my team digging into the numbers. There is no way Biden got these numbers. Just mathematically impossible," Hannity texted Meadows, according to messages obtained by CNN. "It's so sad for this country they can pull this off in 2020. We need a major breakthrough, a video, something."
The texts are among the 2,319 messages that Meadows turned over to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. CNN published a total of 82 texts exchanged between Hannity and Meadows between Election Day 2020 and Biden's inauguration, revealing his fixation on the election results and his support for Trump.
Trump and his team at the time had been pursuing dozens of legal efforts to overturn the election results. One challenge that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton brought to the Supreme Court, asking to toss out the results in key battleground states that Biden won, seemed to catch Hannity's attention.
In a message sent on December 8, 2020, Hannity told Meadows: "Texas case is very strong. Still a Herculean climb. Everyone knows it was stolen. Everyone."
"I vacillate between mad as hell and sad as hell. Wtf happened to our country Mark," Hannity said in a follow-up message.
Three days later, the Supreme Court dismissed Texas' bid to overturn the results. Still, Hannity maintained that the election was stolen, telling Meadows in a December 11, 2020 text that: "They steal an election. What am I missing Mark? We r so F'd as a country."
There is no evidence that widespread voter fraud occurred in the election, and federal, state and local officials have repeatedly said the results were fair and accurate.
A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.