Fox News host and conservative firebrand Sean Hannity cried "fake news" Thursday night in response to outrage generated by his call the previous evening for potential witnesses in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation to destroy evidence because, he claimed, Hillary Clinton got away with doing the same thing.

In response to reports that Mueller was asking people to turn in their cellphones, Hannity — one of President Trump's most zealous defenders in the cable news universe — counseled "Mueller's witnesses" to "follow Hillary Clinton's lead" on Wednesday's program.

"Delete all your emails and then acid wash the emails and hard drives on phones," Hannity said. "Then take your phones and bash them into itsy-bitsy pieces, use BleachBit, remove the SIM cards and then take the pieces and hand it over to Robert Mueller and say, 'Hillary Rodham Clinton, this is equal justice under the law.'"

"I made what are obviously sarcastic remarks highlighting a clear double standard as it relates to our justice system," Hannity said on his show Thursday. "Believe it or not, the insane left wing media in this country, headline after headline, they picked up those comments — they're so dumb and gullible — and had a full-on, the only thing I can describe as a fake news freak-out."

In his comments about Clinton, Hannity, who believes Mueller has declared war on the president, was referring to details included in documents made public by the FBI in September 2016 after it closed its investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server during her time as secretary of State.

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One Clinton aide cited in the documents recalled destroying Clinton's old mobile devices with a hammer. (Wired magazine reported that data is routinely wiped from used State Department devices, although it is not accomplished with a hammer.)

Clinton's aides also got IT workers to permanently delete emails from her private server using software called BleachBit.

Although former FBI director James Comey determined that the emails were not deleted as part of an effort to obstruct justice, Trump and his supporters often point to the destroyed phones and wiped emails as evidence of Clinton's corruption and proof of a double standard within the Justice Department.

Those considering following Hannity's advice should consult with legal counsel before destroying evidence and relying on a "but Clinton got away with it" defense.