Rush Limbaugh says outrage over Fox News star Sean Hannity’s ties to attorney Michael Cohen is an act of deception by the media’s real partisans.

The man behind the “golden EIB microphone” told listeners on Tuesday that “incestuous” media professionals are focused on Mr. Hannity’s friendship with President Trump’s lawyer as a distraction for less informed viewers. The revelation about Mr. Cohen’s relationship to Mr. Hannity came days after an FBI raid on the lawyer’s offices in connection with its Russia investigation.

The Fox News host issued a statement on Monday saying he “never retained [Mr. Cohen], received an invoice, or paid legal fees” during “brief discussions” on legal matters.

“Every one of these Drive-By Media hypocrites that are going on and on and on about conflict of interest regarding Sean Hannity would be the first people to accept an up-close and personal relationship with Barack Obama any day of the week, Hillary Clinton any day of the week, and they wouldn’t have any problem covering it up,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “They would all brag about it. They all strive, they all wanted to impress Obama, they wanted to be in Obama’s inner circle.”

“Sean Hannity has not withheld anything from anybody about anything that he’s doing here. Sean Hannity is more honest, three times as honest as anybody you can pluck from the Drive-By Media doing their jobs each and every day. Each and every day they are engaging in deceit to try to hide from you the close ties that they all have with each other,” the radio host continued. “Washington, D.C., is an incestuous revolving door. And Sean Hannity is not part of the Drive-By Media, Washington, D.C., establishment.”

Mr. Limbaugh then played recent footage of journalists and pundits before stating their influential networks within the capital.

The host said:

“Jake Tapper, 1992 served as campaign press secretary for Democrat congressional candidate Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky.”

“[Jeffrey] Toobin is a lifelong friend of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. And Toobin was a member of the infamous JournoList. … It was a chat room in a secret enclave of the internet made up of Washington journalists who strategized each and every day and night on how to move forward the Democrat Party agenda in their jobs.

“Matthew Miller, Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder’s spokesman, former communications director for the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee. He’s also worked for Senator Robert Menendez and the 2004 John Kerry presidential campaign.”

“Mika Brzezinski. She is the daughter of Zbig Brzezinski, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, and former national security adviser for Jimmy Carter. She was married to TV news reporter Patrick Hoffer and is now engaged to [Joe] Scarborough.”

“Chuck Todd’s wife is a Democrat activist. He’s the host of Meet the Press, NBC head honcho.”

“Samantha Power was Obama’s U.N. ambassador the lasts days of his regime. She’s married to the famous lawyer Cass Sunstein, who thinks the Constitution needs to be overhauled and rewritten.”

Mr. Limbaugh asserted that Mr. Hannity’s reputation is being targeted because the president’s successes will expose years of political and bureaucratic incompetence.

“That’s the great threat that Donald Trump poses,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “The threat to expose that the Washington establishment is not the best qualified to actually lead this country forward and fix things for the people who make this country work. It’s no more complicated than that.”

Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective. — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 16, 2018

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