As the case to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States moves through the United Kingdom court system, more details are coming to light about Fox News’ role in a pro-Russia congressman’s effort to secure Assange a presidential pardon if he were able to prove that Russia had not interfered in the 2016 election. And as with so many other scandals involving efforts to influence President Donald Trump, network star Sean Hannity is the key player.

Assange’s lawyers told a London court last week that during an August 16, 2017, meeting with Assange, then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said that “on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange … said Russia had nothing to do with” the Democratic National Committee emails WikiLeaks published at the height of the 2016 presidential election.

Rohrabacher subsequently admitted that he had told Assange that he would urge Trump to pardon him if he were able to produce such evidence, and he said he had suggested such a deal to then-chief of staff John Kelly. But Rohrabacher also said that he had not been “directed by Trump or anyone else connected with him to meet with Julian Assange,” that Kelly did not follow up with him, and that he never spoke directly to Trump about the proposal. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told reporters that Trump “barely knows” Rohrabacher and has “never spoken to him on this subject.”

However, Rohrabacher took another avenue as he sought to pitch Trump on a possible pardon-for-proof deal: He also went on Fox News. In fact, he sat down with a trusted member of the president’s Fox cabinet who hosts a show Trump regularly watches.

Just days after meeting with Assange, the congressman went on Sean Hannity’s Fox program to discuss his need to meet privately with the president to deliver what the host referred to as “a specific message” from Assange. The pair went on during that August 30, 2017, segment to lay out the possibility that Assange would receive “immunity” if he were able to prove that the U.S. intelligence community was wrong and Russia had not been the source of the DNC emails.

Both Hannity and Rohrabacher have motives to undermine the intelligence community’s conclusion. Hannity, a Trump propagandist and adviser, earlier in 2017 used his platforms to champion the conspiracy theory that the murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, and not Russia, had stolen the emails from the DNC. Rohrabacher is a notorious ally of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and has said that he met with Assange in part to uncover evidence that Rich had been WikiLeaks’ source.

Hannity repeatedly argued that Assange was credible in claiming that Russia had not been the source of the DNC emails, and he and Rohrabacher agreed this disproved the “Trump-Russia collusion narrative.” At the end of the interview, Hannity turned to the missive Rohrabacher was supposedly trying to convey from Assange to Trump.