Following several days of pushing the Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory, much to the chagrin of Rich’s family and his own colleagues, Fox News’ Sean Hannity addressed the controversy at the top of his program tonight.

With Fox News having retracted the story that Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks, and Rich’s parents writing an op-ed begging those politicizing Rich’s murder to please stop, Hannity said the following:

“I totally and completely understand how upset and how hard this is on this family, especially over the recent coverage of Seth’s death. I’ve been communicating with them. I got a very heartfelt note. I also sent them a heartfelt note back.”

Explaining he reached out personally to the family and Seth’s brother Aaron, Hannity then added that it truly pained him to see a video of the parents. He then said he wouldn’t be talking about the murder for the time being.

“Out of respect for the family’s wishes,” he stated. “For now, I am not discussing this matter at this time.”

And with that, he moved on to discussing the Trump/Russia collusion issue.

UPDATE 11:40 PM ET: After the segment aired, Hannity sent out the following tweet asking for a retweet of an earlier tweet where he said he won’t stop working to find the truth:

Watch the clip above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

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