A bit later, Hannity checked in with Ed Henry, part of the Fox News’s hard-news division. You know, the fellows who try their best to tiptoe around Hannity’s conspiracy theories. “It is my understanding … that there are anonymous sources again,” Hannity said to Henry in the classic Hannity put-down. Never mind that Hannity himself didn’t name any of the sources that he’d reportedly consulted in batting down the New York Times scoop.

“It is anonymous sources,” responded Henry, who then recapped the New York Times piece. Seeking to explain the June time frame, Henry said, “Remember the reports that you and others were citing at the time, last summer, that Robert Mueller hired a lot of lawyers on the special counsel team who had donated money to Democratic candidates.” Though Henry had managed to confirm a piece of the story — that there was some kind of “fee dispute” with Mueller at a Trump property long ago — he didn’t have independent confirmation of the whole thing.

And so Hannity continued on his way with his regularly scheduled programming. Prompted by Hannity, commentator Gregg Jarrett said of the New York Times journalists behind the Mueller story: “Yeah, these are not reliable reporters.”

Then: Just before Hannity signed off for the night, he turned in his finest hour. “All right, so we have sources tonight just confirming to Ed Henry that, yeah, maybe Donald Trump wanted to fire the special counsel for conflict,” said the host. “Does he not have the right to raise those questions? You know, we’ll deal with this tomorrow night.” Should be fun, considering that Trump, participating in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said, “Fake news. A typical New York Times fake story.”