openpolitics.com

In a legal filing before the hearing on Monday, Mr. Cohen said that, since 2017, he had worked as a lawyer for 10 clients, seven of whom he served by providing “strategic advice and business consulting.” The other three comprised Mr. Trump, the Republican fund-raiser Elliott Broidy and a third person who went unnamed.

.. Before the name was revealed, Mr. Ryan argued that the mystery client was a “prominent person” who wanted to keep his identity a secret because he would be “embarrassed” to be identified as having sought Mr. Cohen’s counsel.

.. On Fox News, the anchor Shepard Smith reported that his colleague had been named as a client of Mr. Cohen’s, saying that it was time for him to address “the elephant in the room.”

.. Just before 4 p.m., he posted a message on Twitter: “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.”

In a follow-up tweet, Mr. Hannity added, “I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third-party.”

The reference to a third party seemed to be an allusion to one of Mr. Cohen’s specialties: drawing up confidential settlements.

.. Hannity seemed to suggest that he had not disclosed his link to Mr. Cohen to his network, saying, “My discussions with Michael Cohen never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions.”

.. On April 9 — the night of the F.B.I. raids on Mr. Cohen — Mr. Hannity, in high dudgeon, opened his show by telling viewers to “keep in mind that Cohen was never part of the Trump administration or the Trump campaign.”

“This is now officially an all-hands-on-deck effort to totally malign and, if possible, impeach the president of the United States,” the host added.

.. There is on-air evidence that Mr. Hannity and Mr. Cohen go way back. In January 2017, shortly before the inaugural, Mr. Cohen was a guest on Mr. Hannity’s radio show. The host described him as Mr. Trump’s lawyer and then added, “Also, full disclosure: a personal friend of mine, long before this election ever started.”

.. The chummy conversation took place shortly after the so-called Steele dossier suggested that Mr. Cohen had visited Prague, a claim that Mr. Cohen has denied.

.. Mr. Hannity discussed Mr. Cohen’s alibi — that he had taken his 17-year-old-son to Los Angeles to meet with a baseball coach.

.. Before the chat was done, Mr. Cohen thanked Mr. Hannity, saying: “Sean, I got to be honest, in all fairness, you have been a beacon for Mr. Trump, for the campaign. It’s very rare that people thank you, because everybody is so busy, especially now with the transition. But on behalf of, obviously, Mr. Trump, the campaign, myself — you actually deserve a thank you.”

.. Many years before Mr. Trump was a candidate, Mr. Hannity was there for him. In 2011, when Mr. Trump was making the media rounds to promote an unfounded conspiracy theory — the so-called birther theory — that President Obama had not been born in the United States, Mr. Hannity gave him a forum on his radio and television shows.

.. Years later, his enthusiasm had not cooled. “I’m not hiding the fact that I want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States,” Mr. Hannity told Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times during the summer of 2016. After all, the Fox News host added, “I never claimed to be a journalist.”

.. As Election Day drew near, other conservatives turned their backs on Mr. Trump after the posting of the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape, during which the candidate rudely boasted of “grabbing” women by the genitals. That’s when Mr. Hannity sealed his bond with Mr. Trump by committing even more fully to him. Although conceding that Mr. Trump’s “words” were wrong, he quickly changed the subject to Bill Clinton, adding that the former president’s “actions” with women were “far worse.”

.. Mr. Hannity did face an unexpected challenge from one of his guests, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who unexpectedly told the host that it would have been “much, much better” to disclose that he was a Cohen client.