That didn’t take long. Some loons have enough brain power to realize that they can be sued for making wild claims.
Debbie Schlussel, a former Fox News guest, appeared on a local radio show on Friday and recounted an incident where Sean Hannity purportedly asked her to a hotel, and when she rebuffed his advances, she claims, she was ostracized by the network star. The story has since gone viral garnering headlines like “Sean Hannity Accused of Sexually Harassing Fox News Guest” in publications like The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post. Now, in an interview with LawNewz.com on Monday morning, Schlussel is denying that she was ever sexually harassed by Sean Hannity. While Schlussel stands by her description of the incident, Schlussel told us that she doesn’t believe what happened between the two amounted to sexual harassment by any legal definition.
“I would never accuse him of that. Sexual harassment has a special meaning under the law, and I would never accuse him of that,” Schlussel, an attorney herself, said. Schlussel said the interaction happened in the early 2000’s when Hannity was in Detroit taping a show.
“He tried to get me to go back to the hotel after the show after he and his executive producer Bill Shine treated me horribly,” she said on the radio program. Schlussel later clarified that it wasn’t his hotel room, but rather his hotel. She told LawNewz.com that she did go on the show following the incident, but after that was “banned from Fox News.”
“I never thought I was sexually harassed by Sean Hannity, I thought he was weird and creepy not someone I liked,” Schlussel said.
Following the radio interview on Friday, Hannity issued a strongly worded statement denying Schlussel’s claims saying he plans to take legal action against Schlussel for possible libel.
“LET ME BE CLEAR THE COMMENTS ABOUT ME ON A RADIO SHOW THIS WEEK by this individual ARE 100% false and a complete fabrication,” Hannity said in a statement obtained by LawNewz.com. “This individual is a serial harasser who has been lying about me for well over a decade. The individual has a history of making provably false statements against me in an effort to slander, smear and besmirch my reputation. The individual has not just slandered me over the years but many people who this individual disagrees with.”
GAGGitty, gaggity, Gagg-it-ity!
Where’s General P. Malaise???
Pick up the crow eating phone.
Probably too busy convincing everyone that Steve Avery is innocent.
To all Liberals, especially Liberal Women: Beware of Unintended Consequences for your actions
She didn’t think the comments would go mainstream. Pretty dumb lawyer to make those kinds of accusations on a radio show and not think they’d be challenged.
Since she’s ugly as hell, she’s not very credible. If Hannity wanted to cheat on his wife, he’d do better than that.
@Mr_Pinko says:
Receiving romantic advances from a guy you are not interested in is NOT SEXUAL HARASSMENT! Then you wonder why you can’t get a boyfriend.
Well, let me remind you that while Hugh Grant was getting a blowy from Divine Brown, http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2014/2/20/1392901990360/Divine-Brown-009.jpg
he had Elizabeth Hurley at home.
I’ve never believed Schlussel for a moment, but guys have done their share of cud chewing cows in the past.
This will hurt women. No man in his right mind should associate with a woman without a chaperone.
Mike Pence is so smart.
“Receiving romantic advances from a guy you are not interested in is NOT SEXUAL HARASSMENT!”
That reminds me of a Meme, a picture of a cute couple and the caption reads, “This could be us, except for that restraining order,” Mr Pinko you got me worried.
No, Brad. Pinko is right.
Even if what Schlussel said was true it is not sexual harassment.
I can go out and ask 25 women if they would like to come back to my hotel room- that’s not harassment.
Harassment is when I ask the same uninterested woman 25 times.
So instead she calls him weird and creepy. Something he can’t defend in court.
If there is a good chance of prevailing in court then Hannity should go after her with the best lawyers he (and Fox) can get and hammer her into the dirt. Begger her, destroy her reputation and make her unemployable. Disregard the walkback and the inevitable half assed apology and crucify her in court. Maybe it will show the rest of the leftist rabble out there that you can’t make an unfounded accusation true by telling the press. In addition, Hannity’s lawyers ought to have a long talk with Huff and Puff and any other “news” organization that covered this as gospel without doing any check on the veracity of the accuser and the story. Maybe a front page retraction and mea culpa would be a good start.
By the rules we are forced to comply with today.
“Do you want to go get a cup off coffee” Not Harassment.
“Do you want to meet back at the hotel bar” Not Harassment.
“Do you want to go back to my room and fxck like bunny rabbit.” Not Good.
Unfortunatly option 1 and 2 can quickly be reported as option 3.
I’m not disagreeing with either one of you really. And this kind of shit scares a lot of guys to the point that they don’t ask women out.
Big picture, we knew it was bull shit. Bigger picture, somebodies after the conservatives on FOX. Bill O and Hannity should start their own network.
Anytime you ask 25 women without a Lucky winner, it’s time for a new pickup line.
I’m sure Hannity could have his pick of the ladies, if so inclined.
Shlussel is beyond Coyote Ugly, inside and out. They don’t make booze strong enough, or paper bags thick enough.
Ha! Don’t worry, she’ll be back and accusing someone of something momentarily. She’s been at this type of craziness since 2008, as far as I remember. Even back then, I couldn’t name a blogger who didn’t think she was nuts. I never found out the reason Rusty Humphries cut her from his show. (He’d have her on for a few minutes during the week and then on Fridays she would do movie reviews) One day, she was gone and he said nothing about her after that. lol.
” Bill O and Hannity should start their own network.”
My dad’s been saying that for years. It works for Limbaugh.
@scr_north April 24, 2017 at 1:03 pm
> go after her with the best lawyers he (and Fox) can get
Fox is now being piloted by the progressive feminist Murdoch juniors. Or their progressive feminist wives via backdoor tillers, depending on who you want to believe. Large ships take a while to come about. But the new course is already set. And womyn must always be believed. Facts are irrelevant.
Option 3 is not reportable.
Option 3 is not harassment.
Option 3 is a question.
Not true. I have had an average of 50 people in my employee for a 20 plus year period of time. During that time I’ve had 4 sexual harassment claims against the company for some of the dumb shit you can imagine. I had a sales guy cost me $5,000.00 for touching the shoulder of a female employee. Our attorneys always gave us the same advise. Just pay it. Don’t go to court. Which is exactly what FOX just did. Could we have one all 4 cases in court. Probably but at what cost.
won
BFH . . Hugh Grant was exactly my thought too.
But most all this sh*t is about takin out prominent conservatives.
You’re talking about workplace environment.
That is an entirely different standard because the presumption is that a person could be making their working experience awkward because it is a confined environment.
Schlussel is not Hannity’s employee or vise versa.
The Murdoch clan is cleaning house, trying to “sneakily” transform FNC into CNN without anyone noticing. I would wager they paid her some amount of money to do this.
They are hoping to turn it into completely controlled opposition and keep the audience.
Hannity is not controllable. Tucker may actually be controlled oppo, he is very entertaining but every episode he makes sure everyone knows he disagrees with Trump on “some things” whatever they may be.
So he “opposes” the democrats by chewing up their disposable mouthpieces but he may very well be controlled.
BFH,
At that level it is work place environment. That’s why FOX was paying the awards.
“Schlussel is not Hannity’s employee or vise versa.”
If she was being paid for an appearance she’s a contractor. She’s FOX’s employee.
Yep, as suspected. Lying POS.
Schlussel is not an employee, but the sexual harassment laws extend past just employers and employees. Customers and vendors can be liable for sexual harassment, and if Schlussel was a regular contributor to Hannity’s show, she may also be protected by those laws.
Bad Brad put forth three examples, or options. Options 1 and 2 (cup of coffee or meet in the hotel bar) can be sexual harassment if asked repeatedly or if the “request” is actually deemed a demand. Option 3 (come back to my room) is dangerous because, depending upon the business relationship, the submitting party may later claim coercion by virtue of the asker having some sort of authority or power over the askee. The principles are stated fairly clearly, but the application of those principles is a bitch to figure out.
I operate under the principle that you don’t get your meat where you get your bread. What you consider harmless banter or inoffensive activity may come back to haunt you in the future, and many of these claims are settled because the cost of the lawsuit is far greater.
Faminists argue, and I generally agree that no woman should be subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace. However, there is no bright line with regard to what constitutes harassment, and many companies (and many managerial employees) discourage socialisation with female co-workers and employees. So while many feminists trumpet victory over presumed male harassers based on minor incidents, they are also inhibiting many women in climbing the corporate ladder because social networking is as important as technical competence.
You know, if Schussel lost about 75#, wore makeup, got her hair styled and didn’t dress like a bag lady, she might get someone to sexually harass her. Might.
“Schlussel is not an employee”
If she’s getting paid, she’s a contractor which put’s the responsibility on the employer. That’s the issue here. As a matter of fact even if she wasn’t getting paid but a guest of FOX corp and this happened under their roof. They are liable.
Bottom line is that claim can be made. It doesn’t need to be true to make money. 99.9% of the time Companies will settle this crap out of court.
This skank watched a bunch of women make a pretty good pay day form FOX news and figured she’d do the same. She wasn’t planning on Hannity suing her fat ass. Good for Hannity.
Too bad I’m self employed, it sounds like filing a claim against your employer is easier than working.
joe6pak
It is. Workman’s Comp was far worse. We eventually got an insurance policy that covered the majority of that.
@anonymous; Fox is changing direction there’s no doubt about that but in a lawsuit between Schessel (whatever) and Hannity, Fox has to hang with Hannity even if the sons didn’t want to else they get accused of ignoring bad behaviour and Fox has deeper pockets then Hannity.
Hannity on his radio show today said that he has hired a group of lawyers, the best around and is going after anyone who slanders him, lies about him, and that he’s not going to sit back any longer and allow these people to destroy him. Do it Hannity, sue all of them, take everything they own.
Woudn’t take her to a dog show, even i thought she could win!
Before I heard details of this and nobody said who what where, I was thinking glen beck. Looks like I was right after all. 😄
@scr_north April 24, 2017 at 4:31 pm
I misinterpreted your “go after her.” I agree that Fox would want to vigorously defend against another (string of) suit(s). Next at the teller’s window after O’Reilly will be looking for a yuge check. When Schlussel “walked back” the “harassment harassment” accusation, and you wrote “go after her,” I thought you meant a defamation counter-suit. That, I couldn’t see the Murdoch’s supporting.
I may be going out on a limb here, but if….and I do not under any circumstances believe Hannity made a pass…
but if he were single, I’m pretty certain he would be drawn to women who looked as if they had taken a recent bath.
The name “Schlussel” refers to the sound made when pulling out.