After Sean Hannity was named in court last week as a client of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, Hannity insisted their discussions had been limited to the subject of buying property. “I’ve said many times on my radio show: I hate the stock market, I prefer real estate. Michael knows real estate,” Hannity said on his Fox News show, a few hours after he was named in a Manhattan court, where Cohen is under criminal investigation. The Guardian reviewed thousands of pages of public records, which detail a real estate portfolio of remarkable scale that has never been reported. The records link Hannity to a group of shell companies that spent at least $90 million on more than 870 homes in seven states over the past decade, The Guardian reports. Some of the homes are low-income while others are luxurious mansions.
According to The Guardian, Hannity is the hidden owner behind some of the shell companies and his attorney did not dispute that he owns all of them. Many of the properties were bought at a discount in 2014 after banks foreclosed on previous owners for defaulting on mortgages. Hannity has consistently criticized former president Barack Obama for the U.S. foreclosure rate. Hannity also had support from the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development (Hud), which he did not disclose when he praised Ben Carson, the Hud secretary, on his television show last year. Public records show the companies have bought up dozens of properties in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Vermont.
The Guardian reports that among the most valuable properties are two large apartment complexes in Georgia. Hannity bought the property in 2014 for $22.7m. The developments are in the cities of Perry and Brunswick, which have higher poverty rates and lower median incomes than the US averages.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
