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Fox's Shepard Smith: Trump administration deception 'is mind-boggling'

Shepard Smith of Fox News.

Fox News host Shepard Smith, seemingly frustrated while hosting his afternoon television news program, accused the Trump administration of covering up "numerous lies," The Huffington Post reported.

In an outburst rarely seen from a news anchor, Smith, spoke with colleague Chris Wallace on Friday afternoon. After learning there were more people than previously reported who attended the June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower, Smith accused the administration of lying, deception and a coverup, the The Washington Post reported.

“It is still not, we’re still not clean on this, Chris,” Smith told Wallace. “Why is it lie after lie after lie?”

This is what Smith said, according to a   transcript printed by the Post:

“We’re still not clean on this, Chris [Wallace]. If there’s nothing there -- and that’s what they tell us, they tell us there’s nothing to this and nothing came of it, there’s a nothingburger, it wasn’t even memorable, didn’t write it down, didn’t tell you about it, because it wasn’t anything so I didn’t even remember it -- with a Russian interpreter in the room at Trump Tower? If all of that, why all these lies? Why is it lie after lie after lie? If you clean, come on clean, you know? My grandmother used to say when first we practice to -- Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. The deception, Chris, is mind-boggling. And there are still people who are out there who believe we’re making it up. And one day they’re gonna realize we’re not and look around and go, Where are we, and why are we getting told all these lies?”

Smith had “either a Howard Beale or Walter Cronkite moment, depending on your perspective,” the Washington Post reported.

The views expressed by Smith and Wallace over the Russian controversy that has followed President Donald Trump are different than that of their Fox colleagues, such as Sean Hannity. The conservative host interviewed Trump Jr.

Reactions from both ends of the political spectrum were heated on Twitter.

“Shepard Smith should go join Megyn Kelly, they could co-host an anti-Trump show called ‘The Turncoats,’ one person tweeted.

“#ICantBelieveThat Fox News has a (sic) anchor with the courage to speak up. Shepard Smith is a dim light in the vast darkness of hate at Fox News,” tweeted another.