Fox News Channel lent support to its best-known anchor Sean Hannity, saying Thursday that the popular host would return to its air next week following a Memorial Day holiday vacation – an effort to tamp down speculation that a controversy currently enveloping Hannity could escalate further.

“Like the rest of the country, Sean Hannity is taking a vacation for Memorial Day weekend and will be back on Tuesday,” the 21st Century Fox-owned network said in a statement. “Those who suggest otherwise are going to look foolish.”

Hannity has become embroiled in a furor over his recent promotion of a discredited story about the death last summer of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who was murdered in Washington, D.C. last July in what local police have stated they believe is a botched robbery. Hannity has in recent days promoted an unproven theory that Rich was killed in exchange for providing internal documents to Wikileaks, prompting statements of outrage from the Rich family.