RUSH: Okay, over here, folks, I’ve had a bit of a — I don’t know what you call it — a creeping sense, a feeling, and I’m very alarmed when this happens because I don’t want to be wrong about it. And I try to remain objective during all these things, but I just get the sense — and I alluded to this a little bit on Friday — that this entire thing — it came after that Washington Post story, that huge opus, 36 pages — remember, we talked about that, 36 pages. I even highlighted and excerpted from it.

Page 25, they had to admit, no evidence the Russians did a thing with votes, voting machines, or any of that. There has been a weekend to digest this story now, and I had a sense with this story being published that something’s turning, something’s shifting. That the momentum, if you will, seems to be losing, or the left seems to be losing some of their momentum. I mean in the Drive-By Media and out there. They’ve never had anything go on as far as I’m concerned. There’s never been anything here; that has been fake news from the get-go.

But after all of these months of producing nothing and now more and more news showing that there’s been real collusion among Democrats, maybe Comey, maybe Lynch. That Washington Post story, the left-wing reaction to that story is amazing. There are people out there today on the left livid at Barack Obama. Because what did the Washington Post story say? Essentially that Obama and his team knew what the Russians were doing, they were trying to steal the election for Donald Trump. They wanted to make sure Hillary lost, and Obama knew it.

I don’t know if the people that wrote this Washington Post story intended this, but they ended up writing something that prints to 36 pages which basically says that Obama knew everything going on. By the way, this is all bohunk anyway. It’s all BS. But, anyway, I’ll play long with it as written, for the sake of this discussion. Obama knew about it, Brennan knew about it, CIA guy, all of these intelligence people knew about it, quote, unquote, and didn’t stop it. Didn’t do anything other than Obama calling Putin and saying, “Cut it out.” Other than Obama calling Putin and saying, “You better stop it or else.”

I mean, it’s laughable. And all they did in the end was expel 35 Russian diplomats, and that happened in December after the election. And there was even one Obama administration official, unnamed, who claimed, “Yeah, we choked. We choked. We didn’t do anything about it.” The people on the left and even some of the Never Trumpers on our side who believe this garbage actually now are ticked off at Obama for not doing anything about it.

Now, the reason he didn’t is very simple, and I haven’t seen anybody on the left come to this conclusion or explanation, but it is obvious. Again, I must state that I think a lot of this is total BS. But let’s claim for the moment, go along with the idea that that Washington Post story was true. Do you realize how many felonies were committed for that story to end up being printed? All of the sources who leaked all of that inside dirt about what was going on in the White House, about what Obama was saying to who and about who was saying what to Obama, and all of the other details that made up that short novella of a story, felony after felony after felony in terms of leaking classified information.

There was real felonious behavior going on in order for that story to be published. And the only collusion that took place was between Obama and the Russians and whatever he was ostensibly trying to get them to do, or not do.

But the reason that Obama didn’t make the Russians stop it, you remember his stated reason was, “Well, I didn’t want to appear to be tampering with an election.” Why worry about that? Well, I’ll tell you why worry about that, because they thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide. All the way up to Election Day they thought Hillary was gonna win with a landslide.

So if Obama goes public or anybody else in the regime went public with what the Russians were, quote, unquote, trying to do, then it would taint her victory if she won. So they rolled the dice and decided not to say anything. I actually think the reason they didn’t say anything about it because I think most of this is made up.

I think a lot of it is manufactured, and most of it stems from a fake dossier, which we have spoken about I don’t know how many times here. But it is amazing how large a role a fake dossier on Trump in Moscow and Trump associates in Moscow, it’s amazing how something that was totally made up out of thin air formed the basis of all of this and still is the foundation for this out-of-control investigation by Mueller.

Now, that’s the other side of the coin for me. On the one hand, I’m beginning to see this all start to unravel for the Democrats, in no large part to that Washington Post story. Contrary to that story damaging Trump, it doesn’t damage Trump; it damages, if anybody, Obama and the Democrats. But over here you’ve got Mueller. And Mueller can engage in anything he wants. He’s got an open checkbook, a blank checkbook, and he can go anywhere. And he can keep going until he finds somebody who’s done something wrong and then make a point of it.

So while it appears to be — and I’m not trying to jump the gun here. I’m just sharing with you this sixth sense that I’ve had, ever since that Washington Post story hit. And I want to get into more of that, of course, as the program unfolds. I’m just giving you the overview of it. So while it appears to be — I know many of you, “It’s not unraveling, Rush, don’t be fooled.”

The Democrats are all being urged to walk back from it now, folks. I mean, everywhere, even Pencil Neck, Adam Schiff, numbers of Democrats are being urged to drop it, move on to something else — jobs, the economy, what have you. A Harvard poll shows that two-thirds of the American people are fed up with the story, they don’t think there’s anything there and it’s damaging the country. It’s a Harvard poll, done by Mark Penn, former Clinton pollster, who has been on the warpath trying to get the Democrats to stop this by using several polls, this one being the most recent.

So while it appears to be unraveling, over here Mueller can do whatever he wants and is hiring even more anti-Trump leftists, Obamaites and Hillaryites, and some of them are, I mean, just 1,000 percent total partisans. So for me it’s an interesting dilemma and dichotomy to witness. So if the momentum leaves, if the whole Trump colluding with Russia story and obstruction, if that unravels, where does that leave Mueller?

Public opinion is gonna have some impact. I don’t know how much. It’s gonna have some impact on Mueller’s investigation in terms of the people caring, supporting it, or what have you. Anyway, I just wanted to give you this overview and share with you this feeling I’ve got. And I’m not trying to be premature. I’m leaving the door open to be wrong about this, ’cause I understand the media can continue to do whatever they want because they have no accountability like elected people do.

Speaking of CNN, did you see they had to withdraw, retract, and apologize for a phony story about all this? They ran a story that one of Trump’s assistants, friend, Anthony Scaramucci had been deeply involved in the entire Russia collusion story. They had to take it down. They had to withdraw it. They took it off the website, apologized for it, and they have instituted new procedures now before any such story gets published anywhere or broadcast anywhere in the CNN empire.

There has been a lot of news made about this, but I mean, if they took this story down, you could see them taking every story down. I mean, that’s how flimsy all of this is.

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RUSH: Folks, I’m gonna make the case today, and you tell me if you agree, but it’s almost beginning to feel surreal. Over here, you could make the case that the entire Russian collusion and Trump obstruction things appear to be beginning to turn against the Democrats in no small part because of that Washington Post story on Friday.

And then over here you’ve got this special counsel going absolutely nuts with no limits on who he can hire, how much he can spend hiring them, how much he can spend overall, and what he can look at. It is surreal. I’m talking about Mr. Mueller. I’ll be making the case as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears today.

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RUSH: Now, of course there’s another reason, ladies and gentlemen, why I get the feeling that the worm has turned here, or at least has started to. You look at Loretta Lynch is now under investigation and more and more Democrats are starting to echo what Comey told them the last time he testified, that they’re beginning to feel queasy about Loretta’s involvement with the FBI. It might well be before we end up here, by the time we end up the collusion that happened was between Comey and Lynch. Hillary remains under investigation for her emails and so forth. Don’t doubt that. And Crazy Bernie and his wife are under investigation. And you don’t hear about many of those, but it is true.

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RUSH: Now, back to the story or the notion, the idea that things may be beginning to unravel or the momentum may be slightly changing away from the Democrats. The Washington Post story comes out Friday. We spent a lot of time on it. Trump has reacted to it. He tweeted a bunch of things. Among them the real story is that President Obama did nothing after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With four months looking at Russia, he said he didn’t want to rock the boat. He didn’t choke, Obama didn’t choke; he colluded or obstructed. And it did the Democrats and Crooked Hillary no good.

I think Trump is right on the money here. Put this in perspective. You’re a Republican Never Trumper, you’re a conservative intellectual Never Trumper, or you are a rabid, filled-with-rage leftist Democrat, you hate Trump. And that Washington Post story comes out. Now, the headline of that story, don’t forget, I think it was written to make Obama look courageous and bright and engaged, involved, intellectual, because the headline, the premise, “Obama’s Secret Struggle to Punish Russia for Putin’s Election Assault.” Obama’s brave struggle, as though Obama acted in great courage and bravery once he knew what the Russians were doing. And the point of the story is that he did neither. He didn’t contact brave; he didn’t act courageous. He didn’t do anything.

And if you’re a leftist, and if you’re a conservative Republican Never Trumper, and you buy this whole Russian narrative — and believe me, a lot of people do, it amazes me how many people do. It amazes me how many people think that there are serious elements of truth in the narrative that Trump or his associates met with Putin or his associates, and arranged for Trump to win the election. It’s amazing to me how many people believe that.

But among those who do, guess what? Obama found out about it. Yes, Obama found out about it because John Brennan found out about it, the CIA director. And John Brennan found out about it and put it in an envelope with Obama’s eyes only and three other people. They didn’t even put it in the daily brief that all of the intel people hear. It was that deep. It was that big. It was that important. It was that earth-shattering. It was that heart-stopping.

And you know what it was? The Trump dossier. The golden showers dossier. A giant, big nothing was the basis and the foundation of this. So bottom line, Obama hears about all of these efforts and the brave struggle to contain it begins, and Obama meets with experts and advisers. They advise him what to do. Obama gives his own counsel.

At the end of it all Obama decided to do nothing other than call Putin and say “cut it out,” an act of bravery and courage unlike most other in American history. And after telling Putin to cut it out, he then confronted Putin again in China and said, “Stop it or else.” Putin and the Russians quaking away, cowering in laughter at the bravery and courage of Barack Hussein O.

For four months — August, September, October, November — they knew this was going on, as far as this story is concerned, at the end of it all, did nothing to stop it. The story even has that quote from an Obama administration insider saying, “Yep, we choked,” and that’s what Trump is saying. He didn’t choke. Obama didn’t choke. He thought Hillary was gonna win! Trump’s exactly right about this. He thought Hillary was gonna win.

They all did. If they go public with what the Russians are doing, colluding in the election, they’re gonna make it look like that Hillary was benefited by this or that the effort was curtailed and stopped and Hillary won because of it, and they didn’t want to get in the way. They didn’t want to taint Hillary’s victory ’cause they all thought she was gonna win in a landslide. I will submit to you the real reason Obama didn’t do anything is ’cause there wasn’t anything to do, because the Russians weren’t tampering with the election. They were not tampering with the votes, as the Washington Post story again claims. As every story on this subject has had to claim for the last six months, no evidence to suggest.

And Obama even during this period of time, during these four months was telling the people of America, it can’t happen, the Russians cannot successfully tamper with our elections, they’re too widespread, it’s too diverse. There are too many precincts, too many counties, the Electoral College, you wouldn’t know where to go to hack. Obama assuring everybody it couldn’t be done.

This story says Obama was scared to death it could be done, worried very seriously it was being done and decided to do nothing about it. So people are livid at Obama on the left, and that’s gonna be a larger theme going forward as this massive story gets digested by more and more people. But as it gets digested and as more and more people read it and absorb it, it’s going to also be seen for what it is: a giant, big batch of nothing where Trump is concerned. Big batch of nothing.

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RUSH: You know, Trump had tweeted recently about how Obama did not stop the Russian meddling, which happened on Obama’s watch. You’ve gotta put this in the perspective of the Democrats and the media. This Russia story has been the number one story to get rid of Trump. This story is gonna form the basis of what Mueller is doing, it’s gonna form the basis of impeachment, be it collusion, be it obstruction.

This story is going to form the basis of getting rid of Trump. The longer they go at this, the greater the odds they’re gonna step on themselves, and they did it in that Washington Post story, because what they ended up doing was blaming it all on Obama. Here’s the brave, courageous Barack Hussein Obama, and he’s confirming what the media and the Democrats have been saying for the past six months, that the Russians tampered, the Russians hacked, the Russians, the Russians, the Russians. And now we know that Obama knew, and he didn’t stop it.

He didn’t make a single move to stop it other than to call Putin to say, “Stop it or else,” or, “Cut it out.” I think all of this is bogus, my friends. I think so much of this stuff is made up. And I’ll tell you the proof of that, or a good indication of that, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA never bothered to even ask to see the Democrat National Committee servers which ostensibly were hacked by the Russians. Not the RNC’s, the DNC. That’s the story. The Russians got in there and hacked the DNC computers. And they made no effort, the FBI, Comey, “Now we’d like to see it.”

“Sorry, you can’t.”

Comey, “Okay.” Goes away. After the FBI’s half-baked attempt to investigate the server, nobody else in government cared enough to. If the Russians had really been doing this, if the Russians had really hacked the DNC and had uncovered what was going on in there, that they were rigging the game against Bernie Sanders, don’t you think — well, wait. I was gonna say, don’t you think that a president would want to find out what an enemy — You know what, folks, there’s another way to look at this.

Suppose for the sake of this hypothetical, suppose it’s all true, as so many in the media and the Democrat Party believe, and Obama still didn’t do anything to stop it, could it be in this hypothetical that, well, maybe Obama just didn’t care that an enemy in the United States was trying to trample on elections? Thought Hillary was gonna win anyway, so what did it matter? I mean, no matter how you slice this, there’s no way to make this look good for Obama. There’s no way to make it look good for anybody in the Obama administration or the Democrats, including Comey. There was no way on earth that Obama or anybody else thought the Russians had hacked the DNC servers, if you ask me.

If they really thought that had happened, they would have been demanding to get in there and forensically examine them. And that, by the way, is the only evidence we have of Russian meddling anywhere, is the DNC server. Some might want to say the Podesta emails, but that’s not. That’s a different thing. Here’s Adam shift. This is Pencil Neck. He’s on State of the Union on CNN yesterday. Dana Bash said, “The Washington Post reported that Obama knew as far back as August of 2016 that Putin was working to elect Trump. Did Obama fail in his duty to the nation?”

SCHIFF: I think the Obama administration should have done a lot more when it became clear that not only was Russia intervening, but it was being directed at the highest levels of the Kremlin. They were concerned about being perceived as interfering in the election, trying to tip the scales for Hillary Clinton. I think they were also concerned about not wanting to play into the narrative that Donald Trump was telling, that the election was going to be rigged, even though Donald Trump was talking about a completely different kind of rigging than foreign intervention.

RUSH: Yeah, and who turns out to be, again, more accurate here? You know, Trump would not acknowledge three weeks out that he would accept the results of the election, owning up to the possibility it could be rigged, because this story was out there. The Russians’ attempted intervention was out there. The Democrats were down playing ’cause they think Hillary’s gonna win in a landslide, they don’t want to taint her victory, but it’s out there.

So Schiff says, “Yeah, I think Obama should have done a lot more when it became clear that Russia was intervening.” Obama didn’t do diddly-squat. Where’s the collusion here? Who really allowed this to happen? Trump’s not involved. He’s just a candidate here. And then here’s Schiff being asked about Loretta Lynch.

SCHIFF: You know, I think Senators Feinstein’s comment I would agree with; it does give me a queasy feeling as well.

RUSH: Yeah, she’s under investigation now, this whole tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton and some of the other things involved in this story.

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RUSH: Folks, let’s play this out. What if there is another possibility here explaining why Obama didn’t do anything? What if, as the story says, Putin was trying to elect Trump — again, I on the record think this is bogus, but that’s what the story said. What if Obama knew Putin was trying to elect Trump and didn’t do anything to stop the Russians because he really didn’t want Hillary to win? Remember people had that theory before the election bandied about as well.

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RUSH: Look, this Washington Post story, a couple other points I want to make about it, because in its own way, in my interpretation, it’s a bombshell, but not for the reasons the Washington Post published it. I think they have done a magnificent job of illustrating where the collusion really was. And where obstruction may or may not have happened, and they have genuinely indicated — this 36 page story as it prints out on my computer. I don’t know how many pages it actually would take up in the newspaper, but 36 pages.

And again on page 25, there it is, plain and simple. After 24 pages they admit no evidence ever, ever, ever, ever has been found to say the Russians tampered with votes. And if they didn’t tamper with votes, then what the hell is hacking the election? What the hell’s interfering in the election? If the Russians didn’t do anything with the votes, then what are we talking about here?

But what it proves — wrong word — the Washington Post story gives absolutely no evidence of any collusion between Donald Trump or his associates and the Russians. There is zero. This is a story about the Obama administration and what it supposedly knew. Remember the headline: “Obama’s Secret Struggle,” brave struggle to punish the Russians, brave struggle to stop the Russians, or what have you.

What really has been unearthed here is that all of these intelligence groups and agencies within the Obama administration, if you believe what’s stated here, the Obama administration had months to stop and/or punish whatever Putin was doing. And the Post story says that the Obama administration put together a whole bunch of plans and ideas to punish and deter Russia. And they detail these ideas.

“The Obama administration secretly debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing Russia –” That’s Obama’s brave struggle. “– including cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure, the release of CIA-gathered material that might embarrass Putin and sanctions that officials said could ‘crater’ the Russian economy.”

All of this and more the Obama administration was planning to stop and/or get even with the Russians for colluding in the election. Now, that’s quite a menu. That’s quite a menu of punishments, isn’t it? Cyber attacks on Russian infrastructure, release of CIA material that might embarrass Putin, sanctions that would crater the economy.

And what does Obama do? Nothing. And he doesn’t do nothing until December, where he expels 35 Russian diplomats. It doesn’t appear that Obama was really that bothered by any of this, ’cause he didn’t do anything to stop it and he hasn’t done, didn’t do anything to punish the Russians. This story makes it look like what the Russians were doing was the crime of humanity. The cyber crime, the political crime of all crimes in history, that’s how they set it up. Tampering with American democracy, interceding in our beloved, cherished constitutional process.

And in the end, the president of the United States does zilch, zero, nada. And that is what is dawning on all of these Democrats out there who have been talked into using this story as the number one way to get rid of Trump, to discredit Trump, to destroy Trump, his reputation, his life, his career, his presidency, to delegitimize everything. And they’ve gone all-in. Every Democrat has gone all-in, 24/7. That’s all they’ve cared about. And now they testified that Obama knew all of it and didn’t stop any of it. So they are left now to speculate as to why, just as we are. Of course we know the answer.

The answer’s one of two things. Either much of this is so exaggerated and didn’t really happen — and I think that’s the case because the Russian dossier, the foundation for this is total BS. Or the second thing is, they knew it was happening, and since it was happening against Trump, that was fine because they wanted Hillary to win. And they didn’t want to go public with it because they knew Hillary was gonna win and they didn’t want to taint her victory by having it speculated the Russians made it happen.

There’s all kinds of possibilities here to explain this. But none of them are any good. Not when you think of the army the Democrats and the media have created out there, all of those people that are enraged in anger and boiling over because of what they’ve been told. T

hey believe the Russians stole the election. And now they’re finding out that their precious Barack Hussein O didn’t do a thing to stop it. And they are left to speculate. And through it all, this whole story, there’s not a shred, in this 36-page story, there’s not a shred of evidence that Trump colluded with anybody.

Now, maybe that’s beyond what they’re trying to say in the story, but still, if they would have had that they’d a put that in there. If there was evidence of Trump collusion, it would have made this story. It was 36 pages long.

Back to the audio sound bites. This is Mike Morell on CBS Face the Nation yesterday, John Dickerson speaking to him, former deputy CIA director, and Dickerson says, “Michael, grade the Obama administration response to this Russian hacking thing. What do you think of it?”

MORELL: I think they failed miserably. I’d give ’em an F because the package they put together, the kicking the diplomats out, the intelligence officers out, closing down a couple of compounds, putting limited sanctions on in no way was a slap on the wrist to Vladimir Putin. He sees it that way, will not deter him in the future.

RUSH: I just think all this is laughable. I think they manufactured a myth or a story that’s 80% made up, 80% myth, and now they’ve gotta service it. And so now they’ve gotta go on and on and on here about how Obama didn’t do this and Obama didn’t do that. He didn’t act strongly enough. There was nothing to do. Even Obama himself had been saying in public the Russians couldn’t do what has been alleged that they did.

On Meet the Press, George Will showed up on the roundtable, and F. Chuck Todd says, “George, the August 6th briefing before 9/11 was always known as the red flag that was missed.” What he means here is that Bush was given a bit of an advance warning in August that there was a plan to hit the United States in a big way. No date was given and that the administration didn’t act on it. “George Will, is this, the Obama administration’s knowledge of what the Russians were doing in choosing to do nothing to stop them, are we going to look back, George, is this Obama Russian thing a version of that for President Obama?”

WILL: No, and I think it’s supremely unfair. I think Obama faced an agonizing choice. A Democratic president comes out on the eve of the election and says a foreign power is trying to elect a Republican? Mr. Trump says, where was the action? If the action been taken, he wouldn’t be president.

RUSH: George Will obviously believed the Russians did interfere. That’s how I’m interpreting this. If the action had been taken, he wouldn’t be president. So many people are around the bend on this whole story, and I think it’s partially because of the way the media’s covered it. It’s also the necessity of people inside the Beltway to believe that something outside their control corrupted what happened inside their club because they’re still gobsmacked by it.

Now, over the weekend the Drudge Report had a big headline that was their above the fold headline all day and it was about Democrat collusion on this Trump dossier. And I just want you to know back on January 12 — my birthday, by the way, back on January 12th I told everybody the Trump dossier was written by Democrats and there was collusion between the FBI and the Democrats on this dossier way back in January. It’s audio sound bite number four, and here it is.

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RUSH: Do not ever doubt me when I tell you that everything in opposition to Trump is gonna have its roots to the Democrat Party, to one of their think tanks, to one of their groups, to one of their institutions, to Hillary and Bill Clinton. It’s inescapable. The guy that wrote this dossier — that’s another thing, you call the report a dossier, a “dossier.” That makes it sound really European.

“Wow, it must be really serious stuff! It’s a ‘dossier.’” It’s like calling a report “a white paper.” “Well, I submitted a white paper.” “What’s a white paper?” “Oh, it’s a report, a specific report. Specific. It’s a white paper.” “No, you submitted a report, not a white paper. What’s a white paper?” Well, they did a “dossier,” 35 pages of unsigned memos containing charges like… (interruption) Those are called “golden showers,” by the way. There’s a name for it.

You can call prostitute companies and order the golden shower, and that’s what will happen. The prostitutes will come over. And that’s what they accused Trump of doing. And a guy that has worked for Planned Parenthood wrote the dossier. We have learned this today. … I think the people in the media knew that this was the work of a Democrat group, much like Robert Creamer did the work of hiring protesters to show up and disrupt Trump rallies with Clinton campaign money.

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RUSH: So the dossier is coming under question now. It’s been questioned since day one. People have known that it was bogus. There’s one specific way to prove it. One of Trump’s associates, a guy named I think it’s Andy Cohen, is said to have gone to Prague on a certain day to have met with Russian officials to talk about something to do with Trump and the election or what have you. And it turns out the guy’s never been to Prague. His passport shows he was not out of the country on whatever date it was, I think September 16th. The whole thing was made up.

I’ve given the history of this dossier I don’t know how many times so I’m not gonna bend your ear with it anymore. But yet it is still in the news because we find it’s formed the foundation and basis of all of this. Comey, Robert Mueller now, Brennan at the CIA, which means they have been grasping at straws all along. If this was the best they had, then they never had anything on Trump and collusion. And we know it’s been bogus. We know it was manufactured after the election in order to explain why Hillary lost and to try to delegitimize Trump.

The fact that they’ve gotten so many months out of this is still damning. But it is beginning to unravel. And the evidence is clear because now more and more Democrats are being urged to drop it, to move on to other things that people care about, like jobs and the economy and health care and the usual political bromide. We have a Harvard University poll showing almost two-thirds of the American people don’t believe the story, don’t want to hear the story anymore, think story’s damaging the country, there’s nothing to it.

The problem is the Democrats don’t have anything else. The media, that’s another story, but the Democrats don’t have anything else. They don’t have an economic policy, other than climate change. They don’t have a health care policy, other than climate change. They don’t have to policy of anything that grows the American economy. Every Democrat policy does damage to this country one way or another, which is why they’ve got nowhere to go. This whole Russian thing is it. Now their eggs are gonna be 1,000% in the basket of Robert Mueller and his special counsel investigation, which can go on and on and on with no limits on anything.