RUSH: Okay, here’s a sound bite about George Papadopoulos, who has pled guilty to lying to the FBI. He pled guilty on October 5th, but it was just announced today. On CNN this afternoon, Wolf Blitzer spoke with Jay Sekulow, who is part of the Trump legal team, about this. He said, “Let’s talk about George Papadopoulos.” Wolf was so flustered, he first called him George Stephanopoulos.
He said, “Let’s talk about George Papadopoulos, now pled guilty. He was arrested over the summer. How worried are you, [Mr. Sekulow], that his involvement in the campaign working with national security advisors to then-candidate Trump and also establishing these contacts with Russians with dirt on Hillary, that that could set the stage for what the special counsel is looking into: possible collusion?”
SEKULOW: I’m not concerned about it because if you look at what, again, George Papadopoulos’ plea is — what the actual plea that he entered into was — again, a false statement about timing as to when he talked to somebody about Russian activities. It wasn’t… By the way, these weren’t activities that were illegal. The conversation they had, there’s nothing in there that says that conversation was illegal or inappropriate or whatever it might have been. You look at what he said to the agent… Again, obviously, I don’t represent Mr. Papadopoulos. But it’s statements that he made to the agents —
BLITZER: Jay, as far as you —
SEKULOW: — that he’s now plead guilty to.
RUSH: If you go back and look at Wolf’s question, it’s very instructive to look at this stuff. ‘Cause, you know, Wolf is excited! Wolf — and you have to understand, all of these people I think are way, way beyond even their own ability to be objective. That’s not even the right term. Let me put it this way: I think, after over a year of this, I think 99% of these media people believe with every fiber of their bodies that Trump cheated and colluded with Russia. When they hear news that Hillary and the DNC paid for the Trump dossier, it doesn’t move them.
Their reaction is, “Well, it doesn’t matter who paid for it. Is it true?” They believe it is. I think they’re so far gone that they are not capable of believing exculpatory facts and evidence. I don’t think it’s possible. They’re so invested in it. It started off as a desire of retribution to get even, to screw Trump, to defend Hillary, but it’s been going on for so long, it’s been the only thing that they have reported on. It has been the primary focus of the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, you name it. I think it has become its own fact.
It has its own life, the “fact” that Trump colluded, and they’re simply incapable now intellectually and emotionally of ever believing it didn’t happen. So this guy pleads guilty to lying to the agents. It’s a process crime. It’s a Martha Stewart crime. Wolf’s question: How worried are you that his involvement in the campaign working with national security advisors to then-candidate Trump and also establishing these contacts with Russians who dirt on Hillary, that that could set the stage for what the special counsel is looking into: possible collusion?”
What dirt on Hillary? Nobody had any dirt on Hillary. Hillary had committed dirt. Hillary was using an illegal server. Hillary had hidden and deleted half of those emails. Hillary bought and paid for the Trump dossier. Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are a walking… They’re walking dirt. You don’t find dirt on them, meaning you don’t make it up. You don’t dig it. It’s there. But Wolf can’t possibly see that. She will forever be a victim no matter what.
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RUSH: Grab sound bite 27, Sarah Huckabee Sanders with the sharks in the White House press briefing this afternoon. Jonathan Karl of ABC News said, “You say that the George Papadopoulos indictment wasn’t about the campaign, but it is specifically about the campaign.”
SANDERS: It has nothing to do with the activities of the campaign. It has to do with his failure to tell the truth. That doesn’t have anything to do with the campaign or the campaign’s activities.
WOMAN: But it is the clearest evidence yet of ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
SANDERS: Again, there are no activities or official capacity in which the Trump campaign was engaged in any of these activities. Most of them took place well before the campaign ever even existed.
RUSH: Did you notice how she just punches right back at ’em? She doesn’t take an iota. She just punches right back. But how about the unidentified female reporter, “But it is the clearest the evidence that the ties between the Trump education and the Russians.” No, it isn’t, because there isn’t any! See what I mean? These reporters have reported it for so long, they’ve wanted it to be true for so long, they think it happened, folks. They’re not… Just like they are not open to the idea that conservatives are not bigots and not racists, they are not open to the idea that Trump didn’t cheat with the Russians.
They just can’t accept that. And there isn’t any evidence. But that’s the question. “But — but — but it’s the clearest evidence yet of ties between the Trump campaign and Russians!” No! There hasn’t been and there were no ties, and this isn’t evidence of it. The guy lied to the FBI about the timing of something. Anyway, that’s why they’re never gonna drop this, folks. I don’t care. This could be… Planned Parenthood could come out and exonerate Trump. Ruth Bader Ginsburg could come out and exonerate Trump, take your pick. Uh, Harvey Weinstein could come out and exonerate Trump, and they’re not gonna accept it. No way. I don’t think they’re intellectually, emotionally capable of believing that Trump did not do what they are convinced he did.
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RUSH: Okay. So I was just watching CNN, and I’m watching Jeffrey Toobin and Carl Bernstein, and they’re talking about Papadopoulos and the process crime for which he pled guilty, lying to FBI agents. Jeffrey Toobin just said that Papadopoulos and those emails, it’s just more of the continuing mountain of evidence that shows us there has been collusion between Trump and people connected to Russia.
I watch this and I was not shocked. Jeffrey Toobin has either gone off his medication or has lost his mind or he has decided he’s got to follow the CNN script that Trump colluded in order to keep his job of legal analyst on the air. Because there isn’t any such evidence.
Folks, they haven’t produced any. If they had produced evidence, do you realize where we’d be right now? The impeachment proceedings would be underway, Trump would have hired lawyers. They don’t have anything. There isn’t anything. And I’m watching Jeffrey Toobin literally say that these developments and the Manafort indictment and the Papadopoulos guilty plea, they show that there’s continuing — he said we’ve got emails even today, he said. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but we’ve got emails even today that show that there was contact, collusion between the Trump campaign and people connected to Russia.
Now, “people connected to Russia,” that could be Trump picked up the phone and called Manafort. Manafort had no contact with Russia. It was with Ukraine. But still. I mean, that’s how flimsy it is. Now, I want to share with you. You know, my buddy Andy McCarthy has weighed in on this, spent some time, and I just got a copy of a column he wrote and posted at National Review. And I just want to read you the last paragraph. ‘Cause in his headline he said that this whole thing, this indictment of Manafort is a boon for Trump. It’s a helpful thing.
And here’s what Andy wrote: “From President Trump’s perspective, the indictment is a boon from which he can claim that the special counsel has no actionable collusion case. It appears to reaffirm former FBI director James Comey’s multiple assurances that Trump is not a suspect. And, to the extent it looks like an attempt to play prosecutorial hardball with Manafort, the president can continue to portray himself as the victim of a witch hunt.”
Now, I want you to contrast that with Toobin, the legal analyst, CNN. By the way, his mother’s Marlene Sanders, the old NBC — she was a reporter. When I was a kid she was one of NBC’s leading reporters. You know, he made his bones during the OJ trial and became CNN’s legal analyst, wrote some books. But he just said that all of this that we’ve learned — by the way, Carl Bernstein over the weekend was saying, “Oh, yeah, we’re looking at 40, 50-year jail terms.” He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Manafort’s bail was set at 10 million, by the way, relatively cheap given Manafort’s status.
But, anyway, here Toobin. We got emails, we got Papadopoulos, we got more evidence right out there today that people in the Trump campaign colluding with people in contact with Russians. Andy McCarthy. “From President Trump’s perspective, the indictment’s a boon from which he can claim the special counsel has no actionable collusion case, and this appears to reaffirm Comey’s multiple assurances that Trump’s not a suspect.”
Remember that? Comey had told everybody but us that Trump was never a suspect in any of this. And so here comes the first indictment and it has nothing to do with the Trump campaign at all and these idiots at CNN are running around saying it proves collusion. I tell you, they’re gone. They’re intellectually incapable, folks, of accepting, much less reporting, the truth in this case, that there yet is no evidence, none, not a speck.