RUSH: I just saw a piece during the break by Jonathan Turley. He has a piece at TheHill.com. And he is genuinely curious why the media won’t give this up. And he compares it to people being given a terminal medical diagnosis. They go through stages of denial, but ultimately they end up accepting it.
So he says for months now and dragging on into years, the media has refused to accept the reality that there isn’t any evidence linking Trump to any collusion with the Russians. Now, you and I know that there isn’t any period, that the collusion with Russians all happened with Hillary Clinton and we all know that this dossier’s fake. I mean, that’s why I think this is one of the biggest scams and hoaxes that has been perpetrated in the American public in the political arena in my lifetime and maybe ever. This is perhaps the biggest political scam and scandal ever.
The exact opposite of what has happened is being investigated. What has happened that was illegal is being ignored. And in fact, it’s being covered up. The real scandal, the real collusion is Hillary Clinton, the Democrat National Committee, the intelligence communities, the FBI, the Obama administration, that’s the collusion, to try to destroy the Trump campaign and then his election, his presidency, and the transition.
But Turley writes that the media is gonna have to come to grips here with the fact that, especially after Mueller last night saying Trump’s not a target, that there isn’t any evidence, and the fact that they won’t acknowledge this bothers him greatly. Which it should. But it doesn’t surprise me. Mr. Turley, if I may be so bold, I think you need to reexamine the way you look at the media.
There isn’t any news in America anymore, and there isn’t any real reporting. The media is misnamed. The media has become its own political entity. And people discuss it as such. It’s the most amazing thing. A collection of journalists is now openly discussed as a political faction that both parties must deal with, except one party doesn’t have to deal with it because they’re on that party’s side. In fact, they are that party. They are the Democrat Party.
The media, Mr. Turley, considers themselves part of the investigation. The media’s not sitting around waiting for Mueller to tell ’em what he’s found. The media are Mueller’s investigators. The media may as well be on his team. Not officially of course, but if Mueller says there isn’t any evidence, the media’s gonna say, “Well, we’re not through looking ourselves. There has to be evidence, and we’re gonna find it no matter what. And if you don’t, we will. And we may not be able to take our evidence to court, but we’re gonna take it to CNN and the New York Times and the Washington Post and we’ll deal with it that way.”
The media’s not interested in Trump being exonerated. The media is not interested in truth here. The media has a desired outcome. As I say, it’s a mistake to even call them media now. Media implies that they’re a bunch of reporters doing journalism, running around seeing things nobody else does and then telling everybody about it so that we’re all informed. Long, long ago was that ever the case.
The media is now its own political faction or party or identity or what have you. And they are every bit as involved in the political process as any other political organization or individual. That they continue to be called the media is just a furtherance of the game, of the illusion, that there’s some kind of arbitrary objectivity going on here, when of course there isn’t. The media has become willful accomplices of the special counsel, of the FBI, going all the way back to Obama utilizing them to help him spy on Americans who are opposed to his Iran deal.
When Obama found out that they would report whatever they were fed, that they wouldn’t even challenge it, wouldn’t even try to corroborate it, wouldn’t even try to verify it, they just run with it, the Obama administration realized what they had. So if they want to report that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, all they’ve gotta do is tell a couple of ace reporters that will publish that without question and then everybody’s off to the races.
The media can’t admit, Mr. Turley, that it’s been wrong here. They are every bit as much a part of the investigative unit as Mueller’s lawyers are. They’re going about the investigation in different ways. Of course, they don’t have subpoena power, and they don’t have an imprimatur from the Justice Department, but they have their own power base. They have their own means of using threats and blackmail and what have you to get what they want out of people.
So Mueller reports Trump’s not a target, he remains a subject, which means he remains under investigation. But in the U.S. attorney’s official manual, the owner’s manual — if you’re a U.S. attorney, you get a manual, you get a handbook just like when you get a car. And it defines certain terms and explains proper behavior, improper behavior and what have you. And in the manual, it defines what a subject is and what a target is.
And essentially for our purposes here, a subject is somebody still interesting, might have value in getting to the end, but it is not a target. Meaning they haven’t found any criminal evidence to link this person to the crime being investigated. And that’s what Mueller effectively told Trump’s lawyers a month ago, or sometime last month.
Now, going back to Rosenstein and his original charge of Mueller, you know this because you’ve listened to this program enough, that Rosenstein did not follow regulations when Mueller was appointed. Normally when a special counsel is appointed — not normally; it should be always because Justice Department regulations and rules require that the attorney general, or in this case the deputy attorney general, specify a crime to be investigated. That is in fact why there is a special counsel named and appointed.
Well, Rosenstein did not do that. Rosenstein said, “Go out and look at Russian collusion. Look at any collusion between anybody and the Russians in the election.” It was a wide open — and it was done on purpose this way! It was done as a wide open with no boundaries fishing expedition. The problem for Rosenstein and everybody else is that there are brilliant lawyers in conservatism and in conservative media, and they quickly realized and began writing frequently that something’s amiss here. There has to be a crime mentioned. There has to be a crime stipulated for the special counsel to follow.
So for months and months and months Mueller’s off and running and going anywhere he wants, no limits, no boundaries. Can’t even find a crime, much less have one stipulated. And all this time, people like Andy McCarthy and others are writing that a serious element of this has been avoided, has not been utilized, and that’s required, and that’s the naming of the crime.
So Rosenstein finally figures out that he better do that. So Rosenstein last August 2nd writes a memo explaining to Mueller what his limits are, what his boundaries are. And that’s where this gets interesting. Because cutting to the chase here — remember the predawn raid on the home of Paul Manafort? That raid happened a week before Rosenstein’s memo authorizing an investigation into Manafort was written and presented to Mueller. And so it’s a logical question, “Well, why is Mueller investigating Manafort and conducting predawn raids when he doesn’t have specific permission to do so?”
Rosenstein a week after the fact publishes the — well, doesn’t publish it. Writes it, presents it to Mueller. Mueller writes a response. All of that ends up on file. When it’s made public, Rosenstein’s memo to Mueller is heavily redacted, but it satisfies after the fact, long after the fact that a crime was stipulated to that Mueller should investigate. But there’s this problem of the predawn raid.
And so a question I was asking all morning, is that relevant? ‘Cause one thing I’ve found. Common sense, after you hear a series of events, you have what’s called a common sense reaction. I have found that in Washington, a common sense reaction is often irrelevant and meaningless because common sense is not what drives the town.
So I wanted to know if it was relevant that Rosenstein’s memo authorizing the investigation and punishment of Manafort was written after the raid on his home. Here’s what I was told. Yeah, it’s probably very relevant. It was in late July probably within the week before the memo. If you look at the appointment order, they were precisely not in the scope of the investigation. The May 17th appointment order spells out a counterintelligence investigation with no criminal allegations, no mention of Manafort, no nothing. It was just wide open.
And my buddy here says: “I think Rosenstein came to realize this is a big problem. Mueller was doing a criminal investigation when one had not been authorized! It was counterintelligence, what he was doing.” So 10 weeks after the fact, Rosenstein writes this memo in which he now basically says, “Hey, you’ve had this authority all along, even though I failed to mention any of it to you” in the appointment order. So it’s ex post facto.
What Rosenstein’s essentially saying is, even though I didn’t write this before your investigation began I could have and I probably should have, but I didn’t so since I could have, you are now authorized to do what you did when you were not authorized to do it. That is Mueller is taking criminal investigative actions without formal written authority like the raid on Manafort’s home in the weeks between May 17th when he was appointed and the August 2nd memo. And in the memo, Rosenstein cover’s Mueller tracks by saying, “No problem. You’ve had this authority all along.” But he hasn’t.
In cut-and-dried legal procedures, he hasn’t had the authority. He was granted the authority ex post facto on the basis that, “Well, had he asked to investigate Manafort, he would have been told he could have, so essentially he’s had the authority all along.” Now, stop and think about that. Try to put the reverse into this.
Let’s say that you are in your house and you have a bunch of buddies, and you are buying and selling drugs. And outside your house are a bunch of law enforcement people who know very well what you’re doing in there. They know you’re trafficking in drugs, they know you’re selling it, they know you’re distributing it, and they come storming in! They forget to get a warrant. They come storming in.
Your lawyers say, “Ever since you came through our front door, everything that happened is unconstitutional, illegal, ’cause you didn’t get a warrant.” And the investigators say, “It doesn’t matter. The judge would have given me a warrant anyway if I had asked. So you guys are still guilty even though we didn’t get a warrant,” and the court agreeing with the police. “Yeah, they would have had the warrant if they’d a asked, so we may as well make this whole investigation legal.” That’s what’s happened here!
The point is, there’s very little chance that that police investigative team would get away with breaking into a house or storming a house without a warrant. But in this case Mueller has been permitted to do all of this that he’s done with Manafort without any authority for it. And then when called on it, Rosenstein says, “Well, he would have had the authority if he’d asked for it. I mean, that’s a fait accompli. So, no, there’s nothing untoward here.” And the hell there hasn’t been.
And then I ran across this sentence. This sentence blew me away. My friend writes to me: “But because the regulations would have allowed Mueller to go back at any time and ask Rosenstein for authority to do the Ukrainian case against Manafort, I don’t think there’s any chance the indictment’s gonna be dismissed. Manafort wants this indictment tossed just like your drug buddies with the police breaking in without a warrant would want that whole thing tossed.” And my buddy says, “And there’s no way. The Justice Department’s not gonna allow this thing to go awry because of something as silly as Mueller didn’t get permission and would have had he asked and all that.”
I have to tell you, folks, this sentence blows me away, because here’s what this sentence is, when you translate it. This is the Justice Department. This is Rosenstein and Mueller. This is essentially what they’re trying to tell us. Even though we violated the rules and regs of the DOJ, we really didn’t, because we’re from the government, and the perpetrator is scum, and I could have gone back at any time and got the permission to investigate. And because the fix is in I would have been authorized anyway. So because I could have, even though I didn’t, this perp is still gonna fry.”
Now, Manafort’s asked for all this to be dismissed on the basis that none of this had been authorized. And the thinking is that he’s gonna lose it because the DOJ doesn’t lose. And that’s why I say we don’t have scales here, much less balance. There’s no scales of justice in this. There’s no way to fight this kind of thing. If they can assign to themselves the legal principle that, “Hey, yeah, we didn’t get permission, but we would have had it if we’d a asked for it at the right time. So because we would have had it we’re just gonna act like we had it all along, therefore you’re guilty.”
How can anybody fight this? Well, this what Trump’s up against. That’s what all these other people in this investigation are up against because this isn’t an investigation. This is the criminal politicization of policy differences. This is the criminalization of somebody winning the presidency the Washington establishment doesn’t think should have won.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, folks, don’t misunderstand me here. I realize that most bad guys are bad guys. I realize that most people charged with a crime are guilty of some degree of it, most. But not everybody. But that’s not my point. My point is that everything involved in this investigation is political. It isn’t criminal, and it certainly isn’t counterintelligence.
This investigation is avoiding the real collusion, is avoiding the abuse of power straight from the Obama administration, they are purposefully avoiding it. Paul Manafort would never have been charged with any of this, there would have never been a predawn raid in Manaforts’ house. You would never have heard of this guy if he had not accepted the offer to work for Trump during the primaries to help alleviate the irregularities in delegate apportionment after primaries. If Paul Manafort had never signed on to Trump, he wouldn’t be involved in this and none of this would ever happen.
What does that say about whatever crimes Manafort’s committed here? They would have been ignored. They were ignored during a previous investigation of what all was going on in Ukraine. What we have here is the criminalization of political differences.
And now the government is telling everybody that it is free to exempt itself from its own laws while Manafort can’t, you and I can’t. And in this kind of circumstance, nobody has a chance. Flynn, what a joke this is. Is losing his house, losing everything he’s ever worked for. As I say, there are no scales of justice here, much less balanced ones.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Chad in Toledo. I’m glad you waited. It’s great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Mr. Limbaugh. Thank you so much for everything that you do and mega dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: When I first heard about this this morning, and if you’ll indulge me for a moment, when I first heard about this this morning, the first school of thought I obviously had is what you said is your cliche version of this, which is this is just an attempt for Mueller to bait Trump into sitting down with him for an interview and get Trump on a process crime or something, which that theory only holds any weight if we really believe that Mueller thinks that Trump is that stupid, which I think the left does and the establishment does, but I don’t think that Mueller thinks Trump is that stupid. So, and like you said the common sense approach in Washington is not the way that you want to go about things —
RUSH: Wait a minute. Let me stop there because you’ve mentioned something here that’s quite relevant. I’m not so sure that they don’t think Trump is stupid. I think they do. I think in their own arrogance — and I would include Mueller as being one of those who very likely considers Trump stupid. But if he doesn’t consider Trump stupid I’ll tell you one thing they do think he is, is an egomaniac who cannot stop talking about himself.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: And they want an opportunity to trigger a Trump tirade and just sit back and don’t say anything while Trump unloads. That’s what they want to do, because they think they can make that happen.
CALLER: Yeah. Like I said, they think they can do those things, which I don’t know if Trump is going to be necessarily baited into that. But my school of thought on this went a little bit deeper, which is, you know, Mueller is an extension of the establishment. And we all know who the establishment’s voters are. They’re radical leftist Democrats, and in some cases Never Trumpers. But with them continuing for the last year-and-a-half to build this Russia collusion or criminal expectation in this investigation of Trump, you know, is it reasonable to believe that, like, Mueller could possibly be running out of, in a sense, dark corners to check for things here?
And it’s just more or less a way of being able to curb back the expectations of their voters with the midterms right around the corner. Because we’re being told that a blue wave is coming even though Trump’s approval numbers continue to be on the rise; they now crack 50%. So do you think this is just a way for the establishment to, you know, bring their voters back down to earth a little bit and basically essentially string them along like they’ve been doing with the inner city population for the last 60 years. “Stick with us. We’ll get ’em eventually. You know, you gotta stay with us here.” Do you think that there is some water to be held to that theory?
RUSH: I’m not quite sure I understand the theory. You’re asking me if I think Mueller’s doing what he’s doing to —
CALLER: Basically, do you think the establishment sent him out there today to announce that Trump wasn’t a criminal target — I stress criminal target, because he is still a target obviously.
RUSH: He didn’t announce it. Hold it, hold it, hold it. There was no announcement. Mueller told Trump’s lawyers last month sometime. Somebody then leaked this to the Washington Post. There has not been an announcement. Mueller had not —
CALLER: Which is my point, the leak, it was leaked in order to essentially talk their voters back down off the ledge. It builds up this impossible expectation over the last however long —
RUSH: You think that essentially this information was leaked into the public domain so that Mueller, acting as a representative of the establishment, can tell these lunatic leftists to calm down and to back off, that there isn’t gonna be any mass dismissal of Trump? Is that what you’re asking me?
CALLER: Yeah, essentially keeping the voters with them to, you know, keep stringing them along like they have been doing for years. Even in the case of Trump here, you know, they’ve been building up these impossible expectations and I think it’s very possible that Mueller may be running out of in a sense, like, dark corners to check for about —
RUSH: There never has been anything! There never has been anything here! There never has been any collusion, which I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this, is not a crime in and of itself. I’m still not sure I understand what you’re theorizing here, but I don’t think Mueller and what he’s doing has anything to do with the Democrat get-out-the-vote campaign. I don’t think what Mueller’s doing has anything at all to do with crazed leftists and how they’re looking at the upcoming election or any of that.
This is about one thing and one thing only, and that is at the top of the list, getting rid of Donald Trump. If they can’t do that, delegitimizing Donald Trump. If they can’t do that, paralyzing Donald Trump. Oh. And there’s a tie up at number one. In addition to getting rid of Donald Trump, protect Obama and Hillary, because that’s where the real collusion and conspiracies took place.
Now, as for Mueller leaking that Trump is not a target, that’s not gonna mollify leftist voters at all. It’s gonna drive ’em crazier. It’s gonna make them come even more unhinged. It’s gonna depress them. It’s gonna let ’em down. Because I tell you, these people, take your pick, any average, ordinary American radical leftist believes that Donald Trump cheated. They’re convinced. They believe that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin actually teamed up and got together and stole this election. They believe that.
We laugh at such things. We laugh at believing such crazy, unprovable, no evidence for it theories. They believe it. And now here comes the lead investigator, who’s the guy that’s gonna frog march Trump out of the White House in shackles and handcuffs saying he’s not a target? This is not going to sit well with the people who believe that it’s only been a matter of time before Trump is charged with treason, with murder, with whatever they hope Mueller ends up getting.
But this investigation remains what it has always been: Trump is the target. I don’t care what Mueller says. Trump is the target. The objective is Donald Trump. And if Trump ever ended up not being the objective, this whole thing would shut down, pure and simple. No more complicated than that.
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RUSH: Here is a montage of some of Drive-By Media today very, very disappointed over Mueller’s announcement that Trump — he didn’t announce. I’m sorry. Over the leaked disclosure that in Mueller’s investigation, Trump is not a criminal target.
PAULA FARIS: A special counsel has told President Trump’s lawyers that he remains under investigation but he is not a criminal target.
HODA KOTB: Special Counsel Robert Mueller has told the president while he is a subject in the investigation, he is not currently a criminal target.
BILL HEMMER: Special counsel Bob Mueller telling President Trump’s legal team that the president is not a criminal target.
JOHN DICKERSON: Robert Mueller reportedly has told President Trump’s lawyers he is not a criminal target.
ERICA HILL: President Trump is not a criminal target in his probe.
RUSH: Now, if you could hear how each of these people, aside from Bill Hemmer, if you could hear how each of these people continued, you would have heard their angst, their sadness, their disappointment, and their shock and surprise. Believe me, I’m telling you, all these people think Trump did it. They’ve lived with it so long, they have helped perpetuate it as, quote, unquote, journalists that they think it’s true. And I will guarantee you this hit them like a lead balloon.
And so they are rationalizing this by saying, it’s just a trick. It’s just a trick. This Mueller guy’s to smart, he’s just reeling Trump right in. Tell Trump he’s not a target, nothing to worry about, coupled with the knowledge that Trump wants to talk to this guy. By the way, that is true. Trump does want to talk to this guy. You know why? Donald Trump is very confident. Some people will tell you that Trump’s insecure. Don’t believe it. That’s the last thing he is. He is supremely confident.
He thinks that he can talk himself out of any predicament, that nobody else can speak for him. He doesn’t think his lawyers can represent him as well as he can represent himself. He doesn’t think a journalist or communications director or spokesman, nobody can represent him better than he can do it himself. And so he thinks he could go talk to Mueller and end this. He thinks he could convince Mueller that there’s nothing to this, there never has been anything to it and, Bob, if you know what’s good for you, shut this down, Buddy. All you’re doing is embarrassing yourself.
And I still say it would be a grave mistake. I don’t care how powerful Trump thinks he is, I don’t care how persuasive a salesman he is or thinks he is. It’s kind of like I learned a lesson early on in this program. I didn’t have any experience talking to media. The media never wanted to talk to me about anything, anything else I’d done.
This show starts, all of a sudden they want to talk to me. And I came to the naive conclusion that they wanted to talk to me because they were really interested in what I thought, that there wasn’t anybody in media like me at the time when I started. I thought, “Hey, these people are genuinely curious about who I am.”
That was not the case at all. They didn’t care. They didn’t even want to listen to why I believed things I believe or why I thought the way I believed. Their whole objective was to expose me as a bad guy. It was the only reason they wanted to talk to me.
And I see it. You know, I see it, people that are new to this, and they get all excited when a paper calls them or a network wants them to be interviewed. And said, “Do not think that they think you’re a genius. Do not think that you’re saying things they haven’t heard and they’re really intrigued. Do not think that. They don’t care why you think what you think. They don’t care where you came from. They don’t care why you’re who you are. They don’t care about what it is that makes you tick. All they want to do is expose you.”
And it’s the same thing here. Mueller doesn’t care if Trump’s a good salesman. He doesn’t care about how many billions Trump’s made. He cannot be impressed. Trump thinks he can impress anybody, can disarm anybody, and in most circles he can. But Mueller doesn’t care about any of that. Mueller will be trying to engineer contradictions and slip-ups. He doesn’t want to be impressed by Trump.
It’s not a bragging point to say he knows Trump. Like let’s say he interviews Trump and the interview’s over and there’s a cocktail party that night. He’s not gonna be a big star ’cause he talked to Trump. He’s only gonna be a big star if somehow he does great damage to Trump.
Mueller, there’s no common ground there. Mueller has no desire to really get to know Trump or to really get to the bottom of what Trump thinks about anything. He just wants to find a way to snare Trump. No more complicated.