RUSH: Right on schedule, Mitt Romney goes to the microphone. “Hey, you know what? I saw this Bolton business, and I just want everybody to know that I am ready today to step in and be president.” Well, that’s what Romney’s doing. “I’ll be able to do it. I’ll step in. If anybody wants me to be president, I’ll go there today. Whatever it takes for me to get there, if that’s what you want me to do, I’ll do it.” That’s how you translate what Romney is saying about witnesses.

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RUSH: Notice the timing of this leak. This book has been in the vetting process for two to three weeks now — and, by the way, do you know whose vetting it at the National Security Council?

If you write a book like this and you’re part of the Security Council, National Security Council apparatus, you have to submit this to the National Security Council for vetting before it can be send to the publisher. They have to clear it to make sure no national security secrets or violations are being written about and published. Alexander Vindman’s brother, Yevgeny Vindman, is the guy vetting Bolton’s book!

Isn’t it just magical that on the very day after the Trump defense team decimates the House managers’ case, the very next day here comes this leak from the New York Times about what Trump told Bolton supposedly that he didn’t want to do? What remains amazing is the leak supposedly is that Trump told Bolton that he didn’t want to release any aid to Ukraine until Ukraine turned over him material related to investigations. That’s from the Maggie Haberman tweet:

“New York Times scoop: Bolton book draft circulated to associates and sent to White House for review process describes a conversation with the president where he says he doesn’t want to release withheld aid ’til Ukraine…” Doesn’t want to? Well, you know, I don’t want to go the dentist, but I do it, and I’ll tell everybody the day I have to go, “Damn, I don’t want to go!” If I’ve got a meeting after the program that I don’t want to take — ask the people here — I’ll whine and moan and say, “God, I really don’t want to do this. Oh, I wish I had not scheduled it.”

But I take the meeting and I go to the dentist. So Trump supposedly tells Bolton that he doesn’t want to release aid. But he did. The aid got released. It was more than Ukraine thought they were gonna get, and it included Javelin missiles, and Trump got nothing for it. (laughs) There was no investigation! So we’ve got Bolton here saying that Trump supposedly… The leak is Bolton book says Trump told him that he didn’t want to release aid. The leak cannot be that Trump didn’t release aid because the aid was released!

Ukraine got it, and the Democrats making this case have always tried to make criminal what they claim were Trump’s desires or Trump’s thoughts or what he really intended or hoped to do. And they have ignored the fact that all of these supposed criminal thoughts that Trump had never prevailed. Ukraine got their aid. It’s also understandable that Trump… You know, Ted Cruz has got a podcast. Everybody’s got a podcast. If you can’t get a radio show, you get a podcast, and Ted Cruz has got a podcast out there.

He said (summarized), “You know, I think these House managers ought to stop focusing on a simple acquittal and they need to make tracks and they need to go at this on the offense, and thing that the Trump defense team needs to do is make it plain. Establish that it is perfectly legal for a president of the United States to investigate corruption in a foreign country that involves American citizens,” and I agree with Cruz. I think this is one of the things…

I hope the Trump legal team makes this point. There’s nothing criminal about wanting a corruption-free government with whom we’re doing business in an ally, and there’s nothing criminal about wanting to find out if American government officials have been engaging in corruption in a particular foreign government that is an ally. So I think what we have here… I know a lot of people say, “But, Rush, Romney hasn’t spoken up and denied this yet.” No. Not Romney, but Bolton. “Bolton hasn’t spoken up and denied this yet.”

No, he hasn’t. Bolton is an interesting figure. It remains to be seen if all this is true. But again, the point is that even this scoop, this gigantic leak talks about what Trump said he wanted to do, and it’s overridden by the fact that he didn’t do it. He didn’t withhold the aid. He didn’t get the investigation. So how in the world can there be anything criminal in what somebody wants to do versus what they end up doing? Particularly if there’s no illegality involved, if there’s no criminality, and if there isn’t an impeachable offense.

So let’s go through some of the timeline here. We have the very sad and unfortunate Kobe Bryant death and crash, and the Drive-By Media is distraught for a number of reasons, among them that the news coverage of that crash totally overwhelms what they thought would be a 24/7, laser-like focus on the Bolton leak. What they’re missing is the American people don’t care about this. Did you see David Axelrod? He’s one of the guys that got Obama elected. He’s gotta PAC. He’s got a political action committee, some sort of organization in Chicago.

They had a focus group over the weekend. They got some Democrats from Cook County in there, started doing a focus group, and they purposeful didn’t bring up impeachment. They waited to see how long Democrats in an Axelrod focus group would bring it up. Eighty minutes! It was an hour and 20 minutes before Cook County Democrats even bothered to bring up impeachment. It’s not on anybody’s mind — ad I’ll tell you something else that’s not on anybody’s mind is John Bolton. Most people don’t know who he is, especially with all the coverage of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash.

But even before that, when Bolton’s name was in the media, they hated him! They despised Bolton. I’m gonna be reminding you with exact details as the program unfolds. We made this point last September on this program, and of course it ended up being highlighted at RushLimbaugh.com. They hated Bolton’s mustache, folks! They hated Bolton because they thought he mistreated women. He was a bully in the workplace.

Whenever any Republican wanted John Bolton in the ambassadorial service or anywhere in the national security apparatus, the Democrat Party went literally bat crazy because they hated the guy, and they hated the guy because he was a hawk. They hated the guy because he was aligned with the neocons. The neocons are always wanted the U.S. extended militarily in outposts all over the world, predominantly in the Middle East, and Bolton was one of these guys that was in favor of it — and of course, he didn’t get that accuse foreign policy with Trump.

Trump is trying to extricate the United States from affairs and military entanglements like this, and Bolton left in a huff. He was ticked off about things. I have to also say this. I’ve had dinner with John Bolton a couple times. I’ve met him two or three times, and if this passage in the book is true, and this is actually what he’s intending, it’s not the John Bolton I thought I knew, this kind of disloyalty. You may say, “Well, Rush, it’s not disloyal. He’s simply telling the truth. The president didn’t want to…”

Yeah, but it is disloyal. But again, folks, I have to backtrack here. Doesn’t this seem strangely like the Kavanaugh hearings? We’re on the verge of Kavanaugh getting confirmed, and, all of a sudden, here comes Christine Blasey Ford and her story, and that begets Michael Avenatti and his story and then a whole bunch of stuff that delays the confirmation, prolongs the hearings, a demand for FBI investigations. Lo and behold, here we are.

The House managers have blown it. Nobody’s watching. Not a single Republican’s on the verge of voting for witnesses. And bammo! We get a leak to the New York Times from the manuscript of Bolton’s book, and it looks like Vindman’s — O say can you see — brother Yevgeny is in the vetting apparatus, the vetting procedure, and all of a sudden now (sputtering), “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! We need to call Bolton! We gotta call Bolton! Look — look — look what — what this Times story says!” Bolton hasn’t said it. It’s supposedly in the book.

We’re relying on the New York Times for accuracy when they have no claim to that anymore. Two years minimum, lying day after day after day about Trump-Russia collusion — and, by the way, those lies have continued on every other adjunct. We’ve had the New York Times going all-in on every Democrat allegation. If Bolton was such gold, why didn’t Schiff call him? Why didn’t they do their due diligence? Why didn’t they take their time and call Bolton? Well, we know why. Because there would be an executive privilege fight, and it would delay it in the courts, and they had to get this done for the purposes of the 2020 campaign.

It looks to me like we almost have a replay, an exact rehash of the Kavanaugh situation when he was on the verge of being confirmed. Here we are at this trial, after the first day of the president’s team just destroying the Democrat House managers’ whole case — they did it in two hours on Saturday — and then the next day we’ve got this, when all the Democrats have been caterwauling about is, “We need witnesses! The Senate needs to open it up to witnesses,” and so forth. Now all of a sudden, at the very last moment, we’re getting a recycling of a previous Democrat quasi October Surprise-type operation.

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RUSH: On the cutting edge of societal evolution. What that means is if you’re here every day, you’ll be way ahead of the game. You’ll know what’s important before it becomes important, and you’ll know what to think about it when it becomes important.

Now, Sean Davis — and there’s a bunch of these guys I follow, and I sometimes get confused where they work. I think Sean Davis works at The Federalist, but it might be American Greatness or it might be Breitbart or it might be the Daily Caller. I don’t know where. I think it’s the Federalist. His tweet is this: “John Bolton is running the exact same revenge playbook against Trump that James Comey used.

“He’s even using the same agent and leaking to the same reporters,” Maggie Haberman at the New York Times. “All because he’s mad Trump fired him for leaking and trying to start new wars,” and, as Sean Davis says here, “It’s so boring and predictable.” Bolton’s attorney, Charles Cooper, said, “It is clear, regrettably, from the New York Times article published [on Sunday] that the prepublication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved …”

Pfft! (chuckles) Big reveal there, buddy! The process? You mean journalism has been corrupted? Really? Who knew! When did this happen, Mr. Cooper? But it is. It’s the same revenge playbook, the same thing Comey did. It’s the same thing they tried to do to Clarence Thomas. It’s the same thing they did with Kavanaugh — and remember, it’s all about what Trump said he wanted to do (chuckling), because they can’t say that Trump withheld the aid. They can’t say that Ukraine didn’t get what they wanted. It’s absurd, all of it is.

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RUSH: By the way, I want to make one point here. The New York Times is admitting… It says here they’re “saying,” but they’re not saying. They’re admitting. The New York Times is admitting they have not seen the Bolton transcript, and yet they run a story based on what it says. They’ve not seen the Bolton book!

They’ve just been told about it by anonymous sources. What if it’s an abject lie? What if whoever is doing this is knowingly lying, knowing they’re gonna get two or three days out of it — and maybe even a vote on witnesses — and then at some point when the book comes out in March, it’s gonna be learned or discover that it’s not true? Big deal! That’s also the history. “Trump colluded with Russia. He’s a traitor. He stole the election.” Two years later. “Eh! No evidence. Can’t find it.”

Now we move on to something else that Trump supposedly did: The phone call with the Ukraine president. It’s the same pattern! It’s like every leak for two years on Trump-Russia collusion — and every story had a line buried in the story, “As of now, there is no evidence substantiating this claim, but, but, but,” blah, blah, blah. So the New York Times admits they have not seen the actual Bolton manuscript.

They’ve just been told about it by anonymous sources. We know that Vindman’s brother is in the vetting process. He’s on the staff of the NSC that vets books like this. See, this way if their story turns out to be completely false — if it’s a total lie — they can say, “It wasn’t us! It wasn’t us! That’s what we were told,” and that’s how they’ve been getting out of every lie for the past three years. “Well, our sources told us…” Let me go to the phones. This is Wantagh, Long Island. Ileana, great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Everything that you just said while I was waiting to speak to you and I was listening to you, what you were saying, was 100% correct. I called because I’m just so frustrated and so fed up. This is so predictable. Every time the Democrats realize that they’re losing, we get these bombshells, you know? It happens to be the New York Times this time. But what I don’t understand is why there is an assumption that because John Bolton writes a book or testifies at the hearing, that there is any truth or substance to his words. It is his word against the president’s, and I believe President Trump.

RUSH: Well —

CALLER: And I believe the only witness, which is the transcript!

RUSH: It doesn’t matter. They hate Bolton. They’ve despised Bolton. But Trump is a bigger enemy. So here it’s not about who believes who. It’s that they hate Trump, and somebody’s come along and… We don’t even know how this all happened. It’s… Look, this isn’t journalism. This is Democrat Party activism — and you’re right. I even told you. If you go back, you’ll find the transcript of this program on Friday. I told you, “Folks, this is gonna end someday.

“What’s next? Because we got 10 months between now and the election. This isn’t the end of Democrat tricks, surprises, what have you. So what’s gonna be next?” Well, lo and behold (chuckles), here we are. After Trump’s lawyers make their case on Saturday and destroy Schiff and his managers, guess what we have here? We’ll take a break. Thank you for the call, Ileana.

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RUSH: By the way, President Trump has tweeted (he’s also said verbally) that he never told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations in the Democrats. He never told Bolton this. The New York Times story is that Trump told Bolton he wanted to.

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RUSH: All right. So now the second day of the Trump legal team presenting their case, which will probably be a combination of refuting Schiff and the Democrat House managers and Trump’s asserting his case. They really… I don’t want to characterize it beforehand. I hope that it’s… I don’t mind going down the list and refuting the baseless, just crock-filled allegations the Democrats have made, but there does need to be some offense asserted here.

They did a great job on Saturday of just conveying to anybody paying any attention that Adam Schiff is a serial, serious, pathologically, really messed-up guy and liar. So just to review before moving on to some other things here, the bottom line is this leak — which the New York Times admits they have not seen. They’ve not seen the manuscript. They’ve not seen the book. They’ve just been told about it by anonymous sources — the same anonymous sources who assured the New York Times that Trump had colluded with Russia, that Trump was a Russian agent.

Same type of sources. The sources are CIA and other Obama holdovers still in the Trump administration. But they’ve made it plain they have not seen the manuscript. Now, some people have said, “Why doesn’t Bolton just come out and say, yeah or no?” He can’t yet. The vetting process is not over. He would be in violation of all kinds of security regulations. He can’t comment until they have vetted the book and okayed it for publication, at least as I understand it — and that makes some sense to me.

But if New York Times hasn’t seen it, they’re just reporting what anonymous sources are telling ’em, that way when the truth comes out, they say, “Hey, it wasn’t us! Our sources misled us.” The Washington Post and New York Times do this all the time. The Washington Post did it with the whistleblower complaint! They said they never saw the complaint by the whistleblower. Where is the whistleblower, by the way? The whistleblower, the guy who got all this started. Schiff said, “He’s gotta testify! He’s gotta testify!”

Then Schiff said, “No, it doesn’t require his testimony now. This hearing doesn’t require his testimony,” and that’s because the whistleblower implicates Schiff, because Schiff was instrumental in orchestrating the whistleblower and the actions that he took. I could spend the rest of the program probably giving you examples of how the Washington Post and New York Times do this all the time. And, by the way, Alexander Vindman — O say can you see — was behind the whistleblower story, which the whistleblower leaked to the Washington Post.

It was Vindman who was on the phone call that then reported to the whistleblower who then — secondhand — went to Schiff. Illegally. He should have gone to the inspector general, but he didn’t. The inspector general then changed the regulations to allow secondhand whistleblower testimony, or secondhand knowledge to be qualified. (sigh) So all of these players… Vindman’s twin brother, Yevgeny, is in the vetting process for Bolton’s book.

The original Washington Post leak on the whistleblower’s complaint turned out to be a pack of lies, and among those pack of lies was that the transcript of the phone call was shocking. “It was frightening! It was scary,” the whistleblower said. “It was unreal! Oh, my God, we had to do something, it was so bad,” and then there’s nothing in it. Trump releases the transcript. None of that was the case, and the Washington said, “Don’t blame us. That’s what we were told.” Their lies got enough attention to kick off this entire impeachment process.

The whistleblower’s lies are why we are here, and the Washington Post published this pack of lies and then got out of it by saying, “Well, it’s what we were told. We didn’t actually see it.” I hope the Trump defense plays all the clips of the Democrats saying that we don’t need witnesses, that the impeachment is a coup from the Clinton days, as well as the Drive-Bys saying it. Play it several times over the next two days. Even though we say hypocrisy doesn’t stick to Democrats, it still would be good to get it out there.

Anyway, I think the Bolton leak — that, again, the New York Times has not seen — was orchestrated to do two things: To distract from the Republicans just creaming the Democrats’ case on Saturday, and it was a Hail Mary pass to try to get the Senate to vote to call witnesses. And it was not the first. You know what the first effort they made to get the Senate to call witnesses was? The Lev Parnas video! Lev Parnas. They had Lev Parnas video of Trump saying he wanted to fire Yovanovitch.

That’s what Schumer was saying. They uncovered “a plot,” uncovered a plot to fire the ambassador, the Lev Parnas video. That was supposed to be so heinous that it was gonna make the Republicans immediately vote to call witnesses. But it flopped. It went nowhere because, guess what? You don’t need to “plot” to fire the ambassador. You just call her up and say, “You’re out!” Trump doesn’t need to orchestrate a “plot.” He appoints ambassadors. He fires ambassadors. Any president does!

But somehow… Somehow Lev Parnas on video, Trump on video saying that they wanted to get rid of the ambassador. Sack her. Get rid of her. Somehow this is impeachable? Somehow this is sinister? Somehow this is a crime? It flopped; so here we are. Now, it’s fascinating to read news media accounts before the Bolton leak — and as your host, that’s exactly what I did over the weekend. I’m here to tell you, the Senate — and it was widely known, conventional wisdom.

The Senate was on the brink of voting not to call any witnesses. In fact, Mike Allen of Axios — formerly of Politico, formerly of the Washington Post, formally of the Drive-By Media. Mike Allen reported yesterday that Trump is on, quote, “a glide path to swift acquittal at his Senate impeachment trial despite a blizzard of evidence bolstering Democrats’ accusations.” There isn’t a shred of evidence that bolsters any accusation! That’s the rub! That’s the thing.

Anyway, before the Bolton leak, the Drive-Bys were wringing their hands (sniveling), “Oh, my God, the Senate is gonna vote no witnesses! Oh, my God. (mewling) Horrible,” and F. Chuck Todd all over Meet the Press and had his guests on and they were all concerned that “nobody cares (sniffles) and nobody…” In fact, I’ve got the audio sound bite of this. Let me see I can find it real quick. I think I’ve got this. Yeah. Grab sound bite number 14. Chuck Todd, Meet the Depressed, and he’s got Cook Political Report national editor Amy Walter on, and they’re talking about voter reaction to all of this.

TODD: Maureen Dowd had a fascinating little nugget in her column today. I want to put it up here: “One Democratic Senate staffer mourned the apathy. ‘Our phones aren’t ringing,’ he told me. ‘Nobody cares. It is the saddest thing ever.'”

WALTER: Mmm-hmm.

TODD: The fact that you don’t have —

WALTER: Yeah.

TODD: — even Democrats storming the Capitol and protesting…

WALTER: Nope.

TODD: It’s not there.

WALTER: I was in Iowa; no one talked about this.

RUSH: They’re wringing their hands. (sniveling) “There aren’t any protesters in Washington; the Senate gallery’s half empty. Oh, my God. (sobbing) Nobody cares!” Isn’t it fascinating? So before the Bolton leak, nobody cares. The Senate Republicans on the verge of voting no witnesses. The Drive-By Media is at an impasse. They’re depressed, they’re despondent, they’re near suicidal (politically suicidal), and you just heard this (sobbing): “Nobody cares. It is the saddest thing ever.” Where are the protests “storming the Capitol and protesting”? “It’s not there,” which is a good point.

Here we have, as far as many schlubs are concerned, the closest yet the Democrats have been to getting rid of Trump — it’s a freaking impeachment trial — and where are the vagina-hat-clad women and the feminazis? Where are the rest of the paid protesters, the rent-a-mob? Where are they? They’re not storming Washington. They’re not even showing up to try to get in to watch this! David Axelrod admits it. He was on CNN talking to Erin Burnett, and he’s all concerned. He did a focus group out there, and a bunch of Democrats in Cook County didn’t even bring it up for an hour and 20 minutes.

I’m looking for the sound bite here. I know I saw this in here somewhere. Da-da-da-da-dee. Let’s see. Can anybody tell me what number Axelrod is? Maybe I don’t have it. I thought I did, but we don’t have it. Okay. But he was out there on CNN today. He said an hour and 20 minutes! It’s the same thing you just heard out of Chuck Todd. “Oh, woe is us! Nobody cares. We can’t find it. Nobody’s interested; there’s no protests.” So the bottom line here is that before the Bolton leak, it was utter depression. It was, “Oh, my God, all is lost,” and now the Bolton leak.

The New York Times, a manuscript that they haven’t seen. The Senate was on the brink of voting not to call witnesses. Mike Allen was saying “Trump’s on the way to a swift acquittal,” and, lo and behold, the New York Times produces a quote-unquote “leak” of the Bolton manuscript. Even if everything that the Times claims that Bolton says is true, there’s not a single thing impeachable about it because the leak is that Bolton says Trump told him he wanted to do X, Y, Z, whatever. He wanted to condition the aid on the investigation of Democrats.

That’s what Bolton says. “You know, Trump told me he didn’t want the aid to get to Ukraine until they investigate.” Well, big deal. Like I said, I tell people all the time, “I don’t want to go to the dentist tomorrow.” I got this stupid appointment and don’t want to go. But I went. Or I don’t want to do this meeting or I don’t want to do this or that. We all do this. Everybody complains. Everybody speculates. “You know what I’d like to do? I would love to tell you these guys they’re not getting their money until they give me the goods on Biden.”

But what happened? Ukraine got their money. There was no investigation. Ukraine got everything they wanted and more. This is all so really dangerous. They’re trying to convict Trump here on thought crimes, but I’m telling you, folks. It was fascinating to watch the media consult the media, ready the media before the Bolton leak, and they were on the verge of utter despair, and now look at ’em — and it’s the same pattern. It’s the same thing Comey tried. It’s the same thing they tried with Kavanaugh, with Clarence Thomas, on and on and on.

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RUSH: One, I want to go back to me, Rush Limbaugh, and this program, September 10th, 2019, when John Bolton was let go as national security adviser. I want to read you just a few little excerpts here from what I said then. Okay. So, “Trump [says] he fired Bolton. Now, Bolton: ‘No, no, no, he didn’t fire me. I resigned.’ We’ll have to wait and see. I’m just gonna tell you what’s gonna happen now.”

Remember, folks, this is last September. “You gotta trust me on something. The Drive-By Media, the Democrat Party has hated John Bolton for his entire career in the Foreign Service. He’s been a United Nations ambassador. He’s been accused of being rude to employees. He has been accused of being unfeeling and insensitive toward women. He’s been accused of being no nonsense. He’s been accused of being a horrible diplomat, that he tells people straight out right between the eyes.

“They have never had any respect for John Bolton. They have never liked John Bolton. He’s always been an extension of whatever Republican president they hated. But now, you watch. Any second now John Bolton’s gonna become the smartest foreign policy strategist in our country. He’s gonna become the wisest foreign policy adviser Trump has ever had. The Drive-Bys, despite a lifetime of disrespect and hatred for this guy, the Drive-Bys are gonna start wringing their hands and lamenting that he was the last adult in the room, and that we’re all in peril,” because John Bolton is gone.”

“Bolton was the only guy saving us from” the insanity of Donald Trump. “Bolton was the only guy saving us from destruction, the only guy saving us from our enemies beating us…” This is how they’re gonna portray him. Back on September 10th: “I predict that he’s already getting book offers, he’s already getting interview offers. The left is gonna offer him whatever they can to get him to speak out against Trump. They can’t help themselves!

“He’s gonna become the new Russian collusion story. John Bolton is gonna become the next Robert Mueller. Mark my words.” I have it right here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. I printed this out from my own website. I predicted all it is. Now, granted that’s not a tough prediction because the Drive-Bys are the Drive-Bys. But what does this prediction need to be true? It needs Bolton to turn on Trump. I’m gonna tell you.

Like I said the first hour, I’ve been to dinner a couple times with Bolton and his wife, met him here and there. I never thought that he was disloyal in this way. Now, some of you might say, “He’s not disloyal, Rush! He’s being loyal to America. Trump’s horrible. Trump’s rotten. Trump’s bad.” Some of you think this, but I know not very many. But I guess everybody in Washington is, at the end of the day, out for themselves — and that’s one of the problems. All right. Let me sneak another call in.

We’ll go to Mesa, Arizona. Sherry, great to have you. Glad you waited. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks. Hey, so, just to bolster your thought that they’re trying to impeach Trump on thought crimes or whatever is in his head, he also during the Russia investigation and wanted to fire the special prosecutor, but he didn’t. So it’s the same thing. I mean, you know, everything he wants to do is (crosstalk).

RUSH: You know, that’s exactly right, and the Mueller report tried as hard as it could to make that appear to be abuse of power, that it appeared to be obstruction. He wanted to fire Mueller and therefore we might be able to say that Trump wanted to obstruct. But the point is Mueller didn’t get fired, and the investigation wasn’t obstructed. Nothing prevented it from being concluded. But you’re exactly right. It’s the same thing. That’s a great call. It’s almost identically the same thing as this stupid leak involving Bolton saying that Trump told him that he wanted to, but he didn’t do it, and Ukraine got the money. We’re going blue in the face reminding everybody of this. Anyway, Sherry, thank you. I appreciate that.

CALLER: Okay. Thanks.

RUSH: Is there anything else you wanted to add? We still have 30 seconds here left for your allotted caller time.

CALLER: Actually, I just want to vent on something real quick. I live in Arizona. Martha McSally is our senator now, and she’s up for reelection. It just frustrates me that everybody assumes that these people — because they are in a tough election — have to be wishy-washy. Why can’t it be that because 90 to 95% of the Republicans support Trump and it’s because they’re not strong enough for Trump? Is it always… (chuckles) It’s because they’re not, you know, wishy-washy enough.

RUSH: You’re talking about…? Are you talking about voters or are you talking about McSally?

CALLER: Yeah. I’m talking about like the Republicans senators they are saying are up for reelection and they have a tough time because they might vote for witnesses.

RUSH: Oh. Oh. oh. Well, experience. Republican voters have experience with Republican elected officials kind of caving now and then.

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RUSH: Let me jump off one other point our previous caller from Arizona made about Republicans being presumed to be wishy-washy. Why is it in this whole process we only hear about four Republican senators? “Four Republican senators are at grave risk if they go too far in supporting Donald Trump!” Four senators. Cory Gardner is one, and we got Martha McSally is mentioned as another, and they’re very worried! “Oh, yeah, these Republicans are very, very worried.

“They might call for witnesses. They might vote to convict! They might, because Trump is so hated in their states.” Well, how come we have stopped hearing about the 32 Democrats in the House who won election in 2018, the midterms, who are from Trump districts? There are many, many, many more potentially vulnerable Democrats out there as a result of all this than there are Republican senators. But we don’t hear about any of the at-risk or vulnerable Democrats.

It’s only Republicans, it’s only Republicans — in states that Trump carried! Yeah, my friends, it’s only Republicans that are at risk here based on what happens, when the truth is the Democrats may be blowing themselves up for a generation in all of this. By the way, we now have Axelrod. Grab audio sound bite number 25. He was on CNN Friday night. Again, this would qualify as the Democrat mind-set before this magically timed leak, supposedly from the John Bolton manuscript.

AXELROD: I was in a focus group this morning for the Institute of Politics here at the University of Chicago with some Chicago Democratic voters, and it was chilling to hear them talk about this, because impeachment didn’t even come up. No one volunteered it for 80 minutes into the focus group, and we’re right in the middle of the trial. When it came up, they said, “You know, it’s terrible what he did, the case has been proven, but we know how it’s gonna turn out. So we’re not really that interested. We’re ready to move on.”

RUSH: “We know how it’s gonna turn out.” That means they know that Trump is going to be acquitted. That means they know that there’s no way 20-some-odd Republicans, unless they could clone Romney, are gonna vote to convict Trump. So they don’t care — and they did this on purpose. They didn’t bring impeachment up, Axelrod and his gang, and it took an hour and 20 minutes before it came up. The purpose of the focus group was to find out what’s on the minds of Democrats so that the Democrat candidates for president get clued in on what they better be talking about — and it isn’t impeachment.

Now, I got an email during the break: “Are you accusing Bolton of ratting on Trump? Are you accusing Bolton of being a snitch?” No. Not yet. Because I haven’t seen… (Snort!) All we’ve got to go on is what the New York Times claims is an anonymous source told them about Bolton’s manuscript. (interruption) I know. I know. I know Bolton has said he’d be open to testify. I know he said that, giving the indication that he wants to dump on Trump. If that’s true, if Bolton does want to snitch, if he wants to rat on Trump, why do you think it is? (interruption)

You think…? (interruption) Okay. You think it’s because he’s ticked off at the way he got fired, a hundred percent ego. Well, perhaps. But I don’t think it has to do with being fired. I think it probably has to do with the fact that Trump didn’t follow his advice. What is Bolton known for? Bolton’s known for wanting to deploy the military here, there — it’s basically a neocon agenda — and Trump doesn’t want to do that. It was… When Trump hired him and brought him in, there were a lot of people applauding it.

“Heeeey, this is really good.” Bolton was considered to be very solid. But there were others who said, “It doesn’t make sense because Bolton does not share the Trump agenda,” and then people said, “Well, if anybody can change Trump’s mind on this, it would be Bolton.” Maybe Bolton failed to change his mind and maybe Bolton’s ticked off that Trump didn’t follow his advice. You know who else is mad that Trump didn’t follow his advice?

Lieutenant Colonel Vindman — O say can you see. Well, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman said in his testimony before Schiff’s SCIF that he was in charge of Ukraine foreign policy and that he prepared the talking points for Trump’s phone call and that Trump didn’t use ’em. Trump didn’t follow the talking points, and Schiff tried to say that that’s impeachable. Schiff said last week Trump not using are the talking points is proof positive that Trump was doing his own personal foreign policy.

As though somebody from the NSC and the ambassadorial service comes in, prepares talking points for a phone call, and that’s what the president has to do? The president’s not in charge of what he’s gonna say to somebody? The president’s not in charge of foreign policy? So Lieutenant Colonel Vindman prepares his talking points, Trump ignores them, and all of a sudden that’s proof positive Trump is off on his own? So Vindman shows up, testifies, nose all out of joint, and every other person that testified was the same stuff.

Trump wasn’t listening to them, right? He wasn’t listening to the interagency group. He was not following the advice of learned State Department and ambassadorial crew intellectuals — and for that, he had to go. But not one of them, when asked point-blank, could name an impeachable offense. Most of them were not on the Trump phone with the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, although Vindman was — and now we find out that Vindman’s brother is involved perhaps in the leak of the Bolton manuscript.

Breitbart says, “A source close to the Trump administration” told them “that Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, a senior ethics lawyer for the National Security Council (NSC), is in charge of reviewing all publications by current and former NSC officials.” Breitbart says that the same person told them “Yevgeny Vindman could have seen former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s draft manuscript after it was submitted for prepublication review at the end of December.”

Well, that means that Yevgeny Vindman could have been the person who leaked the supposed excerpts from Bolton’s draft manuscript. We don’t know. But if so, it would fit the pattern. The suspicion is that it was Alexander Vindman who told the whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, about Trump’s call with Zelensky, and the whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella… That’s his name, by the way, and he looks like the Pajama Boy in the Obama health care ad from 2010. The whistleblower (Pajama Boy Eric Ciaramella) then leaked Vindman’s allegations to the Washington Post, all because Vindman was mad Trump didn’t use his talking points in the call.

Vindman admitted this, as though it was just simply outrageous. It was outrageous that the president did not use the talking points. I think Trump probably doesn’t even know who Vindman is. He’s a staff puke writing a bunch of talking points, typical bureaucrat. “Here. Put some talking points together based on the policy we’ve got going here, Vindman. Do it.” It’s time for the call, 25 people on the call, and Trump gets the talking points, and he is not interested.

He’s got something else he wants to say to Zelensky and says it. All of a sudden, we’ve got an impeachment, because Vindman tells the whistleblower, “My God. It’s horrible, he ignored my talking points. This. Or whatever.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have people out there who really like Scott Adams, the noted… Is his cartoon Dilbert? (interruption) Okay. I got a lot of people who read Scott Adams’ tweets and they send ’em to me. So what does that tell me? It tells me a lot of people are following Scott Adams, and it means a lot of people are following Scott Adams ’cause they like what Scott Adams says. So since a lot of people are sending me Scott Adams tweets, here’s one that whole bunch of people sent me.

Scott Adams is weighing in on Bolton. Now, look, it’s true. Adams has a unique take on a lot of things — like me. It’s rare to find somebody who has as unique a take on events as I do. I mean, admit it, folks: You come here because this is not the conventional wisdom show. You’re gonna hear takes, opinions, forecasts, predictions, assumptions, analysis unlike you get anywhere else.

That’s why you’re here, and that’s why people like Scott Adams. Here’s his take on this whole Bolton leak: “Bolton’s book manuscript clears Trump of all impeachment allegations by demonstrating that the President believed Ukraine interfered in US elections. Given that belief, right or wrong, pressuring Zelensky was completely within the job description of the presidency. #GameOver.” So to further analyze this, Mr. Adams believes… Again, the Bolton leak.

The New York Times, remember, they haven’t seen it. This is classic. It’s like every other leak that has occurred in the Trump presidency. The leak on the whistleblower, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman is admitting (summarized), “We haven’t seen it. We have a source who’s seen it, and the source is telling us what the manuscript of Bolton’s book says.” This way if it isn’t true the Times has an out. “Well, we — we — we didn’t see it. Our source burned us,” and they won’t even say, “We’re sorry.” But, anyway, the source is saying that Bolton says that Trump told him he wanted to withhold aid, but he didn’t.

Look, I keep recycling things here. In this case, it’s important. Bolton is not saying Trump withheld the aid because he can’t. The aid was not withheld. So Scott Adams’ point is this: “Bolton’s book manuscript clears Trump of all impeachment allegations by demonstrating that the President believed Ukraine interfered in US elections.” Now, the Democrats are out there saying, “Trump is making it up! Russia… (sputtering) Russia meddled in our elections, and this myth that Ukraine did it is Russian propaganda that Trump is spreading” and so forth.

But Scott Adams’ point is, if Trump believed it — and, by the way, Ukraine did meddle in our 2016 election. Ukraine courts have convicted Ukraine citizens for doing so! You might have heard the House managers’ case where they tried to nuke the fact that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. Ukraine did! Ukraine courts have confirmed it and admitted it and convicted people for doing it. Trump has always been trying to get to the bottom of who it was that tampered in the 2016 election to try to help Hillary and hurt him.

And that’s exactly what happened. It was Hillary who colluded with the Russians — we all know this now — with the Steele dossier and all of this. Now it’s the Democrats who are colluding and tampering with the 2020 election. The Democrats are attempting to affect the outcome of the 2020 election, and they’re admitting it. I’ve got a sound bite coming up before it Zoe Lofgren, one of the House managers, admitting that that’s what this is all about! So Scott Adams’ point is, if the president believed Ukraine interfered, “pressuring Zelensky was completely within the job description of the presidency.”

It doesn’t matter whether Trump was right or wrong about it. If he believed that Ukraine actually meddled in the 2016 election and was trying to harm his chances, then as president, he is required to find out if that happened, and that can’t be impeachable. So that’s what Adams’ point is that many people sent me.