Rush: My On-the-Spot Analysis of Hemmer’s Barr Interview

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My On-the-Spot Analysis of Hemmer’s Barr Interview

May 17, 2019




RUSH: I know it shouldn’t, but it continues to boggle my mind. To listen to the Drive-By Media go about doing their jobs every day, it still stuns to me. I’m amazed that it stuns me, and I’m a little mad at myself that it stuns me. William Barr gave an interview to Bill Hemmer at Fox News down there, I guess, in El Salvador. They’re looking at MS-13, and Barr talked about his investigation of the investigation. The Drive-By Media can’t believe that the attorney general’s talking about the investigation.

Well, what the hell were they doing for two years, for crying out loud? These guys are reporting leaks; they’re funneling everything the investigators are telling them. They’re trying to find what Mueller is doing. We got the FBI, we got the DOJ, we have the CIA, we have MI5 and MI6. We got the British spies. They’re all leaking! We got the Steele dossier; the media’s reporting every bit of it! Now here Barr is giving an interview and they say, “This is just not right! Investigators don’t talk about the investigation.”

At least he’s not leaking it! You’ve got people on CNN saying, “I have never seen an attorney general behave this way before!” Well, we’ve never had cause for an attorney general to behave this way. I’m gonna spend a little time here on the Barr interview with Bill Hemmer at Fox because they keep releasing new elements of it. I don’t know if they’re gonna broadcast it front to back at some point. My guess is they will. But all morning long, they have been playing little excerpts from it, and it’s really, really worthwhile.

It’s something, if you haven’t had a chance to watch it, you need to hear it — and, of course, it wouldn’t be complete without my on-the-spot, instant analysis.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, Bill Hemmer, Fox News, went down to El Salvador with William Barr. He’s down there. They’re doing a number of things down there, among them, trying to figure out what to do about MS-13, the gigantic terrorist gang coming out of that region, and some things remotely to do with illegal immigration and so forth. So Hemmer goes down there and grabs an interview with Barr and really unloaded. I mean, I don’t think there are any questions that were left on the table about the investigation, into the investigation, about Barr’s opinion of this or that.

Barr was amazingly forthcoming in some of this. So let’s just start. Our first bite, Barr is talking about how this is handled at very senior levels by an ad hoc, small group of people — the investigators — and that he’s asking them about some things that don’t make sense to him, such as the dossier. He’s pointing out that the answers he’s getting are not sufficient. So Hemmer’s question: “At the hearing about a month ago, you said you’re still trying to get your head around everything. What are you trying to figure out in this?”

BARR: The thing that’s interesting about this is that this was handled at a very senior level of these departments. It wasn’t handled in the ordinary way that investigations or counterintelligence activities are conducted. It was sort of an ad hoc, small group — and most of these people are no longer with the FBI or the CIA or the other agencies involved. I think there’s a misconception out there that we know a lot about what happened. The fact of the matter is, Bob Mueller did not look at the government’s activities. And we have a number of investigations underway that touch upon it, the main one being the Office of Inspector General was looking at the FISA warrants. But as far as I’m aware, no one has really looked across the whole waterfront.

RUSH: This is such a key answer! He spells it right out. “As far as we know, Mueller didn’t look at what the government was doing.” Of course he didn’t! It wasn’t the purpose! Remember when Mueller… There’s another key in here. He says, “I think there’s a misconception out there that we know a lot about what happened.” That is such a well-timed statement. What he’s referring to is that we think we know by way of alternative reporting, sources outside the Drive-By Media.

We think we have an idea of what really happened here with the dossier, with Steele, with the Hillary campaign buying and paying for it. But what Barr is saying is that we really don’t, not officially, because nobody’s looked at it — and that’s what he’s doing. He points out here that the vaunted special counsel, Robert Mueller, did not look at anything the government was doing, and as far as Barr’s concerned, there’s a whole lot of stuff the government was doing that’s highly suspicious.

So he talked about the inspector general investigation underway and others, his appointment of John Durham — and also that this was handled at “a very senior level,” meaning the FBI director was involved and the CIA director was involved, and that’s not how these things are normally handled. The ordinary way investigations are handled or counterintelligence is that agents are assigned. Agents do the work. But in this case, the department heads were doing the work, and now many of them are gone.

The implication there is… Well, I’m gonna draw it. The inference there is, the fact that they’re gone is gonna make it a little tougher to find out what went on, ’cause they’re all gone. Some of them have been fired. Some of them have resigned. Some of them have… You know, we haven’t spotted ’em in foreign countries yet, but if we do, then we’ll know. That answer contained a lot, and that’s why the Drive-Bys are… The Drive-Bys, you know, they’re wettin’ the bed here. “Oh, we can’t believe the attorney general is discussing the details of his investigation!”

What do you mean, you can’t believe the attorney general…? You just spent two years making up a bunch of garbage about an investigation that wasn’t. As I say, I continue to be surprised and I wish I weren’t. It makes me mad that I’m surprised every day when I get up and watch CNN. It makes me mad. I ought not be surprised anymore by how unprofessional and biased and totally gone these people are. Next question from Bill Hemmer: “You also said back in April you thought there was spying going on on the Trump campaign. When do you think that started?”

BARR: I’m not gonna speculate about when it started. We’re gonna find out when it started. What I will say that I’ve been trying to get answers to questions and I’ve found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate, and I’ve also found that some of the explanations I’ve gotten don’t hang together. So in a sense, I have more questions today than I did when I first started. I think people have to find out what government was doing during that period. If we’re worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abused their power and put their thumb on the scale.

RUSH: All right. Now, again, great answer. This is a reassuring answer, provided that there is something that they find and admit to it. We still have to react to this with a guarded optimism about it. But he says he’s not gonna speculate about when it started. He’s gonna find out when it started. See, we all think we know — well, actually that we don’t know. That we don’t. That’s why we want the president to declassify all these documents. They will tell us. It’s known when this started and what did it, but we don’t know that yet.

So he’s already been asking, and he says that the answers that he’s been given are inadequate — and as he has been in office and as he’s been looking into this, he’s got even more questions than he had when he started. The point he made again here is crucial. Everybody was focused on what the hell the Russians were doing, but what about our own government’s efforts that might have been used to undermine a campaign and then a transition and an election? He points out that Bob Mueller did not look into any of that.

Yeah, why?

Anyway, Barr is and is being pretty up front about it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I just want to share one thing with you because it is in context with the Barr interview sound bites that we played so far. This comes from Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller: “Dossier author Christopher Steele identified a former Russian spy chief and a top adviser to … Putin as being involved in handling potentially compromising information about” Trump. Meaning, Steele is admitting that he got data from Russians on his dossier that is all made up.

Meaning, the Hillary campaign was colluding with Russians in the creation of a phony-baloney dossier. “Steele identified a former Russian spy chief and a top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin as being involved in handling potentially compromising information about President Donald Trump, State Department notes show.” The State Department knew this and told the FBI about it before they went and got their FISA warrant based on the Steele dossier.

The State Department knew that the Russians had helped provide false BS for the Steele dossier seven or eight days before the FBI used it to go get a FISA warrant. “In her notes, State Department official, Kathleen Kavalec, also referred to the two Russians … as ‘sources.'” Sources! One of these Russians “also has links to Stefan Halper, an FBI informant who collected information from…” He didn’t “collect information from” Papadopoulos! He passed it to Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos didn’t spread anything. He was told things by Halper. Anyway, we now have reports of confirmation of Steele colluding with Russians to create fake allegations about Donald Trump that then show up in the dossier that are then used by Rosenstein and Comey — the leadership, as Barr points out, not some agents — to go get the FISA application to spy on Carter Page and thus the Trump campaign.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, go back. Audio sound bite number 3. I think this is a good catch. This is something fundamentally fascinating about what Barr said. Here again is Bill Hemmer’s question: “You also said back in April you thought there was spying going on in the Trump campaign. When do you think that started?”

BARR: I’m not gonna speculate about when it started. We’re gonna find out when it started. What I will say that I’ve been trying to get answers to questions and I’ve found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate, and I’ve also found that some of the explanations I’ve gotten don’t hang together. So in a sense, I have more questions today than I did when I first started. I think people have to find out what government was doing during that period. If we’re worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abused their power and put their thumb on the scale.

RUSH: “I’ve found that a lot of the answers [and] explanations I’ve gotten don’t hang together.” What does that mean? I’ll tell you what I think it means. I think it means that these guys he’s talking to are not saying the same thing. They’ve gotten their story straight. To attach names to it just for explanation… I don’t know if this true, but Comey is saying one thing… Well, we know this is true. Comey is saying one thing and Brennan’s saying another, and they’re now accusing each other in public. So Barr’s sitting there saying the answers “don’t hang together.”

I’m hearing one thing from one guy, another thing to another guy, I’m getting differences versions of the same story, and I think those words, “the answers/explanations I’m getting don’t hang together,” could be causing these coup people to start quaking and to start thinking about Argentina. Virtually all of them are lawyers. They know this is exactly how the legal case against each of them can be made, leveraging their stories against the others.

And if they’re not on the same page and if they’re not telling the same story, then there is a story to be found and to find out who’s telling the truth and who isn’t. And I think that’s why Comey and Brennan are starting to point fingers at each other, and I’ve noticed that this is — and Rosenstein is dumping on Comey. And Comey’s dumping on Rosenstein. And the former lawyer for the FBI, Baker, is dumping on some people.

Because, as Barr said, everybody looked at what the Russians were doing — and they really didn’t look at that, ’cause they knew before they started the Russians hadn’t done anything. Not to collude with Trump. But now we gotta find out what the government did. This is never supposed to have been on anybody’s mind. This was never supposed to happen.

These people did all of this to cover up for Hillary Clinton and Steele and the dossier. This was never supposed to happen, this investigation.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now back to Barr, back to Barr and the interview with Bill Hemmer. We’re up to audio sound bite number 4 on this. Bill Hemmer, Fox News: “Can you say when Bob Mueller knew that there was no collusion with Russia between Trump?”

BARR: No, I couldn’t say that.

HEMMER: No date given?

BARR: No, I couldn’t say. I couldn’t say when he knew.

RUSH: Now, now, we know. There wasn’t any collusion. When Mueller took the job, folks… Remember, all they ever had was this dossier. (sigh) Again, there was never any evidence of collusion. That is why this investigation was not a criminal investigation. It was always a counterintelligence investigation, because they were not pursuing evidence that would prove the creation or performance of a crime because they knew there wasn’t one. It was counterintel.

Counterintelligence investigations do not gather evidence for the purposes of going to trial or indicting people. There never was a crime. All they ever had was the dossier, and they knew that it was bogus when had went to the FISA court. Therefore, when Mueller took the job after being named special counsel, he gets the file. He goes to the office the first day, asks Comey for the file, opens it up and (in a figurative sense) there’s nothing in there because they never had any evidence because there wasn’t any Trump-Russia collusion.

So Hemmer has obviously figured this out or has heard other people, other guests on Fox that he’s interviewed say that there never was any evidence. So he’s trying to get Barr here to admit that Mueller knew (chuckles) from day one that there was no collusion. But even if you know to acknowledge that, you can, if you go back and look at the timeline when Mueller took the gig, there is a point 18 months where Mueller knew for sure there was no collusion and didn’t close the investigation. He kept it going, looking for crimes that others could be forced to commit during the investigation, process crimes, and he found them, created them.

The next question from Hemmer of Barr is, “When will we see the IG report?”

HEMMER: When will we see the IG report?

BARR: Uh, when it’s finished.

HEMMER: Is it finished?

BARR: No.

RUSH: This is Barr. (chuckling) He’s so direct. “When are we gonna see it?” “When it’s finished.” “Is it fih?” “No.” “Well, then when are we gonna see? Next month? In June?” “When it’s finished.” It’s not the kind of answer people are used to, that direct answer. Okay. Let’s see. Next question from Bill Hemmer interviewing William Barr in El Salvador: “How do you think John Brennan and James Clapper handled the Russia investigation?”

BARR: I don’t want to speculate about the facts because I don’t know the facts at this point.

HEMMER: Can you tell us what the Steele dossier had to do with this? What role did that play?

BARR: It’s a very unusual situation to have opposition research like that — especially one that, on its face, had a number of clear mistakes and a somewhat jejune analysis — and to use that to conduct counterintelligence against an American political campaign is a strange — would be a strange development.

HEMMER: Do you smell a rat in this at this point?

BARR: I don’t know if I’d describe it as a rat. I would just say that the answers I’m getting are not sufficient.

RUSH: Uh-oh. Uh-oh. There we are, go again. (summarized) “The answers I’m getting are not sufficient. The answers I’m getting are not hanging together.” “Can you tell us what the Steele dossier had to do with it?” “Well, it’s very unusual to have opposition research like that used to conduct counterintelligence against a candidate.” He gets it. He knows exactly what happened. He’s telling us he knows exactly what happened.

Without divulging what he’s going to do about it or what proof and evidence he has of it. But to call it “opposition research” is to acknowledge that it is not legitimate intelligence and to acknowledge that it was used (in his language) “by the government to conduct counterintel on an American political campaign,” his word is strange. It’s not strange, it’s criminal. But he’s not ready to go there yet.

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2019/05/17/my-on-the-spot-analysis-of-hemmers-barr-interview/