Rush Transcripts...Dec. 9th

[mystery-ak]

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/


A Take on Today’s Bogus Impeachment Hearing You Will Find Nowhere Else

Dec 9, 2019



RUSH: Yeah, I know it’s hard to watch. It’s very hard to watch. You know why this is hard to watch? I’ll tell you why it’s hard to watch. It’s hard to watch this because all of this is bogus. And yet it’s being given the imprimatur of legitimacy by virtue of the way it’s being dealt with even by friendly media and by some of the Republicans on the committee.

Now, I know they’re trying to expose Nadler as not knowing what he’s doing and how to run a committee, and they’re doing a good job of that, but to run around and say that this is an inherently unfair process — maybe I’m wrong. You tell me. My sense is that running around claiming that this is all unfair isn’t very persuasive. It’s kind of like two kids arguing about being bullied to their parents and so forth. Is this really how we’re gonna try to persuade people who might be impacted by this?

I think there’s a lack of confidence on our side in dealing with this. Now, this is easy for me to say. I’m not in that arena. I’m not in that hearing room, and I’m certainly not on Fox TV having to comport with whatever I think I have to comport with. I’m just here by my lonesome watching this stuff like you are. And it bothers me that we’re gonna attack this as unfair.

Of course it’s unfair, but life is unfair. Simply running around talking about unfairness, is this gonna convince people who are on the fence that what’s being done to President Trump is mean and unfair and therefore they’re going to disagree with — the whole thing is bogus. This thing needs to be exposed for what it is.

And let me just give you two examples. And they went by without anybody saying a word in contradiction. It was just like when Schiff from his chair running the committee totally lied about the contents of the phone call that Trump had with Zelensky.

Schiff’s up there saying that Trump called Zelensky and said eight or nine times: “I want you to find some dirt on my opponent, and I want you to make it up if you have to. And I don’t want to hear back from you until you have made it up, until I hear something. And, by the way, if you want some military aid from me, you damn well better find some dirt on my –” None of that was said. None of that’s in the phone call. Schiff says it as though it is the phone call, and the Republicans didn’t call him out for half an hour.

And finally a Republican called him out because the Republican said, “I just got an email from a constituent who said –” these people are so enmeshed in the game that they’re so used to the way the Democrats operate that it isn’t anything extraordinary to them. So they wait for their turn, let the Democrats say what they want.

It happened again this morning. This bogus lawyer, the first witness the Democrats called, we addressed this last Friday. In fact, let me see. Let me look at the sound bite roster here because I think I’ve got this. Well, maybe not. I don’t need it. I can just tell you what it is.

Last week and today this Democrat lawyers says that the president of the United States says Article 2 allows him to do anything he wants, anything whatsoever. And they played a sound bite of Trump saying that that took five seconds. The sound bite they took was from a Trump speech at a Turning Point USA convention, but the other time Trump was talking about it was in an interview with George Stephanopoulos.

The subject was whether or not he wanted to fire Robert Mueller. And Stephanopoulos was trying to say that Trump was guilty for even wanting to fire Mueller. Mueller was not fired. Trump was telling Stephanopoulos and the Turning Point USA audience that Article 2 lets him do whatever he wants.

The context is firing Mueller. Pure and simple. That’s what Trump was talking about when he said, “Article 2.” And he’s exactly right. Article 2, he runs the executive branch. He can fire the FBI director any time he wants. He can fire a special counsel any time he wants. The accountability is at the ballot box the next election.

Now, the Democrat lawyer played this bit today claiming Trump said he could do anything he wants with no limits on everything involving his job. That’s not what Trump said. It’s not what Trump meant. And it has yet to be countered. It was stated two hours ago. It has yet to be countered.

Now, I’m sitting here hoping that when the Republicans get around to positioning and putting forth their evidence, they’ll deal with this. But they haven’t yet so it’s been out there lingering.

The second example — they’re still getting mileage out of this. They played video of Trump cracking the joke (paraphrasing), “Hey, Russia, if you’re listening, maybe you can find Hillary’s emails. If you do, the media might really be happy.” This was during a period of time there were 30,000 missing Hillary Clinton emails, and nobody could find ’em, and everybody thought they might be relevant.

Everybody was wringing their hands, and Trump didn’t believe that nobody could find them. Trump knew that Hillary knew where they were. Everybody knew that Hillary knew where they were. She had BleachBit some of them, she had deleted some. And so Trump was cracking a joke because he was amused at all of the posturing that was going on.

So they play that video sound bite today, which has been debunked, it has been put in context for now three years. It happened during the 2016 campaigning. And they’re getting mileage out of it today and that was not refuted. All it would have taken when the Republican lawyer got his chance, “The Democrats have been reduced to taking out-of-context sound bites and failing to have a sense of humor,” and yet it hasn’t happened.

So to me this whole thing is not about fairness. It’s about how bogus this is. There isn’t any evidence. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s not a shred of evidence, and there has yet to be a witness who was asked, “Can you name for me the impeachable offense in the phone call?” who has answered. No hands have gone up. Nobody from the ambassadorial call, the ambassadorial corps, crew.

I mean, in fact, most of the witnesses were not even on the phone call, for crying out loud. We don’t have any direct witnesses. We’ve got second, thirdhand witnesses — and not a one of them has been able to identify an impeachable offense at any point when they have been asked point-blank.

There isn’t any evidence. The most you could say… I don’t even want to concede this, but our guys are. Our guys are conceding, “Well, the president may have overstepped here a little bit, but it’s not an impeachable offense.” That’s a defense, that he did it but it’s not something that rises to the level of impeachment? See, the truth of the matter is this is hurting the Democrats. The polling data still is moving in Trump’s direction. Let me give you the latest details. This is from Axios. This is a Millennial website.

By the way, have you heard the way Millennials are now arguing with Baby Boomers, their parents? No. They’re saying things like, “Is that all got, Boomer? Is that all you got, Boomer?” That’s what they’re say to their parents. That’s what they say to their grandparents. “Is that all you got, Boomer?” meaning Baby Boomers, that all you got, Boomer? Anyway, the Axios poll: “Impeachment Is Helping Trump in Three Key Battleground States —

“Quarterly polling by the Republican firm Firehouse Strategies, with Optimus, had President Trump struggling in the mega-battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — but in the newest edition, he beats every Democrat,” including Mayor Pete. What happens to these people if Mayor Pete wins Iowa and New Hampshire? What happens to ’em then? (chuckles) Let me tell you what this is about, and I am going to do everything but quote because I don’t have the words right in front of me.

Last Friday, Nancy Pelosi — or maybe it was Thursday.  I get the days missed up.  Her press conferences are on Thursday.  Nancy Pelosi said, “This isn’t even about Ukraine.  It’s about Russia.”  I said, “Wait a minute.  What happened to this whole thing being about Trump asking Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden?”  She said last week, “It’s not about Ukraine; it’s about Russia, and it’s about weakening Ukraine for Putin.”  It’s mind-boggling!

Ukraine got its financial assistance from Trump.  It has military defense capability now.  It never got that during Obama, and it was Biden that was playing games with them and engaging in quid pro quos and threatening if they didn’t do what Biden wanted, they weren’t gonna get the aid.  So Pelosi comes along and says, “It’s not even about Ukraine.  It’s about Russia,” and then we get to this today.  Do you know what this is about today?  Let me give you the overall theme.

Nadler has mentioned this and the Democrat witnesses who have spoken today have said, “This is about the fact that Trump meddled in the 2016 election.  This is about the fact that the 2016 election was illegitimate because the Russians meddled, and the 2020 election is going to be illegitimate because Trump is already meddling in it.”  So what these people are doing is casting aspersions on the integrity of our elections and our election system.

They — not Russia, not Ukraine, not the ChiComs. The Democrat Party is striking the perception of other than and integrity of our elections.  They are building a case today for continuing all of this when Trump wins in 2020.  They’re building a case today that the 2020 election is already illegitimate because of what Trump did in Ukraine.  They’re already laying the groundwork for when they lose to justify continuing all this and to try to continue to portray Trump as illegitimate because his elections are illegitimate.

Because both elections will have been tampered with. That’s what this is today.  Now, if I can say this and if I can see it, why isn’t it…? And it may well be pointed out by the time somebody figures it out later today.  Remember the pattern of these things is the Democrats get all of the show in the morning and then they get all of the benefit of the analysis after that.  Then there’s a lunch break.  Then the Republicans get their shot, and everything changes, the perception.

But there’s something else in the works today.  We’ve got the IG report coming today, supposedly at 1 o’clock.  Now, what’s gonna be happening at 1 o’clock?  My guess is the Republicans are gonna be presenting their case about 1 o’clock.  So the IG report’s gonna come out and give the networks an excuse to leave these hearings when the Republicans are making their case, and then go to the IG report where they’re gonna tell us, “There’s nothing here.  The investigation of the FBI of the president was totally warranted.

“There! It says so right there in the summary,” because nobody’s gonna have had a chance to read the whole thing.  There’s gonna be a little summary.  There always is a summary of these reports before the actual report.  You know, it’s like a big book.  You’ve got a summary, then the whole rest of the pages.  Nobody’s gonna read the rest of the pages.  They’ll read the summary, and they can say about it whatever they want to say, because this is nothing but a pack of lies. When you get right down to it, all these allegations against Trump are a series of lies.

They even acknowledged this, ladies and gentlemen. “The House Judiciary Committee released a report Saturday in which it argued that a president may be impeached for illegitimate motives even if his actions are legally permissible.”  That was to set up today.  They are going after Trump for what he may have wanted to do.  They’re going after Trump for what may have been in his mind. Even if what he was doing was legally permissible, he wanted to engage in some kind of illegality or crime.

This is the basis on which they are proceeding.  Now, we can go through a point by point rebuttal of all the points they’re making, but all that does is accept the premise of their point.  And I don’t think any of this is legitimate.  If you want my version of this, what’s illegitimate about all this is the Democrats and these hearings and this entire process.  That’s what’s illegitimate.  The 2016 election was totally legitimate.  It was totally fair.  The Democrats can’t get over it.

The 2020 election is gonna be totally legitimate and totally fair.  Oh, there might be some fraud, as there always is in local precincts — vote counting, dead people voting, that kind of stuff — but that’s not the Russians.  That’s local election officials doing that.  That’s always happened in our elections.  But the Russians? No foreign power can come in and change the outcome of a presidential election.  They can’t rig it!  Nobody can actually effectively rig an election.

Now, you can go in and you can let dead people vote and you can try to get illegal aliens to vote and all that. But, folks, that’s just as much a part of American elections as legal voting is.  It’s not good. Don’t misunderstand.  But there’s nothing new about that, and there certainly is not Russian meddling as part of it.  Our election in 2016? There’s not a single person that could allege a single vote was changed by virtue of what Russia did.  There’s no evidence nor is there an allegation that a single vote was changed, much less election outcome because of what the Russians did.

And no less than Robert Mueller himself said that in his indictment of the Russian troll farms during the era of his bogus investigation and forthcoming bogus report.  So the Democrat Party, it’s as though they know they’re gonna lose.  They have no way of beating Trump.  So the only hope they have is to make Trump illegitimate so that he can’t enact an agenda.  And even with that, Trump’s agenda is being enacted, and we’ve got an economy roaring like most Americans have never experienced in their lifetimes.

We have unemployment at a 50-year record low.  African-American, Hispanic, minority unemployment, ditto, record low.  Wages, every economic indicator is on the rise at almost unprecedented levels.  People are living it, and they know it.  The public sentiment on the economy, public confidence is also at near record highs.  This is what the Democrats are up against.  So all they can do… We’re reliving the eighties in the sense that we had the same kind of implementation of conservative supply-side economic theory/policy, and it is working like a champ.

And all the Democrats can do is try to delegitimize anything and everything associated with it, including Trump.  But this really is no more complicated than they just hate him, and they can’t get over the fact that he won, and they can’t get over the fact that they still can’t get rid of him.  And they can’t get over the fact that the media can’t get rid of him.  They can’t get over the fact that the deep state experts, best and brightest, haven’t been able to get rid of him.

Bill Taylor didn’t get rid of him.  Lieutenant Colonel Vindman — O say can you see — didn’t get rid of him. Yovanovitch wasn’t able to get rid of him.  Fiona Hill wasn’t able to get rid of him. (Fiona whatever her name is.)  They’re at their wits’ end.  Anyway, I guess it takes being outside Washington and outside this process to be able to see this, because my take on this, I have yet to hear anywhere on TV.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  In our remaining moments here, back to the polling data from the Axios story: “Impeachment Is Helping Trump in Three Key Battleground States.” In the newest edition of the Firehouse Strategies, with Optimus, poll, Trump beats every Democrat “by an average of six percentage points in hypothetical match-ups against all current Democratic candidates, including Joe [“Ukraine”] Biden… The poll found that a majority of likely 2020 voters surveyed do not support impeaching and removing Trump from office.”

What are the three states?  They are Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  Now, our media bigwigs are trying to make a big deal out of, “Well, none of these 31 members of Congress from Trump districts have asked Pelosi not to do this.  I guess they’re not too.”  We don’t know that.  We don’t know whether these people have asked Pelosi to shelve this or not.  There’s a whole lot that we do know. If these people, however, are willing to lie and edit the evidence, then to me the whole case is bogus, and there have been two video examples of it so far today.

[mystery-ak]

Bloomberg News Nightmare: Trump’s Winning

Dec 9, 2019



RUSH: There is another story — actually, I don’t know how this one got past Bloomberg. Bloomberg News said that they are going to not cover the Democrats anymore because their boss and founder is in the race, Michael Bloomberg. They were only gonna cover Trump. Remember that? They’re not gonna cover the Democrats because they don’t want to be accused of bias.

They don’t think they could go in there and be critical of any Democrat because Doomberg’s their boss. But no such problem exists covering Trump, so I’m kind of surprised this one made the cut.

Before I forget this, I saw a tweet. Well, that’s the wrong way to put it. I don’t read Twitter, I don’t go to Twitter. It is a sewer, as far as I’m concerned. It’s where you go to ruin and destroy your career. See Antonio Brown, if you want evidence.

So people send me things they see on Twitter. And so somebody sent me a tweet that Byron York put out there. And Byron York’s tweet was essentially: With a couple of more great economic reports like this in the next few months, the Democrats are set up perfectly for being able to start talking about a recession.

Now, let me ask you, why would that be the case? We’ve got a great jobs number last week, 266,000 new jobs, record low unemployment, three and a half percent, wages skyrocketing. Why would the Democrats be hoping for a couple of more of these? Because about, oh, next June, where else can you go but down? So if they start talking about a recession, if they start trying to persuade people that there’s nowhere to go but down now, yeah, the economy’s really trucking, but we can’t maintain these numbers with Trump’s policies. They’re gonna try to claim this is all the residue of the Obama presidency.

So I just want you to be on the lookout for that too. They’re gonna start talking. They may not wait for another good economic report. They may take this one and as their reaction to it, start promising, getting all of their economists and experts on all the cable news networks and start predicting the recession is imminent, an economic downturn is imminent, an economic downturn’s unavoidable because we can’t do any better than we’re doing now. So be prepared.

Now, what will be the answer to that? Well, that’s also easy, if you ask me. Biggest mistake in the world that people in this country could make would be to get rid of the administration and the ideas that created this economic circumstance. Why in the world would we want to go back to the party that tried to tell us that a declining U.S. economy was the new normal and that their job was to manage it and that you should lower your expectations? Because that’s what the Democrats are gonna be offering. Why would anybody want to go back to that?

Anyway, this story in Bloomberg. “Don’t Look Now, But Things Are Getting Brighter for Trump.” I got a note over the weekend from my good buddy Professor Hazlett who’s now at the University of Clemson. He’s a telecommunications law expert now and economist. When I met him, he was an economist at the University of California Davis way, way back there 1985 I think I met Professor Hazlett. He was back out in California near the UC Davis campus. And he said, “You know you go 10 miles east, you get to Dixon, California.” He said, “You wouldn’t recognize. There’s nothing but America-made cars there and look at this.” And he’s got a picture of a gigantic Ford F-150 with a Rush license plate on it, not bumper sticker, but a Rush license plate.

And then he said, “Are you responsible for convincing Pelosi to do this impeachment thing?” Meaning everybody knows it’s imploding on them. Everybody except those in Washington. By the way, I was out and about all weekend, and I had not one question about impeachment. Not one. Do you get questions about impeachment when you’re with people?

In fact, what I did get, some guy zooming past in a golf cart recognized me and stopped. “Hey, hey, you gotta get a message to Trump. You gotta tell him to tone it down. You gotta tell him to stop tweeting.” I said, “Oh, no, not this again.” So I explained to the guy why I thought that was not right, why I think Trump should keep being who he is. But nobody’s talking to me about impeachment.

And who better? I mean, if you care about impeachment and you had the chance to talk to me, you’d bring it up, right? Still nobody. Don’t misunderstand, folks. I’m not off in a dreamland about this. I understand it’s a television show and it’s on all the networks and there are people seeing it. I’m just… I had to turn it off today. It’s nothing but a pack of lies. It’s nothing but a series of falsely edited videos, misstatements, allegations of what the president’s thinking.

There’s not a shred of evidence, and there’s not an impeachable offense that anybody’s been able to identify. I know what this is all about. It’s a continuation of one plan and that is to get Trump on Russian meddling. And I just get frustrated when I see people on our side accepting the premise after premise after trying to refute a bunch of bogus allegations. I guess you have to do that. You know, it’s my own philosophy, the aggressor sets the rules. And Democrats are setting the rules here.

But I don’t know. It’s been going on for three years now and maybe even four, and, to me, it’s now patently obvious what’s going on, and it could be called out without having to be dealt with point by point by point. You know what the Republican defense has been so far today? “As Professor Turley said.” “As Professor Turley said.” “And as Professor Turley said.” Nothing against Professor Turley. Don’t misunderstand.

Anyway, the Bloomberg story. “Don’t Look Now, But Things Are Getting Brighter for Trump — Fears about the economy have quieted, and impeachment hasn’t been the body blow Democrats were hoping for.” Let me give you some pull quotes from the story.

“A year ago, the Federal Reserve was about to make its fourth interest rate hike. Stock markets were plummeting. Trump had just declared himself ‘Tariff Man,’ and the Mueller Report still seemed like it might be a mortal threat to his presidency.

Six months ago, fears of a recession were rising, driven by worries about Trump’s trade war and the effect it was having on jobs and economic growth.

“Today, things don’t seem nearly so bad. Friday’s blockbuster jobs report showed that 266,000 jobs were added last month and unemployment fell to 3.5%, trouncing even the most bullish forecasts and sending the S&P 500 soaring near another record high—of which there have been 26 this year.

“The economy appears to be in a much better place than experts feared: good news for an incumbent president heading into an election year. In its analysis of the November jobs report, Bloomberg Economics lowered its projection of 2020 year-end unemployment to an astounding 3.3 percent.”

They think this is gonna continue. So if the Democrats are gonna run around and start promising a recession in the midst of all this, what are they gonna be seen as?

Another pull quote. “Trump’s superpower is to polarize absolutely everything—it’s the key to his political survival. That’s how he got through the Mueller Report without incurring any meaningful Republican defections. Currently, there’s no reason to think he won’t be able to pull the same trick when the House and Senate vote on impeachment. So far, his poll numbers have barely budged.”

They’ve gone up. His approval numbers are going up. Another pull quote. “In politics, a year is a long time. Plenty can happen to turn a president’s fortunes around. But the latest economic data and polling numbers in states he needs to win reelection suggest the impeachment fight could end with Trump in better political shape than when it began.”

[mystery-ak]

Democrat Lawyer Takes Trump Out of Context Twice

Dec 9, 2019



RUSH:  I want to give you the examples from the hearings today that I cited for you in the first half hour of the program.  Both of these went uncommented on.  Both of these went unrefuted.  They were allowed to stand there and thus penetrate the minds of people watching.  Both have been exposed as bogus.  But the point is, every one of these examples is false.

These are edits and misinterpretations of Trump statements.  They are filled with misdirection, editing, and basically they are lies.  Now, if they are willing to do this, what does it say about the rest of their case?  Here’s Barry Berke, the opening speaker, Democrat counsel, in his opening remarks.  It’s audio sound bite number 4 in three, two, one…

BERKE:  President Trump has said the same thing in responding to the prior investigation by Department of Justice and defending his conduct.  Here’s what he said…

THE PRESIDENT:  … then I have in Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president…

BERKE:  That he has the right to do whatever he wants as president!  That is as wrong is when President Nixon said a similar thing.

RUSH:  He did not say that.  Oh, he said it.  He was talking about having the right, the constitutional authority to fire Robert Mueller or to fire James Comey.  Article 2 establishes that the president is exclusively in charge of the executive branch, and everything in the executive branch operates under his auspices.  If he wants to fire the U.S. attorneys, he can fire ’em.  If he wants to fire every ambassador, he can fire them.

If he wants to fire the FBI director, he can fire them — and that’s what he was talking about.  Twice.  Once was in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC.  This was in the Mueller report, when it came out that Trump wanted to fire Mueller and had ordered people to fire Mueller, but that Mueller had not been fired.  Stephanopoulos was playing typical Stephanopoulos tricks trying to make Trump look guilty for what he wanted to do, what he was thinking of doing.

Trump’s saying, “Look, it’s Article 2.  I can do whatever I want here.”  The Democrats have taken that one little bite totally out of context and are applying it to make Trump look like he wants to be a king, like he thinks he’s a king, like he can to tell Ukraine, “Investigate Biden or you’re not getting aid, and announce the investigation of Biden or you’re not getting aid.  I’m president.  I can do anything.”

If they’re making this up, if they’re taking this out of context — just like they took out of context the George Zimmerman 911 call in the Trayvon Martin case. They edit video all the time.  They edit audio all the time.  They do it to change the context and change the meaning.  Now, if they’re willing to do that here in an impeachment proceeding under oath… This guy was under… Wait a minute.  He wasn’t under oath, because Nadler couldn’t figure out whether this guy was a witness or a lawyer for the staff.

The bottom line is, they know full well Trump was not talking about being a monarch, that he was not talking about being a king.  He was talking about Article 2 powers as they relate to him being able to fire Mueller, fire Comey.  In this case, it was a specific interview about firing Mueller.  Now, this bite happened to come from a speech that Trump was making to a group called Turning Point USA, and it was about the same thing.

It was about his constitutional authority in Article 2 to fire Robert Mueller.  So, again, if they’re willing to do this, then how strong can their case be?  But the point is, it still hasn’t been refuted on TV in the committee hearings, unless the Republican lawyer has done it in this hour.  But it was not refuted when it happened.  It was not refuted.  There wasn’t an objection from the Republicans on the committee.  There wasn’t an objection from the Republican lawyer sitting right next to the Democrat lawyer lying about this.

I’ll guaran-damn-tee you if the Republicans tried something like this, the Democrats on the committee or the Democrat lawyer sitting next to the Republican lawyer would have stood up and shouted and said, “You’re lying; you’re making it up,” and they would have to gavel them quiet. But they would have still done it.  Now, the next example is audio sound bite number 4, and this one is so old that you’ve heard me use this I don’t know how many times.  This is Barry Berke again, the Democrat lawyer, and he is in his opening remarks.

He’s talking about Trump inviting Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails.

BERKE:  Let me show another clip from candidate Trump on the, uh, campaign trail.

THE PRESIDENT:  Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.  I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.

BERKE:  And Russia was listening! Within approximately five hours — five hours — of President Trump’s invitation to Russia to interfere in our election by trying to hack and obtain the emails of his political opponent, Russia, in fact, tried to do that for the first time! They took candidate Trump —

RUSH:  Stop the tape!  That is such a big lie, I don’t even know how to deal with it.  Hillary’s emails were already missing.  Nobody has accused the Russians hacking her emails.  That’s a DNC server.  Hillary deleted her own emails! Nobody has ever accused the Russians hacking Hillary.  She may have in her dreams later on.  She had 60,000 emails on her illegal server — well, illegally on her server — and she promised to turn ’em over to the State Department.

They only got 30,000.  There were 30,000 missing.  Everybody’s wondering where they were.  Trump is making a joke.  “Russia, if you’re listening maybe,” because the Democrats had Russia on their brain at the time.  So these are two glaring examples, and this one, “Five hours later, the Russians hacked Hillary Clinton’s email after Trump invited them to do it!”  Folks, if they’re willing to make this up, what does it say about the rest of their hopeless case?

[mystery-ak]

Huge! Durham Disputes the Horowitz Report

Dec 9, 2019



RUSH: The IG report is out. Nobody’s read it in detail yet, but they’ve presented a summary, and the Drive-By Media’s all over it. And let me tell you what it is. The FBI’s application for a FISA warrant to spy on a Trump campaign volunteer was perfectly fine. There was no political bias whatsoever on the part of McCabe or Comey or Strzok. Neither Comey nor McCabe nor Strzok showed any bias in their investigation. Oh, and a PS: Climate change is real and we all only have 12 years to live.

I told you this is what the IG report was gonna say. This guy’s a swamp rat. Now, here’s what it means. And, by the way, in a previous IG report James Comey — people have forgotten this. In a previous inspector general report on something — it was about, I think, the press conference he did with the Hillary Clinton emails. He was referred for criminal prosecution, and the DOJ refused to do it. Horowitz cannot charge anybody with anything. The IG cannot prosecute, cannot charge. All he can do is refer, suggest.

And he suggested in a previous report that Comey be charged. And the DOJ said, “Nah, not gonna do it.” Now, what this means — here’s a statement from Barr. “The inspector general’s report now makes clear the FBI launched an intrusive investigation and found 17 areas of misconduct in the FISA warrant application, that it launched an intrusive investigation into a presidential campaign on the thinnest of — this is Barr’s statement on the IG report. So what’s the conflict?

If Barr is saying that the IG report proves that the FBI launched an intrusive campaign into a presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions, then how can there be no political bias shown by Comey or McCabe or Strzok? Let me explain this to you. As I understand it, all that means is that Horowitz did not encounter a witness who said so. It doesn’t mean that there wasn’t. It just means he didn’t find any because nobody copped to it.

These IG reports are not what everybody thinks they are. It’s more like a watchdog, but there’s a protective — this is not BIA. This is not the Bureau of Internal Affairs. Do not be confused. Everybody associates the inspector general with the equivalent of internal affairs at a police department. It’s not the same at all. When the IG comes to do an investigation, nobody quakes in their boots. If internal affairs is after you, and you’re a cop, you’re not happy. And all it means is is that nobody admitted and no witnesses provided any evidence that there was any political bias.

So if the IG says to McCabe, “Were you motivated by political bias?” “Oh, no, not at all, Mr. Horowitz.” “Okay. Fine.” You can’t find any evidence for it because there wasn’t any testimony. As far as I’m concerned, just because he couldn’t find a witness — of course they’re all circling the wagons in there. You think they’re gonna spill the beans on each other? That’s for later. That is for the Durham investigation. And Barr’s statement here that the DOJ IG report makes clear the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a campaign on the thinnest of suspicions, that ought to reassure everybody. That’s the attorney general’s assessment of the report now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay.  A couple things happened during the break. So we’ll get to the phones here in just a second.  Mark Meadows has just spent two hours being shown and having reviewed for him the IG report.  He has two tweets.  First tweet: “I just got out of a nearly 2 hour briefing on the IG report. It is deeply disturbing. Some former FBI and DOJ officials are about to have some serious explaining to do.”  The second tweet: “And after reading this, it’s no wonder we’ve been seeing defensive leaks in the New York Times and CNN.

“And that the Democrats rushed to hold an impeachment hearing the same day,” to cover this up. “It’s every bit as bad as advertised. And certainly worse than the media has been suggesting.”  So it looks like the best they’ve got is to say that the IG couldn’t find any political bias to explain what happened.  But one of the things that the IG report details is that the FBI relied totally on the Steele dossier for the FISA warrant, and that they never cared who paid for it or whether it was verified.

That is damning.  That confirms so much of what many of us have known, that the dossier was all they ever had, that it was never verified. It was Hillary Clinton opposition research, and apparently the report mentions that that’s all they had to get the FISA warrant, and that the FBI knew that’s all they had. They knew that it was unverified and that they were not interested in who paid for it.  Now, how you get that without then concluding there was political bias, I don’t know.

Unless Horowitz can’t presume anything, and if nobody alleged it and if nobody admitted to bias, then he can’t report that there was any.  But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t some.  There have been. There have been defensive leaks now for the past three or four days suggesting the IG report, “Ah, nothing to see here.  This thing is gonna pretty much confirm that the investigation was legitimate and everything about it was okay,” and apparently that’s not the thrust of this report.

So it’s gonna be trickling out, and — exactly, by the way, as I predicted — Fox has dumped out of the hearings now to cover this.  CNN has not dumped out of the hearings to cover this, which is another indication that it’s not good.  If the IG report… If the IG report were a total exoneration, CNN would cut away from these impeachment hearings and go and report it, but they are not.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, an even bigger piece of news, if it’s possible.  The special counsel appointed by Attorney General Barr to look into the coup, John Durham, has issued a statement: “I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff.  However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department.”

What that means is exactly what I told you: The reason there’s no political bias found is that nobody that Horowitz talked to admitted any, and Horowitz can only talk to DOJ people.  He can only talk to people in the midst of this operation, Crossfire Hurricane, and of course none of them were gonna admit that they were politically biased.  So Horowitz reports that he found none.  But Durham says, “Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities…

“Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”  This is a slap in the face.  This is John Durham telling Horowitz (translated), “Your whole take on this is not true.  It’s not right.  We have more evidence than you’ve found.  We don’t agree at all with your conclusion that the beginnings of this were warranted and justified.”

That is why Barr’s statement today is as, shall we say, biting of the inspector general’s report as it is.  So again, John Durham — and let me say something about this, by the way.  Let me point something out.  Do you realize how unusual this is?  For example, during the Mueller investigation with all the wild-ass, crazy crap being reported, did he ever pop up and say, “No, no. That’s not right! No, no, that’s not right”?

Only one time.   It was almost near the end when BuzzFeed or some Millennial newsgroup reported something outrageous, and Mueller said, “That just isn’t true. We haven’t found that. We didn’t say that.”  For this guy, for John Durham — a fellow DOJ investigator — to issue a statement expressing abject disagreement with the conclusion in the IG report? That, my friends, is big.  That kind of thing doesn’t happen, but Durham felt compelled.

After reading the IG’s report and then measuring and balancing it against what he found, he felt compelled to issue a statement stating not that he just disagrees, but that he has way beyond what Horowitz has, and that’s why he disagrees.  There’s another reason this is happening.  I gotta be very careful pointing this out, however.  You don’t want to tell anybody I said this.  But that’s the political component of this.  Barr knows exactly what’s going on here. The whole thing, folks — every damn bit of this — is a political operation, is a silent coup political operation to get rid of Donald Trump.

Durham knows that his report’s not ready yet.  He’s got some time yet remaining, a lot of witnesses to go.  He’s got a grand jury, which means there are gonna be criminal indictments here, and he doesn’t want this… He and Barr both do not want this misleading conclusion from the inspector general to go unanswered in the public domain, for both legal and political reasons.  This is big.  This is a very, very good thing that Durham did this.

[mystery-ak]

Animal House Hearing: Witness Becomes Interrogator!

Dec 9, 2019



RUSH: Now, I want to go back to what’s happening in this — you know what? This hearing here, Animal House makes this look like I don’t know what. You know, the Dean Wormer investigation of the fraternity? Makes that look legit. You know what these people are doing? I’ll just give you one thing I just heard and it was during the top-of-the-hour break. The first witness that was called was a lawyer, Democrat counsel by the name of Berke, Barry Berke.

I’d not seen him before during any of this. I haven’t watched it all. And then after Berke, we had the Republican counsel, Mr. Castor. Then they take a break, and they go for questioning. And this guy Berke, the opening witness, is now questioning the Republican lawyer. And Louie Gohmert is beside himself. (imitating Gohmert) “What the hell? This is a violation of House rule 665(b)14(z), what the hell are you doing there? How can this guy go down there, be a witness, and show up and be your interrogator?”

And the Round Mound of the Gavel is pounding the gavel. “Gentleman will suspend. Gentleman will suspend.” And Louie is, “Well, what the hell did he have to pay to be able to do –” And you should have seen the look that Nadler gave Gohmert and said, “The gentleman will cease casting aspersions on members.” But this is so irregular, I cannot – (laughing) the opening witness now becomes an interrogator of the Republican. The Republican’s not gonna get called up there to be an interrogator, guarantee you, ’cause the Republicans didn’t think of it.

But then there was this. This guy Berke now is asking Goldman. Now, Goldman is Schiff’s lackey. Goldman is the MSNBC contributor who served as Schiff’s lawyer during his committee hearings. That would be the Intelligence Committee. This is the judiciary. So now this guy Berke is asking Goldman, “In your experience as an esteemed lawyer, is it usual that you can expect someone to tell someone that they’re actually breaking the law during the call?”

And Goldman says, “Well, in my experience as a lawyer defending all kinds of reprehensible characters, I think it’s highly unlikely that, say in this case, the president would say to Mr. Lazinsky, ‘Look, I’m gonna break the law by asking you a question here, and I want you to do it anyway.’”

It’s not even hearsay. It’s worse than that. They are manufacturing conversations that didn’t happen. They are assuming — so let me rephrase this — I wanna make sure the power of this is understood. The first witness is now the lawyer questioning the Republican and a new Democrat lawyer. And he gets to Goldman, the Democrat lawyer, and he says, “Okay. In your experience as a lawyer representing people, is it likely that a perp, say, who has ill intent would identify this ill intent to somebody he’s speaking with on the phone?”

And Goldman says, “My experience is, dealing with these kind of people, that someone breaking the law in the middle of a phone call does not advise the other person on the call that he is breaking the law. So it’s unlikely that President Trump would have admitted he was breaking the law when talking to President Zelensky.” What, even though we know he was? What is this? This is worse than Schiff making up the contents of a call. This is these two Democrats off in fairy land imagining something that didn’t happen based on their knowledge and experience in previous cases and how perps behave.

(doing imitation) “No, it’s highly unlikely that President Trump, in this case I know that’s who you’re asking about, it’s highly unlikely that President Trump would say to President Zelensky., ‘Look. I’m gonna do something here that’s illegal. I want you to ignore that, and I want you to do it anyway. I guarantee you it’ll be okay.’ In my experience, perps do not operate this way. People engage in criminal behavior do not admit it when they’re doing it.”

It’s entirely manufactured. This thing never happened — they’re now getting into what it is they think is the mind-set of this sick and evil Trump. This question did not call for any evidence. It called for hearsay, and it called for speculation on the part of the lead Democrat lawyer, pure speculation beyond hearsay in an effort to convince people watching that Trump knew he was engaging in illegal activity but he was smart enough not to tell Zelensky that he knew it was illegal.

But we all know it was illegal and he was doing it, and this is why there’s no evidence for Trump doing it is because perps do not admit it when they’re in the process. That’s what they’re trying — Trump’s guilty, he knew he was guilty, and because he didn’t say he was doing something illegal is how we know he was doing something illegal. That was the point these jerks were trying to make.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is the audio sound bite.  This is Louie Gohmert in disbelief that Nadler is allowing his first witness to then leave the witness chair and go back up to the committee chair and become an interrogator of witnesses.  This is how that sounded…

GOHMERT:  This is not appropriate to have a witness —

NADLER: (banging gavel) Does the gentleman have a point of order?

GOHMERT:  — be a questioner of somebody —

NADLER: (banging gavel) Does the gentleman have a point of order?

GOHMERT: — that was a witness when he was!

NADLER: (banging gavel) The gentleman will suspend. The… (sputtering)

GOHMERT:  It’s just wrong.  There is no rule nor precedent for anybody being a witness, and then getting to —

NADLER: (banging gavel) That is not a point of order. (banging gavel)

GOHMERT: — come up and question —

NADLER: (banging gavel) I have ruled and it’s not —

GOHMERT: — and so the point of order is he’s inappropriate to be up here asking questions.

NADLER:  That’s not a point of order!  He’s in accordance with Rule 66, with —

GOHMERT:  How much money do you have to give to get to do that? (chuckling)

NADLER: (banging gavel) The gentleman will not cast aspersions on members of the staff or the committee.  Mr. Berke has the time.

RUSH:  You should have seen the look that the Round Mound of the Gavel gave Gohmert when he said that. He stared him down.  Literally, folks, the first witness is now interrogating the Republican lawyer.  To the phones we go.  Federalsburg, Maryland, Mike, welcome to the program, sir.  Hello.

CALLER:  Hey, Rush.  Hello.  So tell me. These things are so outrageous. You’ve made the case time and time again. You spent your whole monologue talking about how outrageous is. It’s so over the top, you can’t even begin to explain what’s going on there.  We just hear a cut from Nadler gaveling down somebody over something that’s so absurd, it defies our imagination that it’s even occurring. And in the midst of all that — you’re right — you compare it to Animal House!  And I’m thinking, I put it to you, Rush: Exactly when do we see value out of this in the Republicans to continue being a part?  When do the Republicans need to walk away and say, “Enough is enough; we’re not gonna participate in it anymore”?

RUSH:  Well, you know, interestingly enough, there is a massive movement out there in social media for that exact thing to happen.  A lot of people are asking, “Why are the Republicans even giving this thing any dignity by being there?  This thing is such an obviously stacked deck. It’s not even a legitimate hearing. It’s nothing more than a political event with a bunch of hacks coming in advertised as witnesses and lawyers and so forth, that the Republicans ought to just get up and leave.”  I think it’s the optics of empty chairs that probably…

I would guess that they’ve discussed it.  I don’t know.  But I would guess it’s been discussed.  But they do lend it legitimacy by being there. Plus, I’m sure they feel they need to be there to help call out some of these outrages for people who are watching.  But give it the rest of the afternoon.  Remember the pattern here, ladies and gentlemen.  Remember the formula — and remember something else.  It’s hard to remember this, and even now some of you may disagree with my professional assessment here.  But this has blown up on them!

Every time they’ve gone public with any aspect of the Trump-Russia collusion coup, it has not gone well for them.  The Kavanaugh thing didn’t go well for them when they tried to take something made up public.  They finally put all their eggs in the Mueller basket.  There was nothing in the report.  There was nothing in the aftermath. So then they said, “We need Mueller, we need Mueller,” ’cause they had convinced themselves that the Mueller report did have things in it but that Bill Barr, the AG, had cornered the damn thing and had gone rogue on it and was misreporting what it said and that Bob Mueller was mad.

So they bring Mueller up to testify, and that blew up on them when he didn’t even know what was in his own report.  And now this, the polling data from these three battleground states, Trump’s approval numbers? It’s all on the rise.  You’re not alone when you see this thing as an abject circus.  The tendency is to think nobody else recognizes it.  The tendency is to think the Democrats are getting away with it.  But this hearing… I told you last week, they did this day on purpose to mask the IG report, to cover it up, to make sure it didn’t get any coverage in their house organs — CNN, New York Times, or what have yoBut this is a total circus, and anybody watching this… Remember, a lot of people watch cop shows now. A lot of people watch lawyer shows, a lot of people watch courtroom shows — and the amount of hearsay, the amount of speculation, the lack of any hard evidence here is abundantly clear.  The Democrats don’t have anything other than horror of the allegation, that Donald Trump was telling Ukraine to do an investigation of the Bidens or they wouldn’t get any money to defend themselves against Russia.

That’s pretty much the case, and that this is abuse of power and that it’s a cover-up and that Trump is obstructing Congress by not providing documents, instead going to court.  They don’t have anything when their lawyers have to lie about video excerpts they’ve edited, when their lawyers have to get into speculation and hearsay.  This is what raw hatred is.  It poisons you, folks, and these people are long gone.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  The full House voted last month, as part of their vote on the impeachment process, to allow Republicans to have a day of hearings.  And the Round Mound of the Gavel, Jerry Nadler, just denied them that, even after the full House voted last month to allow it.  Reuters has the story: “U.S. House Judiciary Chair Rejects Republicans’ Bid for Impeachment Witnesses.”

So Nadler’s not even allowing Trump witnesses at this hearing today, even after the Republicans had been promised — after a full House vote — that those witnesses could be called.  From the article: “The Democratic head of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee,” the Round Mound of the Gavel, today “rejected Republican lawmakers’ request for eight witnesses to appear as part of the panel’s impeachment inquiry…

“The requested witnesses fall ‘outside the parameters of the impeachment inquiry,'” said Nadler. So in addition to all of the other outrages happening today, Jerry Nadler has denied a full House vote that permitted the Republicans a chance to call eight witnesses.  Nadler says today that after he found out who the witnesses are, that they are outside the purview.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Right now I just heard a smidgen of it, but Doug Collins seems to be moving in for the kill on Daniel Goldman, the MSNBC lawyer for the Democrats here, asking how the media was tipped off on various subpoenas and who did that. And Goldman, “I don’t think that’s how he did it, sir.”

“Oh, don’t give me that.” And then I had to come back here to the busy broadcast. So we’re finding this stuff as it goes, and again I just want to remind you the pattern. In the afternoon the entire tone of all this changes once the Republicans get their go at these people. And that’s a little bit of what’s happening now.

The Democrats, the bottom line is, they’ve got nothing. They’re standing on quicksand, essentially, as their foundation, and they are relying on their symbiotic relationship with the mainstream media to use the first two to two and a half hours of these hearings every day as long as they’ve been going on to make the case, and then they’re banking on the fact that what happens after the lunch break is not gonna be seen by nearly as many people, and even if it is it’s not gonna be reported on by the Drive-By Media. But these people are being made to look like amateurs here this afternoon. In addition to the tricks they’re playing by having an opening lawyer as a witness then go up and start questioning the Republican.

Now, here is the actual exchange between Barry Berke — he’s the first Democrat witness who then Nadler calls up to the committee as the counsel. So a witness who got a 30-minute opening statement uncontested and then got 30 minutes of questioning by Democrats now is up on the committee sitting next to Nadler asking questions. It’s unprecedented. A witness then becomes interrogator.

And here is the exchange where this lawyer, Barry Berke, talking to the MSNBC lawyer Goldman, this is the pure speculation hypothetical, projection, everything. It is a question — and they’re just making things up. This is the segment where they’re discussing how just it never happens that felons and lawbreakers tell other people that they’re breaking the law at the time they’re doing it. Not in my experience. It just doesn’t happen. Here’s the exchange. It runs about 36 seconds.

BERKE: Would you agree that if President Trump was acting corruptly, wrongfully, abusing his power, that it was unlikely he was gonna confess to President Zelensky that he was asking for the investigation explicitly to help his 2020 election prospects?

GOLDMAN: My experience is 10 years as a prosecutor you almost never have a defendant or someone who’s engaging in misconduct who would ever explicitly say, in this case, “President Zelensky I’m going to bribe you now,” or “I’m going to ask for a bribe,” or “I am now going to extort you.” That’s not the way these things work.

RUSH: A, that didn’t happen. B, they’re making it up. And because Trump didn’t do this, they’re saying he’s guilty of it. Because he didn’t do it proves his guilt. Let’s go back to the question. “Would you agree –” this is asking for an opinion, not a fact witness, this is just some guy that doesn’t even know Trump, the guy’s not in Trump’s orb, he is a Trump hating liberal Democrat hack lawyer from MSNBC who, by the way, was at the Southern District of New York during the Bush administration. “Would you agree that if President Trump was acting corruptly –” If? You mean, you still can’t go beyond if yet? And how many weeks in are we?

You have to parse this stuff, folks. I’m the guy that sees the stitches on the fastball here, and the curveball as well. “Would you agree that if President Trump was acting corruptly, wrongfully, abusing his power, that it was unlikely he was gonna confess that to President Zelensky, it was unlikely that he was asking for the investigation explicitly to help his 20 –” so what they’re getting at here since Trump didn’t do this, he’s obviously guilty of it.

Since he did not abuse his power, since he did not tell Zelensky that he wanted dirt on Biden for his 2020 campaign (imitating Goldman), “Oh,” says Goldman, “Oh, no, my experience, 10 years as a prosecutor, you almost never have –” Almost never? “– have a defendant who would ever explicitly say, ‘President Zelensky, I’m gonna bribe you.’” This is as bad as Schiff making up the transcript of the phone call.

These two guys don’t know anything on this phone call beyond that transcript. But they’re assuming that Trump is meddling in the 2020 election asking Zelensky. But he didn’t admit it. One of the defenses, “Trump didn’t ask this guy for any help.”

“Well, in your experience would a perp ask and identify that he’s trying to bribe the guy?”

“No, my experience is that people engaging in bribes don’t actually say that’s what they’re doing.” BS. I don’t know a person alive who’s being bribed that doesn’t know that it’s happening to them. You ever been blackmailed? You ever been bribed? You know it, right, when it happens to you? But these guys are, “Poor Zelensky, Trump wouldn’t tell him he was engaging in –”

But beyond that, it’s all made up. It’s all speculation, and this MSNBC lawyer is answering it on the basis of his 10 years of experience as a prosecutor. “You almost never have a defendant.” Trump’s a defendant now. “Oh, yeah, you almost never have a defendant engaging in misconduct who would ever, ever say, ‘Hey, Zelensky, I’m breaking the law, I’m bribing you, buddy. But I can’t tell you that, all right?’” It’s hopeless. These guys are slime, folks, they’re just abject slime. They are slugs.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is the exchange between the ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee Doug Collins today, Republican, Georgia.  He’s speaking to the Democrats’ MSNBC lawyer, Daniel Goldman.  He said, ” Somebody took the phone records that you asked for, took those numbers, then said, ‘Let’s play Match Game.'” By the way, is not amazing that the same people telling us that we can’t find out who the whistleblower is, that we must protect the identity of the whistleblower…?

“We have a moral duty to protect the identity! Why, the Trump administration might kill the whistleblower!” The same people unmask the phone numbers of Devon Nunes and John Solomon and others, same people! Adam Schiff. The same slimeballs.  So this is what Collins is asking about to the MSNBC lawyer.  “Somebody took the phone records that you asked for, took those numbers, then said, ‘Let’s play Match Game.’  Who ordered the Match Game from the members of the Congress and the press?  Was that you?”

GOLDMAN:  I don’t think anyone did, sir.

COLLINS:  Then how did you get them…? Okay, come on. That’s the most ridiculous item I’ve ever heard.  Who ordered them to actually match from members of Congress and the press?  Was it you or was it Chairman Schiff that said, “While we’re doing this, let’s see if this matches Chairman Nunes’ number”?  Somebody along the way just didn’t all of a sudden have an epiphany, unless you’re getting ready to throw a low-level staffer under the bus. So who did it? Was it chairman Schiff or was it you?

GOLDMAN: Ummm. (stammering)

COLLINS:  Be careful.  You’re under oath.

GOLDMAN:  I — I — I know I’m under oath, sir.

COLLINS:  Then answer the question.

GOLDMAN:  It doesn’t matter, and I will answer the question if you give me a second here. It’s not a simple answer.

COLLINS:  The same second that was not afforded to my witness, by the way.

GOLDMAN: (crosstalk) the questions.

COLLINS: Who decided to leak it, by the way? And while you’re thinking about how you’re going to answer that question — who decided to leak it, the information — why did you include it in the report?

GOLDMAN: That’s not a leak, sir.

COLLINS:  Who ordered it?

GOLDMAN: (silence)

COLLINS: Was it you or was it Chairman Schiff, and then why was it decided — except for nothing but smear purposes — to be included in the Schiff report?

GOLDMAN: (stammering) I — I — I’m not going to get into the deliberations of our investigation with you.

RUSH:  Right.  “I have nothing to tell you here.”  They want to know how the hell did these phone numbers get matched up to people.  Who did it?  Who authorized it, and then who released, ’cause it’s in Schiff’s report? This guy will not answer. (impression) “I’m not gonna get into discussions of our investigation with you.”  They got caught again, and they just will not explain how and what and why they did anything they’re doing.