RUSH: Anyway, Scarborough said, “Do you expect Rush Limbaugh to be charged with any crime by the Palm Beach prosecutor’s office in the near future?”
BLACK: The problem we have, Joe, is I’ve talked to them a number of times, and for ten months they had absolutely no interest in Rush at all. They understood his situation but once this hits the news, once it hits the Enquirer, once it gets carried around the country, they have candidly told me they have been inundated with e-mails and calls and letters, and now they feel they have to do something. And that’s why you see this continuous switch from one thing to the next, and now they’ve latched onto this alleged doctor shopping as sort of their way to make it look like they’re doing something with Rush Limbaugh. But let me tell you, there’s absolutely no basis for any prosecution here, let alone for this doctor shopping statute.
RUSH: Next question was, “Roy, how do you know, I mean what information do you have to tell that Mike Edmondson may be the one leaking these stories from the prosecutor’s office?”
BLACK: Well, through a sort of a slip, one of the reporters actually told us that Edmondson was the one planting these stories in the press. As soon as I heard that, I immediately fired off a letter to Barry Krischer, who is the elected state attorney in Palm Beach County, asking for an internal investigation to determine whether that was true or not. Edmondson then conveniently went on vacation for a period of time, but now he’s apparently back. By leaking stories, by leaking information about this particular statute, there is a subsection of it that makes it a crime to do that. We have continually asked that this be investigated, but we have yet to receive the courtesy of a reply.
RUSH: Then Scarborough says this. “Of course do you have any information from any reporters down there where these leaks are coming from? I mean is it this guy? Do you think it’s the prosecutor’s office plus other sources outside of that?”
BLACK: No, no, I think it’s coming directly from this one gentleman in the Palm Beach County state attorney’s office who was continually planting these stories in the press, did it with ABC News, did it with the Palm Beach Post, with even MSNBC so we know it’s happened a number of times. As I said we’ve asked for an investigation. None has been conducted as of this date.
RUSH: Scarborough says, “In all of your years of practicing law, Mr. Black, and you’ve obviously represented some very high profile clients, have you ever had a client who faced so much public scrutiny by the prosecution and the press before he was ever charged with a single crime, with a criminal count, a single one?”
BLACK: Well, there’s no question that this is somewhat unprecedented, but the medical records issue in this case is even more unprecedented. They have gone to lengths that I don’t think they have done with anybody else that I’ve seen in my 33 years practicing law, particularly for someone who’s not charged or not suspected of some outrageous crime, but for going into rehab, for admitting he had an addiction problem, and this is the kind of scrutiny and investigation he gets? I think this is totally uncalled for.
SCARBOROUGH: Why? Why is he facing this scrutiny? Is it because he’s such a huge talk radio super star or do you think there may be a political element to it?
BLACK: Well, what they’ve told me is that they’ve gotten this sort of overwhelming public response, that, you know, he’s a celebrity, people want to see things done, so I’m sure that at one side of the political spectrum is certainly sending in their wishes to the state attorney’s office asking that something be done about Rush, and I think that’s why they’re pushing ahead with it. They told me originally they had no interest in him. They knew that he just was dependent on medication because of his medical problems, he volunteered that he had a problem, and went into rehabilitation, with everybody else that ends the matter. In fact, there’s a Democratic state senator in this state who was caught forging prescriptions. She went to rehab and they dismissed the entire matter against her. There is clearly a double standard when it comes it Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: You know, when he said that last night, I’d forgotten this, but I guess three weeks or a month ago now the South Florida Sun-Sentinel out of Ft. Lauderdale had this big story about this state senator, Florida State senator, Democrat, praising her to no end for her courage and her stick-to-itiveness. She was going to be prosecuted, charged, whatever, under the same statute these people are trying to get hold of my medical records. She was forging prescriptions for painkillers, and they diverted her to what’s called Florida drug court, 18 months of rehab and probation and she finished that and the judge said, “You have done a great job here.” The story just praised her to no end, and that’s what Mr. Black here is talking about, they dismissed the entire matter, there clearly is a double standard when it comes to me, is what he said. I mean, that story just in the last three or four weeks, Florida State senator Democrat.
Then, Scarborough says, “Roy, you know the number one priority for a lot of defense attorneys is to keep their client’s mouth shut. How hard is it for you as an attorney to get a client like Rush who has this incredible audience and this ability to communicate, how hard is it to keep him quiet?”
BLACK: Well, Joe, Rush and I made a deal at the beginning of the case, he doesn’t tell me what to do in court and I don’t tell him what to do on his radio show. So Rush is going to say what Rush wants. I mean, the man is incredibly focused on doing a show, his research skills are amazing. This is a guy who I really enjoy representing, and I really can’t give him a lot of advice on how and what to say in his radio show. So it can be a little frustrating because lawyers don’t like their clients talking about anything regarding the case, but I certainly can’t say that, anything like that to Rush.
RUSH: Now, there was more to this and we’ve posted the whole interview, it ran the whole half hour, NBC ran all their commercials at the beginning of the program so there were no commercial interruptions for this interview. It actually went from about 10:08 or 10:10 to 10:30 last night. We’ve got the whole thing posted at RushLimbaugh.com on the free side of the website [see top of page].
Before we go to break, yesterday afternoon I was watching the U.S. attorney who had arranged the plea deals for the Fastows in the Enron case. And this guy was all excited about the work they had done, and his name is James Comey, and I want to you hear what he said at his press conference about Enron and what they’re trying to do to solve or complete their investigational work on that case.
COMEY: Every corrupt corporate executive better spend some time looking over their shoulder, because the hallmark of the president’s corporate fraud task force has been its ability to climb the corporate ladder rung by rung, using the cooperation of those one step below. We make these cases like we do mob cases and drug cases. We pursue aggressively those lower down and try to obtain their cooperation to move up and up and up and today’s plea does just that.
RUSH: Well, I’m at the very bottom. They have immunized the people who are up and up and up to go lower and lower and lower in my direction. That’s why I wanted you to hear that.