RUSH: I do want to share with you something I just got. Philip Bump is a national correspondent for the Washington Post, and he just tweeted three things. He’s looked at this and he thinks there’s nothing here, or very little. He said: “Put together a timeline on what Sessions did and said, and am now thinking that Dems are overplaying their hand.”

Next tweet. “I talked to two former federal prosecutors. Sessions will not face perjury charges based on the evidence at hand.”

Next tweet: “I’m starting to think a lot of perceptions of the facts in the Russia-Trump question are colored by partisanship.”

Philip Bump, a reporter for the Washington Post. That last one, “I’m starting to think that a lot of perceptions of the facts in the Russia-Trump question are colored by partisanship.” You think! You think that might be, huh? I’m sorry to be yelling here, folks. When you’ve got a story right here that says, according to the New York Times, Obama White House officials waged a campaign to procure, save and disperse classified intelligence regarding Trump associates’ contacts with Russians.”

Essentially the Obama administration sabotaged Trump’s transition to the White House. They were doing this during the transition. While Obama’s talking about, “I want the smoothest transition in the history of transitions,” he was sabotaging it even then. New York Times story doesn’t say that; it confirms it. And so what’s given rise to all this is this hissy fit that the Democrats are having over Sessions. They think they’ve got a scalp here, and they don’t. And at least one reporter for the Washington Post has looked at it. There’s a Reddit timeline that I’m gonna try to translate to radio.

What a Reddit commenter did was take some — I think it’s what he’s talking about here when he’s referring to the timeline, things that Sessions did and said versus how they’re being reported; and they don’t add up. And what’s also being ignored here that I have to mention again, Jeff Sessions, we were talking about character and achievement and genuineness earlier. Jeff Sessions is a fine human being. He’s a decent man. He is a lawyer. He takes it seriously. He was a judge in Alabama.

The idea that this man is out publicly, openly, invisible breaking the law, the assumption there is offensive to me. Remember what they did to Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame leak thing. Some of this stuff is just reprehensible. And if you note what they’re doing is trying to destroy the closest advisers and some of the most trusted that Trump has.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, Jeff Sessions and this Washington Post story. I’m gonna do my best to explain what this — because this is really a classic illustration of fake news. Now, the Washington Post story is essentially that Jeff Sessions, during his confirmation hearings, lied under questioning by Senator Franken that he did not disclose that he had talked to the Russians during the Trump campaign. Well, yeah, that sounds pretty earth-shattering. But the details, when you get into it, and the context is this: The entire exchange with Al Franken was in the context of that ludicrous Trump dossier.

Can I refresh your memory on something? BuzzFeed published a dossier — that’s a big, fancy word for intelligence that had been gathered. This was the dossier that mentioned Trump and golden showers. Do you remember the golden showers? This is where Trump had gone to Moscow, and he had rented the same hotel suite that Barack and Michelle Obama had once occupied and that he hired prostitutes to urinate on the bed. That is the golden shower.

It was revealed on practically the same day that nothing in the dossier was true! It, instead, was created by intelligence officials to try to show Trump an example of the kind of stuff that could be out there that he should be aware of. At the time Trump was saying he didn’t think he needed to meet with the intelligence people every day because he’s a smart guy and has a good memory.

And of course the intelligence people want to be central in any regime and I’m sure many of them are patriots, and they were making the case, “No, you need to talk to us.” And they put together this dossier of fake intel as an example to Trump of the kind of stuff that could end up being out there that would be better if he knew. And so they created all of these phony events. And this dossier had been circulating Washington all last summer.

The New York Times and the Washington Post desperately wanted to run it but they didn’t dare because they knew it wasn’t true. It didn’t have anything in it that had actually happened. Well, BuzzFeed, the online news service, decided to go ahead and publish it with the caveat that none of it has been confirmed, none of it could be confirmed, we haven’t been able to substantiate any of it, but it’s so bad we think you should see it and decide for yourself.

This was outrageous. It was not news. It wasn’t even close to news. It was pure fake news. It was a manufactured, invented document with fake events. They just wanted it out there because they knew they could make some portion of this country believe it was true, because people believe what they see written down on a website. They believe what they see written on the pages of a magazine or newspaper. So they wanted it out there.

When BuzzFeed put it out, it gave everybody else the opening to put it out there. And they did. And it became top-drawer subject matter for two or three days. Many of us did the best we could in telling people what it was, a completely manufactured document of examples of the kind of thing Trump could expect to see as president and why he needed to talk to intel people so that some of it could be explained and he’d be told which stuff to be concerned about and which stuff not to be. So it’s out there.

So it’s time for Sessions’ confirmation hearings. And on the committee interviewing him is one mental midget by the name of Al Franken. And Al Franken’s questioning, his interrogation of Sessions focused largely on what was in this dossier. It turns out that all of the information in this dossier was disinformation paid for by Hillary campaign operatives, and they were the ones claiming that Trump had hired to urinate on the bed that Michelle and Barack had slept on in Moscow. The Democrats, in fact, are still trying to use that dossier to make allegations about Sessions.

“Democrats and the media are once again targeting Attorney General Jeff Sessions — this time, over allegations that he met twice with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 presidential campaign. The Washington Post reports that Sessions met Sergey Kislyak once at a Heritage Foundation event –” (laughing) Are you kidding me? He met him in Washington. Sessions was at a conservative think tank and the Russian ambassador was there and Sessions is engaging in espionage?

Other ambassadors were also present at this Heritage Foundation event in July, and it also reports that Sessions “that Sessions met with Kislyak in his Senate office in September, in his capacity on the Senate Armed Services Committee.” He didn’t meet with him as a representative of the Trump campaign! This is where the Claire McCaskill tweets come in. She says (paraphrasing), “Nobody ever meets with Russian ambassadors. I never did.” And we find two tweets where she did and bragged about it.

Now, the hook, if you will, my friends, the hook on which the Washington Post is attempting to hang Jeff Sessions is that he didn’t disclose these meetings with the Russian ambassador to the Senate when he was asked about, quote, possible contacts between members of Trump’s campaigns and representatives of Moscow. Sessions said, “I haven’t spoken to anybody about the campaign.”

Sessions’ spokesperson at the Department of Justice says that Sessions’ answer in January “was truthful because he was asked about ‘the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee.’ The Post does not provide the full transcript of the question, from Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), and Sessions’s answer. Instead it summarizes the exchange in a way that makes it seem that Sessions was asked if there was any contact at all between the campaign and representatives of the Russian government. In fact, what Sessions was asked about was sustained, ongoing communications — a core accusation in the dubious ‘dossier.'”

Now, I just sent this up to Koko at RushLimbaugh.com. There is a timeline of this. What I just said to you, the Post does not provide the full transcript of the question from Franken and Sessions’ answer. Instead it summarizes, well, this has been displayed graphically with comments in red in the left-side margin of the Washington Post story. It’s a screenshot from Reddit. I have sent it up to Koko, and I told him, you post this if I talk about it. Well, I’m talking about it, so Koko is gonna post it.

I have it right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. This is one of these things, it’s like reading numbers. I’d have to read you two sentences which you would have to remember while I read to you the example of how they cut it up and excerpted it. The point is that you can see it at RushLimbaugh.com very quickly. We’ll put it up there where you can’t miss it.

What happened here is the Washington Post, in reporting this, knowingly tried to make it look like Sessions was asked about contact with the ambassador during the campaign and lied about it, when in fact Sessions was asked about this as a member of the Foreign Service committee. That’s the terms in which he met the ambassador, both times were in his role as a senator on the Armed Services Committee, not as a member of the Trump campaign.

And this is why Philip Bump at the Washington Post is now tweeting: “I put together a timeline on what Sessions did and said and I’m now thinking the Democrats are overplaying their hand.” It’s because largely of this Reddit thread, but it’s more detailed than even what’s here on Reddit. He says, “I talked to two former federal prosecutors. Sessions won’t face perjury charges based on –”

The reason he won’t is because Sessions was being asked pointless, foolish questions by Franken on this dossier, and Sessions never met with the Russian ambassador as a member of the Trump campaign. It was always in his capacity as a senator on the Armed Services Committee, which the Washington Post story obscures. And then the New York Times comes along and piggybacks on this to advance the narrative that Sessions lied, that Sessions now has to recuse himself because he’s been corrupted by his lies.

And that “Sessions might not even want to be attorney general anymore because this is just beyond the pale because there’s an investigation that the Russians hacked and tampered with the election, and he talked to them about it and Senator Sessions lied about it to Franken.” All of this is made up! But, folks, I have to tell you, I’m uncomfortable even explaining this to you because it means I’m falling for the narrative. That’s why I saved this to the third hour. (interruption) What? You don’t think I should be…? (interruption)

Well, no, but if people are just tuning in, I’m not falling for the narrative. I’m just giving the backstory now. I led off this program the first two hours on what the story here really is. The story is not Jeff Sessions. The story is not the Trump campaign. The story is not the Russians hacked the election. The story is not the Trump campaign was working with the Russians. The story is the effort by Barack H. Obama — and the Democrat Party and the New York Times and Washington Post — to sabotage the Trump presidency.

That is the story — and, frankly, it really disappoints me to see all of these elected Republicans simply sign on with this idea that Sessions needs to get out of the way and that we need to really investigate this, because that helps obscure what the real story is here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay grab sound bite number 7. I’ll squeeze it in here. Al Franken. This is back on January 10th. Here’s the question. He’s asking about this silly, manufactured dossier that has nothing but BS in it.

FRANKEN: These documents also allegedly say, quote, “There was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.” If it’s true, it’s obviously extremely serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?

SESSIONS: Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.

RUSH: “I did not have communications with the Russians, but I’m unable to comment on it.” That’s because he had communications with them as a senator on the Armed Services Committee at a Heritage Foundation function! Franken’s question was specifically about surrogates, campaign surrogates — which he wasn’t — meeting with the Russians about the election, which he didn’t do. The Washington Post says Sessions lied. Franken’s asking questions related to this dossier, folks, that is made-up BS. There’s nothing in it that’s been true. It’s been totally, totally, he give until the has been rejected as made up. Now, here’s Sessions this morning in Washington speaking with reporters about the allegation he spoke with the Russian ambassador about the Trump campaign.

SESSIONS: Well, I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign, and those remarks are unbelievable to me and are false, and I don’t have anything else to say about that. But thank you.

REPORTER: What about the calls to recuse yourself from the…? Uh, your agency’s probe of the…?

SESSIONS: Well, I said that whenever it’s appropriate, I will recuse myself. There’s no doubt about that.

RUSH: He didn’t talk to the Russians about the campaign! They’ve got no evidence that he did talk to the Russians as a campaign surrogate or about the campaign. This again, folks… (chuckles) This is so much smoke. There isn’t any evidence that any of this happened! This is the most mind-boggling thing to me. Just like there wasn’t any evidence that George H. W. Bush flew to Paris on an SR-71 to meet with the Iranians to make sure the hostages were kept hostage until Reagan was elected.

We’re talking about the same kind of stuff here. Trump, by the way, has said that he doesn’t think that Sessions should recuse himself from any investigation and that he has total confidence in Sessions. Now, Trump, at the moment, is aboard the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier in Newport News, Virginia. I just hope that carrier doesn’t bump into something while he’s on it. We… Well, it’s the Gerald Ford.