RUSH: I was thinking last night: If only we had Barack Obama or John Brennan around to call up these guys and warn them about the consequences of meddling in elections. Obama said he told Putin to “cut it out” and Brennan said yesterday that he told the Russians to stop it.

Meddling in our elections. Too bad these guys have never called terrorists and told them to stop meddling in elections, because that’s who really is meddling in elections in the U.K. and in France. And there is far more evidence of ISIS doing election meddling than there is of Russia. The Russian meddling, by the way, has now been reduced to charges of Russian online trolls retweeting questionable stories about Hillary. They’re slowly distancing themselves from the narrative that the Russians colluded with Trump and that the Russians hacked the election.

They’re trying to distance themselves, and you’ll hear how. It’s even worse than I thought yesterday in terms of the fringe lunatic base of Democrat voters really having bought into all this and believing that… In fact, Al Franken! Al Franken had to go on TV or somewhere and tell his supporters that Trump will not be impeached this month. Trump will not be impeached this month. He had to back them off. They have been expecting Trump to be impeached ever since it was announced that Comey was gonna go up there and testify, which has also been delayed.

Now, speaking of our vaunted intelligence services, did you hear Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, yesterday told a House committee that he was concerned that the Russians might be able to turn some of Trump’s people — in other words, corrupt them — and convert them into spies for the Russian Federation. That’s why, Brennan said, the CIA and the NSA had to monitor them. Now, to me, this is new. This is Brennan. This is the Obama administration suggesting they were worried the Russians were gonna convert a bunch of dimwitted Trump associates into spies.

Therefore, they were so worried about that that they had to start monitoring everybody in case that had happened. Who are we talking about here, that the Russians might turn? One of them is a United States general who was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. That would be Michael Flynn. Michael Flynn was also an adviser to Obama. And we’re talking about Carter Page, a Naval Academy graduate who is an associate of Trump way, way out in the periphery. Those are the two people that Brennan said the Obama administration was worried the Russians might turn and convert into spies.

This is the same John Brennan who voted for the Communist Party candidate for president in 1976, Gus Hall. You know when it sounds like to me, folks? It sounds to me… When you read between the lines of what Brennan was saying these past couple of days, it sounds to me like Brennan acknowledged they were spying on the Trump campaign and individuals in it.

I think that’s the story, that’s the news, and the unmasking of people that they were spying on? This is not about the Russians. This is about Obama’s administration spying on Trump starting last July, and all of this is a giant construct to deflect attention from what was happening at the Obama administration to make everybody focus on what the Russians were supposedly doing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Did you hear yesterday in all the double-talk that Brennan was using, he said that there was no evidence of any collusion, but there was a basis to start a CIA-FBI investigation. Now, what would the basis be if there’s no evidence? There’s no evidence, but there was a basis. No evidence! He’s just the latest in a long line of officials in the intelligence community, in Congress, and the Obama administration who say there’s no evidence of collusion.

Trump-Russians? No evidence the Russians tampered with votes. But there was a basis to start an investigation. Do you know what it was? Do you know what it was? Trump’s joke! When Trump said/put out a call, “Hey, Russia, maybe you can find 30,000 emails by Hillary Clinton that nobody can’t find…” That joke. I kid you not! That joke and the dossier that was totally made up, like Trump hire prostitutes to urinate on the bed that Obama slept it in Moscow. Those two things are the bases to start all of this. Trump telling a joke.

I’ve told you the left has no sense of humor, and they don’t. And I’ve seen it a thousand times! People on the left really believe that Trump was sending a message to the Russians to hack Hillary’s server. We were way past that when this happened. Hillary had already done something with 60,000 of her emails. Thirty thousand she turned over to the State Department; 30,000 she deleted. She said they were irrelevant, but they were somewhere.

Kim Dotcom was saying he had ’em or could get ’em. Everybody was wondering where they were. Trump, at a press conference, made a joke, a typical Trump joke, “Hey, Russia!” It’s the kind of thing I would do, and I laughed myself silly. That is one of the bases for starting this whole cockamamie thing. By the way, in all these leaks of Trump phone calls, why aren’t there any leaks of Trump phone calls and collusion with Russia?

BREAK TRANCRIPT

RUSH: This is Greg in Sloatsburg, New York. Glad you waited. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. It’s an honor.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Rush, I’d like to make two points. One is regarding Americans colluding with the Russians. The only actual proof we have of Americans colluding with the Russians involves the people in charge of the DNC. When the FBI informed the DNC leadership that they were being hacked, the DNC didn’t take action for six months. James Clapper testified about this.

Of the 27,500 emails that were hacked, 27,000 were sent between August of 2015, which is when they were informed by the FBI that they were being hacked, and the spring of 2016 when they finally took action. The DNC wouldn’t let the FBI assist with the hack. It makes you wonder, what’s on the server? The only people who don’t call the police when they’re being ripped off are the criminals. Why wouldn’t they let the FBI help?

RUSH: We’ve been asking that question for many moons here. Instead they hired an independent contractor called Crowdsource to come in and do the forensic investigation of their network and their servers.

CALLER: Right. And I have one more point I’d like to make and it’s about the investigation.

RUSH: Right on. Go ahead.

CALLER: In the U.S., we’re allowed to be suspicious. Certainly with an antagonistic country like Russia we need to use extra caution, but the laws still apply. Law enforcement needs an articulable suspicion in order to detain you or start an investigation. You can stand on the street corner at 3a.m. in a clown suit, something that’s suspicious, but that’s not grounds for the law enforcement people to begin an investigation. They’re not gonna get a warrant for that. If you walk into a bank wearing a mask, that’s an articulable suspicion. But, you know, we haven’t heard anything; and Washington leaks like a sieve. If they had any grounds for an investigation, I guarantee you we would have heard about it by now.

RUSH: Well, that’s one of the points I made — thank you — a minute ago about with all of these transcripts and all the recordings of Trump’s phone calls with the presidents of Mexico and now the Philippines and wherever and whoever else, with all of these investigators and all of these embeds in the deep state, why isn’t there substantive evidence in any of these leaks? And the answer is because there isn’t any. Greg, I appreciate the call. Thanks very much.

I want to summarize Brennan’s testimony for you yesterday. In matters like this, like Brennan was testifying yesterday morning, and it wasn’t enough time for me to try to make some sense of it for yesterday’s program. I know a lot of people tried, but I needed to wait until yesterday after the program and last night to actually dig into it and to try to get a feel and an understanding of what Brennan was up to.

Now, Brennan’s the former CIA director for Obama. He voted for the communist candidate for president in 1976, a guy named Gus Hall. I think he is a Muslim. It has been said that Brennan converted to Islam at some point in his life. I’m sorry, all I need to know is he worked for Obama. All I need to know is he’s a progressive leftist. And that’s enough for red flags. That’s enough for doubt. That’s enough for me to be suspicious of motives, of objective honesty, things like this.

I’m willing to be proven wrong on all of this, because I, ladies and gentlemen, epitomize critical thinking. So I basically wanted to try to summarize, you know, I try to make the complex the understandable. And the starting point for this is an answer he gave to Pencil Neck, Adam Schiff, who, by the way, this guy’s classic. He’s got these big eyes that look very compassionate. He’s kind of a tiny guy, does have a pencil neck. Very soft-spoken. He is an uber-partisan leftist, and he comes off like Puff Daschle did. (imitating Daschle) “Well, Tim, we’re very concerned over the Trump budget. The numbers of people that could literally be murdered is very concerning.”

And Harry Reid was the same way, the same very hard-to-hear speaking voice and characteristic that does not in any way shout extremist or partisan, but that’s exactly what Pencil Neck is. So he asked Brennan a question. “In respect to a number of allegations made recently that the president or his aides may have sought to enlist the help of members of the intelligence community, or even Director Comey himself, to drop the Flynn investigation, have any members of the intelligence community shared their concerns that the president was attempting to enlist the help of people within the intelligence community to drop the Flynn investigation?”

Brennan (paraphrasing): “I am not aware.”

“Are you aware of any evidence?”

“Nope.”

“Are you aware of any collusion?”

“We haven’t found any yet.”

“Has Trump tried to impede this investigation?”

“Nope. Not that I’m aware.”

Nobody has any affirmative answer for anything. So what is Brennan doing with this appearance? As I studied what he said, I am convinced, folks, that what got them up to speed — I mean, they were already looking at certain things. When Trump publicly cracked that joke asking the Russians for help in finding Hillary’s 30,000 missing emails, I actually believe these humorless, dryball people really, really, in their minds and hearts really believed that Trump was asking the Russians is to hack Hillary’s server to find her emails, and that got them started. There’s no evidence, but there’s a basis, I think that’s the basis, one of them, for this whole investigation.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Trump told that joke on July 27th and everybody in the regime has said their investigation began in late July. It might have been the publication of some of Podesta’s emails on WikiLeaks, but I really think that Trump telling that joke really got to ’em.