RUSH: Ken Starr. Remember him? The sex fiend. Ken Starr, the sex pervert. Ken Starr, independent counsel who secretly worked for the tobacco companies and was trying to get your kids hooked on Joe Camel dolls so that your kids would go out there and start buying cigarettes and start getting cancer at age 16 or whatever.
And the question: “Mr. Gergen, the tweet this morning about the investigation, David Gergen, do you, the tweet this morning, president tweets that he’s under investigation, he’s under investigation for firing the FBI director by the man who told him to fire the FBI director. What do you do make of this?”
GERGEN: The president’s lawyers must be going a little nuts this morning. You know, they clearly don’t have control over what he’s tweeting, and it has been long-standing practice that if you’re under investigation, you don’t attack publicly the investigators. It only stirs them up and it can invite overt retaliation underneath everything.
RUSH: Really. By the way, I’ve had people ask me, what does this tweet mean? When Trump tweeted that he’s under investigation for firing the FBI director by the man who told him to fire the FBI director, he’s referring to Rod Rosenstein, who’s the deputy attorney general, who signed and wrote a memo to Trump detailing Comey’s incompetence in the July 5th press conference detailing Hillary Clinton’s crimes, but then saying he wasn’t gonna charge her because he couldn’t find any intent.
It was brutal the way they were going after Starr. And there wasn’t anybody in the media telling them not to do it. They were applauding it. We have a little flashback, 1998. CNN even ran a special smearing Ken Starr. It was a two-hour hit piece on Ken Starr, and here is a promo announcement.
ANNOUNCER: (sinister music) Who is Ken Starr? The independent counsel has spent four years investigating the president. From Whitewater to White House scandal, can Starr prove his case? Investigating the investigator Thursday eight eastern on CNN.
RUSH: Investigating the investigator. CNN joined the Clintons in savaging Ken Starr and yet here’s David Gergen, “You don’t go after the investigator. I’m sure Trump’s lawyers are pulling their hair out today ’cause Trump’s tweeting. Oh, my God, this never done.” What do you mean it’s never done? Mr. Gergen, you worked for people who perfected the process of sliming investigators, sliming the lawyers, sliming special counsels. It isn’t done?
This is another reason why I say Trump would be perfectly within his rights if he wanted to fire Mueller or if he wanted to have Rosenstein go in and limit the scope. All of this would be perfectly constitutional. It would be political nuclear warfare if he did it, given the reaction. But what does he care? Obviously Trump knows that anything he does is gonna create that kind of reaction. Nothing new. Why not add to it?
I mean, I think this is crucial stuff. They don’t have anything, folks. They’re leaking that they’re looking at money laundering? If you read that paragraph in the Washington Post, it’s almost — I was gonna say criminal, it isn’t criminal. But the paragraph in the Washington Post says that Mueller and his people are looking into the collusion. The collusion case has been dropped, except, no, it hasn’t. Now we know because the Washington Post has a leak from inside the Mueller team, and they’re now looking at the finances of Trump people.
You know why? Because it’s very logical to assume that if there was collusion, that there were payments. That maybe the Russians paid Manafort or Carter Page or Roger Stone for their assistance in running the campaign and that there would probably be money parked away in secret bank accounts like in the Cook Islands and in the Caymans and Swiss banks or whatever. None of this is known.
But by the time you publish that in the Washington Post and it ends up on CNN and elsewhere, people are gonna conclude, “Wow. There must have been money that changed hands, and that means the money is hidden. The Trump people were hiding money in the Caymans,” offshore I think is the key phrase to indicate illegality. And there’s no evidence of it.
You know what’s preposterous about this? Okay, let’s just take for one example, let’s say the Russians did want to tamper with the election, okay? Why would they need — this is the KGB — why the hell would they need the assistance of Carter Page? Why would they need the assistance of anybody on the Trump team? Why would they need the assistance of Roger Stone? Why would they need to pay anybody? If they’re gonna collude, do it! And don’t get caught. Don’t leave any fingerprints. But certainly they wouldn’t have to pay anybody.
But now look at what we’re constructing. “The Russians were so eager that they paid. There obviously was payments.” No. Obviously there wasn’t anything. You’re making it all up. “Yes, there were obvious payments, and now we’re gonna track down, we’re gonna subpoena people, gonna get their bank records, bank accounts, tax returns.” It’s a wild goose chase. Even now. And the leaks do not show anything other than that. Don’t doubt me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, if go back to last October, October 27, that Comey goes up there, reopens the Hillary email investigation, how many Democrats were ragging on Comey back then? How many of them were ripping Comey? If that’s grounds for investigation, how many Democrats were ripping Comey? Hell, they started ripping Comey after the July thing for a while before they figured out he was gonna clear her.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, now, get this. Trump tweets earlier that he’s under investigation. The Washington Post was so giddy, they ran a story called “Trump Keeps Creating His Own Personal Hell.” And it’s all about Trump admitting he’s under investigation when just last week everybody was operating on the assumption that he wasn’t under investigation because Comey said he never was investigating him. Then Trump goes out there and says he is under investigation for firing Comey. He puts a tweet out there and so the media goes, “All right! All right! Trump is under investigation. This changes everything,” the media says, “it changes everything. Now Trump’s fair game. Now Trump’s in the crosshairs.”
And now something has happened, folks. CNN just ran a breaking news bulletin, and it was this: The independent counsel says he has not told Trump he’s under investigation. So we’re back to it’s very possible Trump still isn’t under investigation, yet Trump just tweeted out that he is. But somebody from the independent special counsel headquarters has told the media, “No, no. We didn’t tell Trump he’s under investigation.”
Now, technically they’re not saying Trump isn’t under investigation. They are saying, “We didn’t tell him he’s under investigation.” But Trump said he is, and the media was just ecstatic, “Oh, goody!” Maybe Trump was wrong. Maybe Trump is toying with them. But somebody called the media, CNN, “Nah-nah-nah, we did not tell him he’s under investigation.” They had to walk it back a little bit.
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