RUSH: I want you to grab sound bite No. 4, and we’re gonna go in order from there — and in fact, that’s what I’m gonna start with. I’ve got a whole Stack here related to what’s coming up. I made a statement last week after it became clear to me, ladies and gentlemen, that the reason Mueller, the special counsel, was passing off so many of these cases to New York was to try to avoid the possibility Trump could pardon a bunch of people.

Now, Manafort remains federal; so Manafort could be pardoned. The Cohen situation… He’s beyond being pardoned anyway. Cohen’s already thrown in. He’s with the Southern District of New York, which is federal. But there are others that the Manhattan DA… The Manhattan DA has granted immunity to the CFO of the Trump Organization. And when I saw that, it made me remember a prediction that I made months ago. Many months. Not even in recent times.

When I found out how desperate the Democrats were to get hold of Trump’s tax returns… They think that Trump’s tax returns are the way to really get him in jail, that are really the way to ruin him. Trump back in… I don’t know the years. It’s either in the early 2000s or the late nineties. It’s public knowledge that Trump took a massive tax deduction one year that was permitted and was allowed. The statute has run now on that, I think. But it was in the neighborhood of $800 million.

I mean, it was a huge deduction. If it were to be reviewed by somebody like John Koskinen or Lois Lerner, for example — and if it could be revisited and somehow in a new audit not permitted. I’m just speculating ’cause I don’t know that this can happen. Think of the penalties and interest on being told by the IRS that that $800 million deduction you took is now not allowed and you’ve gotta pay that plus penalties. It could wipe out a bunch of people.

So I have long thought that… To illustrate my opinion of just how serious these people are in what we’re calling the deep state, Washington establishment — how serious they are in getting rid of Trump — I have expressed the thought that if they could ruin him, they would. If they could wipe him out… I’m talking financially. If they could wipe him out and ruin the Trump Organization and take away the futures of his kids, they would do it. I have no doubt they would do it.

That’s how serious this is, as far as they’re concerned. That’s how serious the grievance. This is how serious what Trump has done is. To have the audacity to run for president and win and then start draining the swamp and take away security clearances and everything else that he’s doing! I mean, this is right after their lifeblood, what Trump is doing. And they are fuming over it still, and they, I think, have got to is it him however they can and send a message to anybody else not to ever try this.

So let’s go to the audio sound bites. On the tax deduction, I’m not sure about statute. I’m not sure how long you can go before they can revisit something even after they’ve passed on it. I’m just not familiar enough with tax law. But I’m not saying that it could reverse it and so forth. I’m talking about their intentions. I really want you to understand what I think their state of mind is. I don’t have the slightest idea whether they could go back and revisit that deduction and disallow it.

I haven’t asked anybody, which I would have to do to find out the answer. Maybe some of you in the audience, tax law experts already know. But the real point in making the prediction is not to predict it that per se would happen. I’m just trying to find different ways to illustrate for you what I think their mind-set is, the degree of hatred that they have and contempt for Trump and everybody that’s with him.

So let’s go to the audio sound bites and set up the next phase of this. We’ll start with Shannon Bream on her program Friday night on Fox News Channel, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, and she’s got Juan Williams on there, and she plays a sound bite of me for him to react to.

BREAM: I want to play something to your point that Rush Limbaugh had to say about what all of this going after the organization, the business, the kids, what it’s all about.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Getting rid of Donald Trump is it. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter why, it doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t matter the pretext. Getting rid of him is all that matters. If they have to ruin Ivanka, if they have to ruin Jared, if they have to ruin Don Jr. and Eric, so what? They’ll do it. That’s what this is all about.

RUSH: Okay, and here’s Juan Williams’ election to that.

WILLIAMS: I hope not. That would be unfair. And I think from my perspective, you do not want to politicize judicial effort, any law enforcement action in this country. And if our politics really comes down to somebody doesn’t like Donald Trump or somebody says we’re gonna go after our political enemies and our political foes like the person who he beat in the last election, Hillary Clinton, it lessens public trust in the integrity of the justice system of the United States. There are people who want to say to the conservative base in this country, “They’re going after our hero. Tey’re going after Donald Trump.”

RUSH: Now, I want you to stop and think about something. A lot of people, you would think, would have a very, very hyper-reaction to that claim I made. Have you heard anybody else making that claim? Make no mistake. I’m not trying to make this about me. But to sit there and say that I think these people want to ruin Donald Trump — and if they can, destroy his business and so forth and so on? You would think that that would be greeted with a reaction of, “How insane is that? How stupid is that?”

Instead, Juan Williams says, “Gee, I hope that’s not happening. Trying to criminalize policy differences? I hope that’s not happening.” Hope it’s not happening? We have a two-tier justice system. They most certainly are trying to criminalize things that Donald Trump has not done, and they are ignoring criminal activity on the part of his opponent, Hillary Clinton and people related with her campaign. They’re having to make up charges.

They had to plant spies in the Trump campaign because they didn’t think there were spies there. They didn’t think the Russians were there. They wanted to plant the notion that there were Russian spies in the Trump campaign trying to affect the outcome of things, but there’s no question we have a two-tier justice system. And this is striking, and it is dangerous, the degree to which a two-tier justice system exists in this country.

So we move on to Bret Baier and his program also on Friday night, Special Report with Bret Baier during the All-Star Panel discussion. Bret Baier started off one of the panels introducing and playing that clip or a clip of me.

BAYER: Here’s what Rush Limbaugh says about all of this action in the Southern District of New York…

RUSH ARCHIVE: They’re making a beeline for Trump’s tax returns. … It happened many, many moons ago. Donald Trump took a tax deduction of nearly a billion dollars that was permitted. … And if they could somehow get a judgment via an audit, that that massive deduction actually should not be allowed, should be reversed. Well, I think this is 20 years ago. The penalties and interest on that would wipe out the Trump Organization… That’s what their real objective in all this is. … If they have to ruin Ivanka, if they have to ruin Jared, if they have to ruin Don Jr. and Eric, so what? They’ll do it.

RUSH: Okay. So that’s two Fox shows that that bite has aired on. And now we have reaction first up from Marie Harf. She’s the former State Department spokesman during the Obama administration when John Kerry was in there as secretary of state. Bret Baier said, “Okay. Marie, there’s one perspective of what Rush thinks is happening. What’s your reaction to that?”

HARF: First of all, the only crimes that we care if the president’s involved in cannot be related to Russia, right? We should care if the president’s involved or implicated in crimes even if they’re not related to Russia because he’s the president.

RUSH: Stop the tape.

HARF: So I think taking a step back is helpful.

RUSH: What does that mean? We’re gonna do line by line start, stop here. You want to get this ready back at the top. “First of all, the only crimes that we care if the president’s involved in cannot be related to Russia, right?” Which means, hey, I fully support what the SDNY is doing looks at business. I’m all for the Manhattan DA. I mean, it’s okay that we’re looking at things beyond Russia, right? That’s what she’s saying.

“We should care if the president’s involved or implicated in crimes even if they’re not related to Russia.” Wait a minute. This whole thing supposedly was about Russia! Now when she has a chance to nuke my comment, throw it out of the park, ridicule it, whatever, she doesn’t do that. Here it is again from the top.

HARF: First of all, the only crimes that we care if the president’s involved in cannot be related to Russia, right? We should care if the president’s involved or implicated in crimes even if they’re not related to Russia because he’s the president. So I think taking a step back is helpful.

But on the CFO here, it’s broader than just Stormy Daniels and these payments, right? As head of the Trump Organization’s finance, he is involved in things that we know Mueller is looking at. Ties to Russian financing, ties to Russian oligarchs, Trump Tower Moscow. So we don’t know what the answers are gonna be from this, but the CFO getting immunity I think is a bigger problem than just this narrow campaign finance issue. It could be a much broader problem, and it could be, could be related to Russia.

RUSH: He’s holding out hope that what I’m saying may end up happening because she’s holding out hope that Trump did a bunch of stuff in addition to whatever they’re looking at Russia. She’s agreeing. Whether she knows it or not, she’s making the point. I said they will do anything, anywhere they have to go, any little hint of impropriety, they’ll follow it, if the objective here is to get rid of Trump.

And she’s essentially acknowledging that that would be perfectly fine because he’s president, and anything he did wrong we should look at. Hopefully will all tie to Russia, but even if it doesn’t, he’s the president, you know, we should find out. And getting the CFO of the Trump Organization, why, why, that’s big. He might be involved in things that we know Mueller’s looking at, ties to Russian oligarchs.

By the way, speaking of that. Well, I commingled stacks here, but I have a story of Russian oligarchs being involved in the McCain-Palin campaign of 2008 coming up. I want to stick with the sound bites. So that’s Marie Harf. Up next Bret Baier and Marc Thiessen continue the discussion.

BAIER: What if the Southern District of New York and the prosecutors in New York are making an effort, maybe not as detailed as Rush details there, but outside of what the Justice Department is actually doing? In other words, the state from both the Manhattan district attorney and the New York prosecutors saying maybe we can indict the president even if the DOJ has memos saying you can’t.

THIESSEN: Under state law, which, of course you can’t give a pardon for state law, the president of the United States, that’s entirely possible that something like that is happening. Certainly Mueller, maybe that’s why he passed it off is because Mueller can’t indict the president, and maybe there are things that he thinks are indictable in a New York courtroom.

RUSH: Well! In essence, essentially here you have a group of people, rather than refute it and suggest it’s taking it too far, that’s not what Mueller’s about, they’re thinking it could be possible. You go to New York so that Trump can’t pardon people convicted there. And maybe since the DOJ, and it’s been the case since 1973, it’s in the regs of the Justice Department that presidents can’t be indicted. But that doesn’t say the Manhattan DA can’t, and that doesn’t say that other state attorneys general can’t indict Trump.

Well, let me just tell you this. If we’re talking about the Manhattan DA or state attorneys general, we’re not talking Russia, folks. We are talking action, activity, lawbreaking, whatever they think Trump did in New York. We’re talking about the Trump Organization, we’re talking about things that Trump allegedly has done long before he became president. You know, the Democrats are trying to say, “Hey, it’s tit-for-tat. You guys have a special counsel, and you went after Clinton.” Well, yeah, because those were things that Clinton did while in the Oval Office. All of these things you’re chasing Trump for outside this Russia business, none of it happened while he was president! None of it did!

So you’re trying to impeach a guy, you’re trying to force a guy out of office for things he did, in fact even before he became a candidate, much less before he was nominated and then elected. So do not doubt me.

Now, here’s the piece de resistance. It’s a column. It’s not a news story. But it was in Bloomberg over the weekend. Try this headline: “The Prosecutors Who Have Declared War on the President — The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York isn’t done digging into the Trump Organization.” Would you also be interested in knowing that the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, forced the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, the guy that runs the office is a Trump appointee, he has forced that lawyer to recuse himself from all of this.

The Trump appointee has been told to recuse by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy AG, not Sessions. Rod Rosenstein’s even running this, all because of this so-called tie to Russia, which means that Sessions has recused and he can’t be involved, even though this isn’t about Russia now, despite how much they want you to think. “The Prosecutors Who Have Declared War on the President.” This is an opinion piece by somebody named Noah Feldman, who is supportive as he can be of the prosecutors declaring war on the president.

That’s exactly what I’m saying is happening here. Mueller has declared war, and now you’ve got the SDNY and the Manhattan DA. “The Prosecutors Who Have Declared War on the President.” Now, it’s premature. Again, this is an opinion piece. It’s not a news story. So we have to keep that in mind. And it could be disgusting as it can be if it is true. This is, as I say, just an opinion piece. The prosecutors who have declared war, the office of the U.S. attorney isn’t done digging into the Trump Organization. Right there it is.

This guy may be writing an opinion piece, but somebody has fed him a leak or two as to what they are really doing. So I’m gonna reach around and pat myself on the back and say, “Way to go. Got another one right.”