RUSH: Well, well, well, if anybody doubts the political nature of the Mueller investigation, all you have to do is take a look at the news today. For crying out loud, they really want us to believe that Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange three times before WikiLeaks published the Podesta emails?
Where’s this story been? If this were true, they would have known this all the way back when Obama and his buddies were spying on the Trump campaign. And we would have heard about this long before today. So what the heck is going on?
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For crying out loud. Now the media salivating, barely able to keep its pants up here because they think they’ve got some brand-new revelation. There’s two things about Manafort. Manafort is said to have lied after reaching a plea deal with Mueller and his Trump-hating prosecutors. So that Manafort’s plea deal is now out the window, because what you do when you make a plea deal, you have to tell the truth about everything. And I don’t think Manafort’s been lying about anything. What Manafort’s refusing to do is to compose evidence, make it up!
I tell you, folks, I’m so tarnished here by what has happened to our Department of Justice ever since Trump announced his campaign for presidency that I do believe we have a two-tier justice system, and I don’t believe anything coming out of this bunch here, the Mueller investigation and people involved in it. Paul Manafort had nothing to do with anything.
All of this is designed to create a political climate where Trump can be pressured, where the Democrats can make a foundation for impeachment. That’s all that’s going on here, because they don’t have any evidence that Trump colluded. They’re ignoring the evidence of real collusion that took place here, as you know, between Hillary Clinton and the rest of the people on that side, Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele. All of that is being ignored.
Manafort was with the campaign two or three months, and now all of a sudden Manafort has become the focus? And this, of course, is allowing the media to say, “This should make Trump really, really nervous. Now that Manafort lied, Manafort’s lying to the prosecutor.” I don’t believe Manafort’s lying to the prosecutor. I think the prosecutor is asking Manafort to say a bunch of things that he won’t say. I think Manafort’s resisting the pressure.
Look, we know from the Enron trials, we know from the Enron task force that these people were — we know from the Ted Stevens trial that some of the very lawyers on those cases are on Mueller’s team, and they were suborning perjury from their own star witnesses against Ted Stevens. The case was eventually thrown out. These people ought not even be practicing law anymore. They ought not be part of the Justice Department.
The idea that they wouldn’t force using all the power they’ve got, Manafort, to make things up or to compose evidence. And if Manafort’s refusing to do it, then this is exactly what I would think would happen. “He’s lying to us. We’re gonna revoke the plea deal. To hell with Manafort.” They’re trying to break him.
Now This News in the U.K. Guardian that Manafort met three different times with Julian Assange in the Ecuadoran embassy in the U.K. That news just hit this morning. Why? What would be the point of Manafort meeting with Assange? And note something. In none of these stories do you see the name “Trump,” not a single time, not a single place is the word “Trump” mentioned, the president, the candidate. Trump is not implicated in any of this.
All this is a guilt-by-association thing. All of this is a political trap. This is not about the execution of justice. It’s not about law and order. It’s not about trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the 2016 election. It’s about trying to overturn it. And short of being able to do that, it’s about discrediting the winner.
So why is it news that Manafort might have met with Julian Assange? And I’m here to tell you, they had spies, we know that the Obama administration already had spies, they were looking, they had people embedded in the Trump campaign. If this had happened, I guaran-damn-tee you CNN and the Washington Post, New York Times would have been told about this months and months ago, they would have known about this.
Because the minute Manafort was hired, Carter Page over here and Manafort was supposedly, the FBI and the DOJ knew that he was a bad guy, and they were worried, they thought about informing Trump that they might have had some mistakes here in hiring these two guys, but then they didn’t. Instead they planted spies in the campaign to try to catch the Russians rather than inform the Trump campaign that they might have made a mistake. None of that happened. If Assange and Manafort had met, they would have known about it a long, long time ago. I mean, back in 2016 during the campaign.
So what are we supposed to conclude? Well, it’s not about what we’re supposed to conclude. It’s what the media can now start speculating. Possibility number one. Manafort had the Podesta emails because Manafort knew that the Russians had hacked the DNC server, and that’s where Podesta’s emails were. Except they weren’t. But, remember, we’re not dealing with facts here; we’re dealing with people that are willing to make it up and suborn perjury.
So don’t be surprised if you see a story somewhere, some obscure place to start, and it will be picked up and eventually in the Drive-By Media that Manafort might have had advance notice the Podesta emails were gonna be hacked and told Assange about it or gave those emails or a link to them to Assange. Or the third possibility is Manafort told Assange that there had been a hacking attack, successful, of Podesta’s emails and to tell WikiLeaks and Assange to be on the lookout and maybe go out there and try to find ’em. That’s the value here.
What other possibility is there for leaking that Paul Manafort met with Assange? I guarantee you it wasn’t about property or investments in the Caymans. The idea that Manafort met. And now Manafort is accused of lying to the special counsel so much and so badly that the special counsel, the inestimable Robert Mueller is now thinking of canceling the plea deal because he’s not getting what he wanted out of Manafort. Not getting what he wanted.
Manafort probably doesn’t know jack. Nobody knows jack because what they are trying to lay the foundation for happening didn’t, unless you go investigate Hillary Clinton. Are we blue in the face talking about this and are you blue in the face hearing about it? Sorry, but this has made the top of the fold of the news today, these two Manafort stories.
And of course my friend Andy McCarthy’s written about this at National Review, and he thinks that one of the things that is at stake here is a pardon for Manafort. And he thinks the news that Manafort is lying is supposed to be a message to Trump that Manafort’s holding, Manafort’s not betraying you, Manafort’s not making up what they want to hear, he’s gonna be worth a pardon. Except Trump cannot pardon anybody ’til this whole thing is over. So Manafort’s gonna have to continue to hold out wherever Mueller sends him, whatever prison cell or hole in the wall he gets sent to because all of this is political.
None of this has anything to do with the law or justice. It’s all political now. And so if Trump is inclined to pardon Manafort, he can’t do it while this investigation is still going on. There’s another bit of discussion over just how imminent is the Mueller report? We had Professor Dershowitz — and I must tell you, one of the reasons why I do not — I don’t want anybody to misunderstand here — one of the reasons I do not repeat everything Professor Dershowitz says, I don’t play every sound bite of Professor Dershowitz is because — well, I just don’t.
So now Professor Dershowitz is out there saying over the weekend, over the Thanksgiving, the Black Friday, blue Monday, purple Saturday weekend, that the Mueller report is gonna be devastating for Trump, devastating. He hasn’t sounded like that before this weekend. If anything, Professor Dershowitz has sounded more of, at least in the legal aspect of things, an ally of the president’s position, even though he is an acknowledged liberal Democrat. But a civil libertarian and all that.
So everyone glommed onto that. “Oh, my God. Professor Dershowitz says it’s gonna be devastating. Oh, my God. They’re gonna get Trump!” The left has gone nuts. They think Dershowitz knows what Mueller has. So Dershowitz has to say, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I don’t mean devastating in terms of impeachment or being charged. I mean politically. It’s going to be devastating politically.”
So another indication that all of this is political! Even the esteemed Professor Dershowitz now acknowledges that the impact and the outcome of all this is political. Now, you may think, “Rush, we’ve all known that.” Yeah, you and I have. But you know how many brain-dead Voldemorts are out there who think that this is all about the legal system and the uncovering the very real breakage of the law by Trump in the campaign. But it’s all been political. And every bit of news, every new development we have further establishes that aspect of this. So we’ll try to unpack this a little more as the program unfolds.
The actual headline here in the U.K. Guardian: “Manafort Held Secret Talks With Assange in Ecuadorian Embassy.” It’s Ecuadoran, not Ecuadorian. Jeez. You know, you can’t find intelligent writing in very many places in journalism anymore. Exclusive: “Trump ally met WikiLeaks founder months before emails hacked by Russia were published.”
Podesta’s emails were not part of a hack. Podesta’s emails were not part of the hack of the DNC computers and networks. Podesta’s emails resulted from Podesta falling for a phishing attack. These two things are being conflated and confused routinely just as Trump colluding with Russia has been conflated with Russians tampering with votes. Neither happened. In this case, Podesta fell for a phishing attack.
Now, whether the Russians or Guccifer 2.0 or the Dilbert creator scammed him, I have no idea, but it wasn’t part of the hack of the DNC computers, which they didn’t let the FBI see anyway. Podesta, like most people, a computer novice, a techno-nerd not, fell for a phishing attack. Very simply. He ended up clicking on a link in an email that turned over his computer to whoever it was that sent him the fake email, and whoever that was then had access to his computer and was able to get all the emails. And somehow they ended up at WikiLeaks.
The Russians have been accused of it, Julian Assange has maintained from the get-go the Russians had nothing to do with furnishing him these emails. Now the news that Manafort met with Assange, you can see where they’re trying to go with this. Manafort ran Trump’s campaign. Manafort met with Assange. Assange had what? Podesta emails. Manafort gave what to Assange? Podesta emails. A-ha! Collusion! Lying.
You can see where this is headed, even if they have to make it up.
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RUSH: Do you know what Podesta’s password was? It has been discovered why it was so easy to run a phishing attack. You know what his password was? His password was the word “password.” Fourteen-year-olds know not to do that! That was Podesta’s password. You gotta be really, really careful.
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RUSH: Here’s Jeffrey Toobin, who was on CNN’s Anderson Cooper last night talking about Mueller, and this is just… I want you to hear this not so much any reason other than to show you how the leaking of this news that Manafort is lying, Mueller is not happy, Manafort met with Assange. This is then what the media can do with this…
TOOBIN: I still think it is basically good news that Manafort is not becoming a star witness. But if I were Trump, I would be unnerved by the fact that Mueller’s office knows enough about the facts of this case to say, “You’re lying.” How do they know that, who told them, what documents do they have?
GERGEN: Yes. Yes.
TOOBIN: What tapes do they have?
GERGEN: That’s a really good point.
RUSH: “That’s a really good point.” Oh, it’s such a good point. How do they know Manafort’s lying? Well, now, wait a minute. You can look at this another way. If they already know the answers to what they’re asking Manafort, then why did they need to give him a plea deal? If they already know what he’s gonna say, and then he isn’t saying it, then how do they know that what they know is right? Make no mistake what’s going on here. Mueller isn’t, I don’t think, anywhere near finished.
I think, in fact, all of this may be not so much a rescheduling, but a reorientation of this whole investigation now that the Democrats are in charge of the House of Representatives and now that the Democrats have subpoena power. Now these two things could probably be combined. “But, Rush! But, Rush! Mueller is not political. It’s Justice Department investigation.” Right, it’s not political. It’s all political! I also would not discount the very real possibility that Manafort is resisting pressure to…
The term is to “compose evidence,” meaning prosecutors want to hear you say X, and they tell you what they want you to say, what they want to hear — and if you say it, then, of course, you have cooperated. But if you won’t say what they want to hear, after you’ve signed a plea deal, then they could come out and say you’re lying to them. You’re not participating. Which is what they’re doing. This is about Manafort trying to get a pardon and Mueller making it real hard on Trump to give one.
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RUSH: I want to go back to the Manafort thing for just a couple of more observations. WikiLeaks has tweeted — remember the story is now that Manafort met three times with Julian Assange at the Ecuadoran embassy in the U.K. So WikiLeaks has tweeted, “Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to destroy the paper’s reputation. WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.”
So they’re putting money and the head of an editor on the line here. They’re asking the paper to decapitate the editor and put his head, along with the million bucks, on the table as the stakes of the bet.
Now, let’s step back and try to put some pieces together here. Manafort met with Assange three times before WikiLeaks published the Podesta emails. By the way, the Podesta emails are now the focal point of collusion. The hacking of Podesta’s emails. That’s the focal point. If they can make a connection to Trump and his campaign to those Podesta emails and then to WikiLeaks publishing them, if they can say the Russians were the original hackers of Podesta’s emails, then they’ve got their collusion. And that’s one of the things they’re trying to do here.
So my question is this. Manafort meets Assange three times, three separate times before WikiLeaks publishes. Now, the FBI is spying on the Trump campaign at this time. So you would think that the FBI could alert the DNC to Russian hacking in September of 2015, and the DNC refuses to let the FBI see their servers, which have been hacked. If there was a conspiracy at that time between Assange and the Russians to hack and disseminate emails, they could claim that Manafort joined the conspiracy during his meetings with Assange.
Or they could say it was Manafort that had the emails and told WikiLeaks about them and gave the link to them to Assange. They can say anything they want. But either way they go here, if back in 2015 and early 2016 they knew, meaning the FBI, they knew that Manafort, as chairman of the Trump campaign, had a connection to the Podesta emails, why in the world would somebody not have been charged way back then with any of this? I mean, if this is what they’re trying to claim happened, then that’s a genuine conspiracy and that would have leaked.
My point is I think this is all being made up or manufactured by somebody. And the aim, the ultimate objective here is obviously political. Now, Trump is saying, he continues to call this the witch hunt. His first tweets today blasted the Mueller witch hunt for ruining lives, including that of Paul Manafort. Got these news media reports today that Manafort’s broken his agreement to cooperate with Mueller as part of a plea deal.
In three tweets this morning, Trump let loose. “The phony witch hunt continues, but Mueller and his gang of angry Democrats are only looking at one side, not the other. Wait until it comes out how horribly and viciously they are treating people, ruining lives for them refusing to lie.” That’s a reference to Manafort. “Mueller is a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue.”
Let’s go to Greg in St. Louis. I got somebody that wants to weigh in on this. We’ll find out what it is. Greg, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Thank you, Maha Rushie, sir. I would like to say I believe you’re on to something, but expand on it. I believe that the Mueller investigation will never end. It will go through his presidency. So President Trump will never be able to use his presidential powers as pardoning, and they are gonna try to destroy his legacy after he leaves office.
RUSH: You mean he won’t be able to pardon anybody involved in the investigation like Manafort or anybody else?
CALLER: That is correct because he’ll be out of office. This Mueller investigation will not end.
RUSH: Well, I can see that. In fact, I think I may have mentioned this as a possibility way back. I have said so much, folks. There isn’t anybody out there who says more, produces more content that this program. Fifteen hours a week, 30 years, even I can’t remember every item of brilliance that I have uttered. But this sounds familiar. Even if I didn’t say it, it makes total sense that this investigation would never go away.
And I think — you know, we’ve been hearing that the investigation is wrapping up and that its end has got to be pretty imminent. Now that the Democrats have won the House, why? Oh, speaking of which, Elijah Cummings of the Congressional Black Caucasians, I think he was on Meet the Press Sunday, I just saw a little bit of this with a chyron headline at the bottom, so I may be wrong about this. But the graphic along with his appearance is that some Democrats are wanting to step back now from this idea of a constant investigation of Trump.
And I got the impression from what I was seeing — and it was on fox. They were playing a replay of Elijah Cummings on Meet the Press with F. Chuck Todd on Sunday. Elijah Cummings is the ranking member of – gee, I think Judiciary in the House. And he’s gonna become chairman, and I’m pretty sure he was suggesting that maybe they’re gonna back off a little bit on these investigations.
Now, let’s examine that. Why would they — two things are possible. He could just be saying it for public consumption and setting a trap, or he could mean it. If they mean it, if he actually means it, if he’s one Democrat who wants to back off on all these investigations, why would that be? I can conceive of a bunch of reasons why they would actually want to downplay the investigation side, because, folks, by the time they take office, Trump’s gonna have been in office two years. They’re not gonna get rid of Trump inside of two years even if, even if they manage to get 67 votes to convict and impeach in the Senate, which they’re never gonna do. They’re never gonna get rid of him.
And so the focus probably would change to doing as much as they can with the power they now have related their agenda, rather than just spend two years trying to unearth everything there is about Trump. But I don’t think even if Cummings says the Democrats are gonna step back, I don’t think he speaks for all of them. For example, I don’t think he’s gonna be able to get Jerry Nadler to step back, and I don’t think he’s gonna be able to get little Pencil Neck to step back, and he’s certainly not gonna get some of the young ones that are just joining the freshmen to step back. But at least he’s out saying this.
But you combine the Mueller investigation, which I can see, I can see the caller is exactly right: The investigation lasts as long as the Trump — I can see it lasting beyond Trump’s presidency! Because never forget what the purpose of this is. The purpose of this is to delegitimize Donald Trump as a winner and as a president. It is to send a message to every other outsider, “Don’t even think of trying this yourself ’cause this is what’s gonna happen to you.”
This is the elites, the establishment, whatever you want to call them, setting another marker that they run that town and don’t anybody think you can come in here even after you win an election and take it away from us. We’re gonna show you how you will die politically in the process. So I can see them continuing this investigation after Trump has passed away.
Now, you may think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but if you do, you still do not have a proper understanding of the deep hatred, resentment, and anger at Trump for what he did. And it’s felt across the aisle. Republican Never Trumpers have this deep rage and anger along with a lot of Democrats.
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RUSH: Jeff, Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome, sir. You’re next. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. I’m originally from Kansas City, but recently relocated to the People’s Republic of Connecticut.
RUSH: Oh, gee. Gee.
CALLER: Yeah, right? Hey, going about the Mueller thing, when I first heard the recent stories, my first thought was this guy just got baited. They’re using this as nothing but a squeeze. He got baited with the plea deal and because they thought they could get more out of him, and now that they’re not getting what they want, they’re dangling this carrot saying tell us what we want to hear or you’re going to jail for a long time.
RUSH: Yeah, pretty much that was my point. I’m glad that you agree. The situation with Manafort’s like everybody else. His face is ruined. This is what Trump is talking about. Folks, when stop and think about this, as I do now and then, this is outrageous to the point of being unable to talk about it without using profanity. This is so outrageous what’s happened here. There is not a single crime to be found after two years. They’re having to make it up.
They’re ignoring all of the real collusion and the real election tampering and rigging that took place on the Democrat side. The power of the federal government is being used here to literally destroy the lives of innocent people who’ve done nothing but work for or support Donald Trump.
He’s being ruined! And nobody cares about it, nobody cares what’s happening to them. It’s stunning that this kind of thing can happen in this country, and everybody just accepts there’s an investigation, accepts there was collusion, and there wasn’t. It’s just to me beyond the pale.
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RUSH: Everything else out there is a potential distraction except the Manafort stuff. That continues to be Mueller and his efforts here to, I think, lay the groundwork for the idea that he’s got enough on Trump to actually write a report filled with innuendo about it. And that’s another thing, to steel yourself for what’s coming, although most of you have probably already figured this out. But Mueller doesn’t have anything.
I don’t even believe this Manafort met with Assange three times before WikiLeaks published Podesta’s emails. If they’d known that when that happened, we would have heard about this long ago and Manafort would not be in any plea deal right now. He’d be behind bars already for collusion! I mean, this is all smoke and mirrors.
But at some point Mueller is going to write a report. We have Dersch, Professor Dershowitz over the weekend, “It’s gonna be devastating, it’s gonna be just devastating.” What do you mean, is Trump going to jail? “Oh, no, I don’t mean legally devastating. No, no. I mean politically devastating.” So what is that?
I can predict to you right now what the Mueller report is gonna say. It’s not gonna have a shred of evidence there was any collusion between Trump and Putin and the Russians because there isn’t any. But it’s gonna be filled with innuendo and allegations that Trump was haphazard and lackadaisical and unprofessional in the people he hired and in the steps that he took and the things he said publicly. He practically sent a signal.
I guarantee you Mueller is gonna make a big deal about Trump cracking the joke about Hillary’s emails being found by Russia, and that’s gonna be a big part of this report. And he’s gonna say that Trump basically, because of his inexperience and his lack of sophistication and his unqualification to actually be president, Donald Trump is a dangerous human being to have this much power ’cause he actually thought he was cracking a joke but he was sending an invitation to Russians to hack the campaign of the Democrat presidential nominee.
This report is gonna be filled with stuff like that. And then the media can run with it and use it to characterize Trump exactly as they have been — unqualified, doesn’t know what he’s doing, unsophisticated, gigantic boob, a danger, all of this. Because this is what that Mueller report has been from the get-go, absent any evidence, which there never has been, there’s only one reason for this. And that is to do everything in their power to destroy, diminish, the reputation, just like they tried with Kavanaugh.
I mean, if they’re willing to destroy the life of somebody super achieved and super accomplished and super innocent, if they’re willing to literally destroy a man, his life, his past, his present, his future, and his family just to keep him off the court, do you think they won’t do the same thing with Trump? It will be even worse. And that’s what the Mueller report’s gonna be. And little allusions to Manafort meeting with Julian Assange.
It’s gonna made to look like we’re so lucky, we are so lucky that we survived the Trump campaign and presidency because it was an open invitation to every enemy to come in and basically take over the U.S. government. That’s what that report’s gonna say, because Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing, none of the people he hired know what they’re doing, he’s manifestly unqualified, manifestly unprepared, manifestly unintellectual, manifestly too stupid, too unaware, too braggadocious, too bombastic, all this. It may not be these words, but that’s what this report’s gonna be.
And I don’t expect it to affect any of you. Don’t misunderstand. But I’m just telling you this is what’s coming, ’cause these people are still loaded for bear. They’re still angry. They’re still enraged. They can’t believe what happened. They’re not ever gonna get over this.