RUSH: Things are starting to come into a little bit more focus, and for some of you it may have already been in focus. We’ll find out. … What is coming into focus is the Mueller investigation and what its real purpose is. And we have learned this because CNN, of all places — on their website — has revealed that there was a pre-Mueller investigation that was launched by the FBI and Andrew McCabe, and we know now the actual reason for it. And I’m gonna give you the big news and then work backwards on this.

Apparently, if we can trust what’s out there today and if we can believe it — and I think there’s something to this, simply because there isn’t any evidence of Trump colluding with Russia at all. It just didn’t happen. The upshot of everything is that all of this has been not to find Trump guilty, not to find… Maybe as a bonus, maybe some impeachable offenses. But the real purpose has been to just rein Trump in and stop him, to keep him sidetracked, to keep him obstructed, to keep him confused, to keep him unable to advance his agenda, to keep his staff in constant turmoil.

It has basically been a deep state plot to prevent Donald Trump from being Donald Trump, to prevent Donald Trump from having any kind of success with his agenda at all, with the added bonus being that along the way they can create the idea that Trump stole something like an election or is a thug-criminal and bad guy. But all of it — and it’s an important distinction, because they started all this knowing full well there wasn’t any crime here. There wasn’t any crime mentioned when Mueller was appointed, which violates Justice Department regulations.

There has to be a special crime given to the special prosecutor to look into, and Mueller wasn’t given one. Now, this has been leaked to CNN, which would be qualified as friendly media. Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist has read it and seen it. I have it here soon to be in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. And Mollie Hemingway’s tweet: “Leakers now saying to friendly media that probe was about reining Trump in, not uncovering collusion with Russia (which they knew was [without] evidence).

“Their purpose: constrain Trump. Yet is anyone even investigating this years-long scandal, much less holding people to account?” No! Nobody is. And at the heart of this, do you remember the story that was feverishly denied by Rosenstein and other FBI aficionados that Rosenstein had offered to wear a wire in a conversation or two with Trump in order to, quote, unquote, “get the goods”? Not on conclusion, and not even on obstruction. Just wear a wire so they can get a recording of, in their minds, how literally stupid and incompetent Trump is and have that be provable using Trump’s own words.

It looks like that absolutely happened. It looks like — and I didn’t doubt, by the way. When I first heard that Rosenstein volunteered to wear a wire, I didn’t doubt it at all. (big sigh) You know, I say frequently that I know these people. But I’ve never really told you how or why. So I’m kind of hanging out there when I say it. By “these people,” I mean the Washington establishment, these elites, this club, the ruling class, however we designate them. I know them.

Some of them personally, but not many. But, I mean, I know who they are; I know how they think. I know how they operate. I know what their psychology is. I know what their arrogance is. And the reason is I’ve encountered it for the entire length of time this program has been on the air. So none of this is a surprise to me, that these people simply would not accept the results of the election. They simply would not accept somebody like Donald Trump, no matter what the election results are, no matter what the will of the American people.

And so there’s nothing that will not be done to either get rid of Trump or to make sure that, if they can’t get rid of him, that he can’t accomplish anything — and, furthermore, that he cannot damage what they have established. And that probably is primary in their minds, that Trump… They will not sit idly by, acknowledge that they lost with Hillary and that Trump won, and then wait for Trump, bide their time for four years, and hope to beat him at the next election.

Their point from the get-go has been to deny Donald Trump his presidential powers, constitutional powers. It has been to deny Donald Trump his agenda, to deny Donald Trump the staff that he wants to put together, to make sure that there are constant people around Trump that will leak back to them. And, as I say, the primary source for this today is a very lengthy CNN piece. Now, you might be saying, “Come on, Rush! CNN?

“Don’t tell me all of a sudden you’re gonna start believing CNN.” It’s not that I believe CNN. It’s that I believe this story and that I believe that people at CNN would be in the leak chain to get this story, and the whole point of this story is that a Trump investigation began long before Mueller’s did! And that’s what this story is about. “The Frantic Scramble Before Mueller Got the Job.” It’s by Pamela Brown and Jeremy Herb “(he might pronounce it ‘erb) and it’s published today.

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RUSH: Here’s the beginning of the CNN story: “In the hectic eight days after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and top FBI officials viewed Trump as a leader who needed to be reined in, according to two sources describing the sentiment at the time.” Eight days before Trump fired Comey, which is what triggered the appointment of Mueller by Rosenstein, who had written Trump a memo suggesting that Comey be fired! It looks like all of this was an orchestrated setup that needed Comey to be fired for it to happen.

Rosenstein suggests it. Trump wanted to get rid of the guy anyway. So Trump thinks he’s got the imprimatur of the attorney general, deputy attorney general over at the Department of Justice, and he fired Comey, and that gave us Mueller. Rosenstein appointing Mueller. And here we are. “In the hectic eight days after … Trump fired [Comey], Rosenstein and top FBI officials viewed Trump as a leader who needed to be reined in … They discussed a range of options, including the idea of Rosenstein wearing a wire while speaking with Trump, which Rosenstein later denied.

“Ultimately, then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe took the extraordinary step of opening an obstruction of justice investigation even before … Mueller was appointed… The obstruction probe was an idea the FBI had previously considered, but it didn’t start until after Comey was fired. The justification went beyond Trump’s firing of Comey, according to the sources, and also included the president’s conversation with Comey in the Oval Office asking him to drop the investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.”

Now, I don’t know what you remember about all this, but these are instances that did happen, that the people in the FBI and DOJ were able to feign (as in fake) shock, outrage, disbelief. (impression) “A president asking the Department of Justice to go easy on one of his guys? Why, that’s never happened before! This has put us in an untenable situation. This man must be stopped!” We are seriously here to believe the deep state doesn’t take care of its own? By the way, Trump was not asking for Flynn to be exempted from justice.

The bottom line: We now know that Flynn didn’t do anything, and even the people that interviewed Flynn, including Peter Strzok, never thought that Flynn had lied. “The new details about the genesis of the obstruction case into Trump that became a key element of the Mueller probe shed light on the chaotic week following Comey’s firing and the scramble to decide how best to respond. They also help to explain the origins of the Mueller investigation that has stretched across 19 months, consumed Trump’s presidency and is building toward a dramatic day of courtroom filings [today].

“A Justice Department official strongly disputed Rosenstein sought to curb the president, emphasizing that his conversations with McCabe were simply about talking through ways to conduct the investigation. ‘He never said anything like that,’ the source added. Other sources said that the FBI would only take such dramatic action if officials suspected a crime had been committed. But Rosenstein and other senior FBI officials also had deep concerns about Trump’s behavior and thought he needed to be checked” and reined in. “A spokeswoman for McCabe did not provide comment for this story.”

Rudy Giuliani said, “It’s shocking that the FBI would open up an obstruction case for the president exercising his authority under Article II,” meaning he’s got the right to fire Comey.” Anyway, it should not come as a surprise. We find out that this whole thing was just to retard Trump’s presidency, to rein him in, to keep him from doing anything, to keep him from harming the deep state, to keep him from winning anything — and there was an added bonus. If they could find a crime along the way, then that would be great, and they gave Mueller the latitude to do just that.

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RUSH: Here is another take on the CNN story today about what actually has been going on here. “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly launched an obstruction of justice investigation into President Donald Trump prior to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. CNN reported Thursday evening that in the days following Comey’s ouster in May 2017, McCabe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and other leading FBI officials met to discuss how to curb [Trump] from future actions they thought would add to the turmoil at the FBI.

“Among the options discussed was Rosenstein [wearing] a wire during meetings with President Trump in an attempt to capture what he believed was manic behavior demonstrated by the president that could potentially be used to convince cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment.” I don’t doubt that for a minute! I don’t doubt that that was discussed for a minute — and if somebody were to tell me later that Rosenstein wore the wire, I would not be surprised for a minute.

As much as people think they understand what’s going on here, I don’t think most people have the capacity to understand just how much the Washington establishment — whatever it encompasses — just totally despises everything there is about Donald Trump including the people that voted for him and people that work for him. It’s impossible to aptly describe the level of animosity and sheer hatred and fear that has dominated official Washington since election night 2016.

There has never been and there never will be even a split-second moment of discussion on the part of these people of standing down, of maybe finding a way to work with Trump, of maybe realizing the American people spoke and we have to listen. Not a split second of recognition of any of that or acknowledgment of any of that or acceptance of any of that. In fact, I think what we’re learning here is that there was an attempt to derail the Trump campaign long before anybody really… I mean, before the mainstream thought that Trump had a chance of winning the nomination.

I think who he is and where he comes from has instilled — or did instill — a degree of panic in official Washington that you and I were unaware of and could only guess about. But with me, it isn’t a guess. I understand totally how Trump affects these people — or anybody like Trump, any outsider that would dare attempt what Trump has done and succeed at it. This is a different breed of cat, if you will. The idea that Rosenstein would wear a wire to try to entrap Trump, to collect evidence to demonstrate what they think of him?

That he’s a nincompoop, that he’s an idiot, dangerous, that he’s unsuitable, that he’s nowhere near intellectually/emotionally qualified, that he poses a great threat to everything these people have devoted their lives to. So anything they could do to collect evidence to then go to people they thought would be friends of theirs in the cabinet and say, “Look, this guy is not fit. This guy cannot serve! It’s too great a chance.” I have no doubt that all of that and more was not just contemplated, but in fact happened and was acted on.

Rudy says, “It’s shocking that the FBI would open up an obstruction case for the president exercising his authority under Article II.” No, it’s not. Not if you know these people — and Rudy knows them, by the way. Rudy, at some point, might have thought he was one of them, and he may have been until all this. It’s not shocking at all that they’ve done anything that they’ve done. That’s the whole point! What they’ve done is far more than any of us realize, and we learn it trickle by trickle.

They had spied embedded in the Trump campaign. They were attempting to entrap Trump on this phony collusion with Russia business. They wanted to create it. They wanted to get hired. There were six people that were implanted in the campaign, one of them Felix Sater, who Trump had worked with in his international division building buildings around the world. What they wanted to do is they wanted to get these people embedded in a campaign.

And they wanted these people to reach out and start making deals or talking with Russians about the campaign so that they could then say, “Look! The Trump campaign is colluding with Russia!” They weren’t gonna wait for it to happen. They were gonna make it happen. Anyway, let me grab a quick call on this. Somebody wants to weigh in from Camas, Washington. Dale, I’m glad you called, sir. You’re up first today on Open Line Friday. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos. I believe the CNN story is simply the left trying to get out in front of the Mueller report that will have exactly zero, zip, nada in it for the leftists.

RUSH: You think it’s gonna have zero, zip, nada in it?

CALLER: (crosstalk) CNN doesn’t have a shred of credibility for their reporting.

RUSH: I’m not… So follow me through on this. What is this CNN report to you, then?

CALLER: This is really good news. This is the Mueller report really does not have anything in it, and now this is the left trying to change the narrative saying, you know, “Yeah, it doesn’t have anything in it, and we knew that and we reported that.”

RUSH: Okay. So —

CALLER: There’s nothing in it for them. It’s a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking. They have zero in this report on Trump.

RUSH: Okay. So the purpose of the CNN report by announcing there was an even earlier investigation of Trump that was started by FBI, and it’s where Rosenstein thought to wear a wire, this is going to help the fact that there’s no substance to the Mueller report how?

CALLER: Yes! It’s just a pivot, Rush. They’re gonna say, “That’s what it was never about. This was about Trump and what a rotten person he is, and this helped us get there,” and keep in mind that the left has a ton invested in this report. They’re singing songs about it on Saturday Night Live about what their hopes and dreams are for this report. It’s gonna be real comeuppance when this report comes out and it’s got no collusion charges. (crosstalk)

RUSH: Well, now, I think, there’s a lot of truth to that. Okay. So now I see where you’re going with this. So the theory is that — and, by the way, it’s a good point, because 42% of American people believe Russians tampered with ballots. And almost 60% of Democrats — including the writers and performers at Saturday Night Live — believe that the Russians actually affected the outcome of elections. Even though Rosenstein has said a number of times with every indictment, it didn’t happen; they’ve not heard it.

So we’ve got 42% of the American people, over almost 60% of Democrats thinking that there actually was hands-on collusion, tampering with ballots. The Mueller report’s not gonna say that. It can’t say that because it didn’t happen. So the theory is that what they’re doing now is getting out in front of the fact that the Mueller report’s not gonna have any Russian collusion in it by saying, “Well, it was never really about that. It was just about trying to rein Trump in. We knew Trump was dangerous, out of control, and we were trying to rein Trump in.”

I don’t doubt that CNN report is true, though. I think all kinds of this things have been going on here. I think all of this is true. I think they were looking for collusion or looking for a way to fake or create phony collusion that they could pass off as real. I think that’s why the spies were embedded in the campaign. I also think that they have been doing everything they can to derail the Trump administration, to bring it to a screeching halt, to stop Trump from accomplishing anything. I think it’s been multifaceted and it’s been multipurposed.

Now, Mueller’s report… The media is waiting with bated breath right now, folks, all day today because Mueller has promised the release of some documents today that the Drive-Bys are convinced are going to show what Mueller has. There’s gonna be enough in this release today to give us a pretty good road map of what Mueller has, and they’re all excited about it along the lines of collusion and so forth. In fact, this is why Trump has gone on a five-tweet tweet storm this morning. Everybody is reacting to what Mueller is alleged to be releasing some time today.

I’ll share with you Trump’s tweet storm in a moment. So the theory is that all of this — the CNN story — is simply a head fake designed to tell people when there is no evidence of Russians tamping with votes and voting machines and affected the outcome of elections, “Well, it was never about that! It was never about that!” There’s gonna be hell to pay if that’s their story, if Mueller and his team and their media cohorts actually tell the nation, “Oh, wait, that’s not… We’re never looking for collusion. We were never looking for that.

“The media that told you that that was happening. That’s not what we were doing. We have been looking for ways to rein Trump in.” I don’t think this is something they’re gonna admit! I don’t think Rosenstein and his buddies are gonna admit that they’ve been trying to deny the will of the American people all along. I think the Mueller report — and I don’t necessarily think that it’s imminent by any stretch. Everybody’s talking now that the Mueller report could happen before the end of the year. I am not so sure.

Whatever this report is or whatever it doesn’t have, it’s going to be… For lack of a better word, it is going to be brutal on Trump. They don’t have to find any collusion with Russians to write a report explaining how they have learned how dangerous Donald Trump is, how incompetent Trump is, how at risk our nation has been for two years because of Donald Trump’s feeble mind, dangerous psychological condition. They can make up anything they want that will fit narratives that they have already established, soap opera scripts that they’ve already established.

Mueller can write a report that just creams Trump as just on this side of sanity. Now, I’m gonna give you a little heads-up. I spoke with John Solomon yesterday after the program for the interview in the next upcoming issue of The Limbaugh Letter. He volunteered a theory on the Mueller report. He thinks that all of the evidence — and, by the way, he’s collected reams of it. He thinks that most of the evidence that there is to be found indicts the Clintons, indicts Comey and the FBI. He believes, like we all do, that the great untold story here is how the real criminal behavior has been ignored and covered up.

But the little teaser I will give you of what he said — and he’s been covering this for as many months as Trump has been in the White House. He thinks the reason that Mueller hired all of these partisan Democrats like Andrew Weissmann… There’s 15 of them in there, these people from the Enron task force that had all of their work overturned by the Supreme Court, people that worked on the Ted Stevens case. That was also thrown out, where they were suborning perjury from their star witnesses. Solomon’s theory is that Mueller has known from the beginning that there wasn’t anything really to be found here in items of Trump colluding with Russia.

So Mueller needs protection when he issues a report that doesn’t name any collusion, and that’s why he’s got all these anti-Trump lawyers and anti-Trump partisans on his staff, because if there was anything to be found, it would be found. These people hate Donald Trump. So therefore all these Trump haters, all these biased lawyer investigators, anti-Trump working all this time, not finding any collusion gives Mueller credibility with people who are expecting a slam dunk. Now, I know Solomon’s not this one who has advanced that theory. It’s out there spoken by a couple other people.

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RUSH: Along the lines of what we’ve been discussing today, I went back to the archives. On July 19th of this year, John Solomon — again, who I talked to yesterday for the upcoming issue of The Limbaugh Letter. He wrote back in July that Peter Strzok knew there was no Russia connection to Trump. Here’s an excerpt: “A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: ‘You and I both know the odds are nothing.'” He’s talking to Lisa Page. “‘If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.'”

We’ve had this tweet for you before. This is Strzok admitting that they know at the FBI there’s no Russia collusion to be found. But it didn’t stop them. Next paragraph from Solomon: “So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to ‘nothing’ and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.” I don’t care what their purpose of this CNN leak today is, there’s much evidence to support its accuracy, and there’s more to this.

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RUSH: Mark Meadows from North Carolina, member of Congress, today spoke about Rod Rosenstein. And he wants to bring Rosenstein into a congressional committee before the Democrats take over the Congress in January.

MEADOWS: Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein’s public statements that he did not really talk seriously about taping the president and — and invoking the 25th Amendment is not consistent with a number of other sworn testimony or transcribed interviews that we’ve had.

RUSH: I don’t doubt for a minute they were talking about that — and look, folks, I don’t care whether Rosenstein and these guys are part of this global order for big global government. The immediate effect of what they’re doing is to affect the presidency of Trump, and they don’t need to be part of the global order to be doing what they’re doing with Trump. Even if they weren’t part of it, they would still be doing everything they’re doing to try to get rid of or paralyze, damage, or whatever Donald Trump. It’s an insider-versus-outsider thing first and foremost.

I have no doubt in my mind that they were talking about this and finding ways to invoke the 25th Amendment. You can’t listen for almost two years to everything that’s being reported and said by people in Washington — the establishment, the ruling class — and their genuine disgust for Donald Trump… You cannot watch CNN… You don’t even need to watch ’em for a full day to get the full flavor of the total revulsion and disgust they have for Donald Trump.

Remember, these are people that think once they think something, everybody else does. But they have the power to act on it, and I have no doubt that they have been. What Meadows is saying here… You know, Rosenstein’s out there denying it. “No, no, no! I was joking about wearing a wire. Are you kidding? Wear a wire? Come on. Who would believe that?” Well, Meadows, he’s saying a lot of people have testified to the fact that it was not a joke, that it was serious.

Darrell Issa today on Capitol Hill spoke with reporters about Comey. Comey’s testifying today before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees behind closed doors. Remember, Comey attempted to file a lawsuit. You may not… I may not have told you this. This is a week old now. Comey attempted to file a lawsuit and actually took it to a judge demanding that his testimony be in public because he said that he was afraid that these committees would leak what he said and that they might even lie about it, and Comey didn’t want them to have the chance.

He wanted the testimony to be public. So his lawyers from the DOJ filed a motion, went to a federal judge, and said, “Judge, you make ’em, you make that committee, these two committees do open hearings.” Well, the judge is in the legislative branch, and you can’t tell Congress how to conduct itself. The judge can’t tell Congress whether they have to do open hearings or closed. There’s no judge who can. The Supreme Court can’t even do it. (chuckles) It’s Congress that tells courts how to operate. Congress set up the courts.

But this did not deter Comey from trying, and his lawyers, in arguing before the judge, the judge points out to them, “The law is clear. I can’t tell Congress whether their hearings are open or closed.” And Comey’s lawyers said to the judge, quote, “Well, Judge, here’s your chance to make some law.” Judge, here’s your chance to make some law! Department of Justice lawyers advocating some…? “Rush, they were just kidding. You’re going away overboard by acting like they were serious.” No, they weren’t kidding! Judges having making law for I don’t know how long.

That’s one of the ways the left, one of the reasons why the left wants activists disguised as judges on courts, because that’s precisely what they do! What’s noteworthy about this is that it is a couple of DOJ lawyers for Comey asking the judge to change the law, to basically tell Congress that their client will testify only before open session, and the judge said no. Eventually, Comey withdrew the lawsuit, ’cause they knew it was a nonstarter. They had literally no prayer. But they tried. Anyway, Darrell Issa’s up there, and here’s what he has to say about Comey’s testimony today…

ISSA: Direct Comey is in there with two attorneys. The one that’s from the Department of Justice has repeatedly — I would say at his gleeful acceptance — instructed that he will not be answering a great many questions that are clearly items at the core of our investigation.

RUSH: Comey’s not answering questions, is basically what’s going on here, and that’s the upshot of that.

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RUSH: Here’s Michael. New York City. Great to have you with us on Open Line Friday. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Just want to know if you think that the Dems will fabricate an opposition research scandal to pin on Trump in 2020.

RUSH: You mean like the Steele dossier? Will they do it again?

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: I think that’s what the Mueller report is going to be. I think one of the elements of the anti-Trump campaign in 2020 is going to be the Mueller report. You wait. This thing is gonna be massive. It’s gonna have things in it. It’s gonna be deeply critical of Trump’s genetic code. It’s gonna be critical of his hairstyle. It’s gonna be critical of the way he speaks, the way he writes. He’s going to be positioned as a threat to civility that the world has come to know and appreciate and understand. He’s going to be portrayed as somebody way out of his league.

He has no business being in charge of a nuclear arsenal. He has no business being in charge of a federal budget. He’s got no business deciding what happens with our immigration system, simply because Donald Trump may not be psychologically secure. This report isn’t gonna have any Russian collusion in it. It’s gonna say things like, “And even though we couldn’t find direct evidence, suspicions of such were totally valid because of Mr. Trump’s joking with Russians about how he had to fire Comey in the Oval Office.

“The president was routinely giving away United States security secrets in talking to the Russians just to mock his enemies.” It’s gonna be filled with things like that. It’s basically gonna be a recitation of what these people think Trump’s offenses against civility and proper comportment of a Washington establishmentarian are. It’s going to say, “Even though we can’t find any evidence that the president colluded, he wanted to! The Trump Tower meeting where he sent his son to collect dirt on Hillary Clinton? He wanted the Russians to help! He wanted the Russians to have news that would help.”

That’s what I think it’s gonna be, and it’s gonna serve as its own anti-Trump campaign document. But this oppo research has been funded not by Hillary Clinton but by the United States taxpayer. This is gonna make the Steele report look like the joke that it is, and Hillary Clinton paid for that. But we are paying whatever Robert Mueller has spent to put this together. (interruption) Well, okay. Let me ask. Does anybody believe…? And I throw this out there legitimately.

Does anybody believe that Mueller is gonna issue a report saying, “You know what? We couldn’t find anything. While there might have been some areas that look suspicious, basically we found no collusion with Russia. We found no reason to suspect the outcome of the 2016 elections, and we’ve failed to unearth any information that would disqualify Donald Trump as president.” Does anybody think it’s gonna say that? Let me know if you do.