RUSH: Mr. Barr appointing Mr. Durham to go out there and look at the investigation, guess what’s happening? All of these participants in the coup are beginning to accuse each other. This is so delicious. Comey’s out there smearing Rosenstein. Rosenstein smears back. Brennan and Comey are going at it over who first put the unverified dossier into the intelligence briefing. Folks, it’s like rats scurrying amidst the ship to try to get off of it. They’re all out there trying to say, “I didn’t do it; you did it.
“I had nothing to do with it. You did,” and Brennan is out there talking about, “I think this is crazy. This is nothing more than a fishing competition.” Fishing competition? What do you think you were doing? Fishing expedition? This is not a fishing expedition. This is a search to confirm the truth of what we already know about what was a silent coup to get rid of the president of the United States. What you guys did, Mr. Brennan, was a witch hunt. What you did was… (chuckling)
Trying to waste time looking at all of this… Frankly, it’s great to see. These guys are out now trying to blame others, point fingers at each other. Brennan and Comey are actually in an argument over who put the Steele dossier into the intelligence briefing and then had it go up to the FISA court. So if these guys could be leveraged, they could then end up lying and ratting each other out. Now, I… By the way, the New York Times has a story today that I don’t believe.
The New York Times has a story saying that (paraphrased) “Mr. Durham, this is just an inquiry, it’s not an investigation, and nobody has any reason to worry. They’re just trying to see if there is any reason to investigate. This is…” But I have it on better authority that this is much farther along, much more advanced than the New York Times wants its readers to believe. I think this is fake news out of the New York Times and I’m not gonna spend any more time on it than what I just did.
I got an email note from a friend talking about all of the rats in this ship now starting to accuse each other, Comey/Rosenstein, Rosenstein/Comey, Brennan/Comey. And he said to me, “The only question, Rush, is: How high up will they allow all this to go?” Meaning, how high up is it gonna go? Where are they gonna draw the line and not name people? We know Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice, and Obama knew all about this coup. In fact, they green-lighted it.
In the next couple of rounds down the road, will Sally Yates finger Loretta Lynch? Will Samantha Power finger Susan Rice? Will Rice and Lynch finger Obama? My own personal opinion is, I don’t think it’s gonna get to the level of Obama. Even if it goes there, I don’t think Barr’s gonna take it there, for the good of the country. They’re not gonna go after a former president. That would roil the country too much. That’s my thinking.
I do hope, though, that they do not excuse and exonerate Hillary Clinton. She needs to be caught up in this, and I would love it if some of these people start fingering her and the DNC as being the real impetus for this. Real Clear Investigations, by the way, points out that this Russiagate probe by Mr. Durham has been investigating for months now. The first evidence is traced back to an October 3rd House of Representatives hearing that James Baker (the executive in the FBI) was under investigation by Durham.
John Durham’s been working on the leak part of the puzzle for the last eight months. That’s since October, maybe for some time before that. I’ll have the details for you as the program unfolds. Keep in mind the New York Times says (paraphrased), “This is nothing. This is just an inquiry. They’re just looking to see if there is even anything to investigate,” and yet many other sources say that Durham has been at this for quite a while and is way far down the road — further down the road than anybody knows.
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RUSH: You’re gonna love this. The White House has sent a letter to Jerry Nadler saying (summarized), “Hey, Jerry? Current and former White House employees, White House aides are not gonna go and testify before your committee. Hey, Jerry? You can subpoena us all you want, but nobody’s showing up, Buddy.” (laughing) They’re gonna stonewall — and now we’re gonna hear all about “Constitutional crisis!” Why should they? They’ve got nothing. There is nothing.
The real news of this is the investigation of the investigators — and here is a story. John Yoo. John Yoo was a deputy assistant attorney general under George W. Bush. He was on Fox News, and he said that Barr appointing a U.S. attorney to this is all the indication anybody needs that indictments are coming. Cybercast News Service reported that John Yoo said, “If I were the Democrats I would be quite worried…
“And the reason why is, by appointing a U.S. attorney, Attorney General Barr is essentially signaling that he thinks it’s possible that criminal violations occurred in the start of the whole investigation into any kind of Trump-Russian collusion. … [Y]ou wouldn’t go with a U.S. Attorney like Durham, someone of his stature, unless the attorney general thinks actually something criminal might have happened, that someone might have violated the law…”
You wouldn’t hire this guy to do an inquiry. You wouldn’t hire this guy to do a toothless, faceless examination. You wouldn’t hire this guy unless you plan on there being a grand jury and there being indictments — and if there is a grand jury, if the grand jury is impaneled, then you can expect indictments. That’s what John Yoo thinks. “So if you are a Democrat, I think you would be really worried to see the appointment of a career prosecutor like this.”
From Real Clear Investigations: “John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William Barr to investigate how Trump-Russia allegations … has already been looking into whether the FBI’s former top lawyer, James Baker, illegally leaked to reporters. In fact, [Durham] the U.S. attorney from Connecticut appears to have begun that work more than seven months ago, to judge from an underreported transcript of an October congressional interview with Baker.
He heard about the Steele dossier. He knew it was made up. “Baker said he had even heard about it from David Corn, Washington bureau chief of… Mother Jones.” You know how they know each other? James Baker (top lawyer FBI) and David Corn, their kids carpool. They’re buddies. So Baker is testified (paraphrased), “Yeah, David Corn, my old buddy at Mother Jones, told me about the Steele dossier. Yeah.” This is the result of somebody reviewing transcripts of interviews before committees.
So I think this has been going on a lot longer than people want to know or admit.
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RUSH: The plethora of news stories today signaling that the special prosecutor, the lawyer, U.S. attorney that Barr has hired to investigate the investigation, John Durham, had been at this apparently for longer than people believe. Paul Sperry just tweeted that sources are telling him that Mr. Durham is going to be looking into the CIA’s role in this. That would be John Brennan.
Now, all of this… We’ve got two or three different well-sourced stories that tell us Durham is doing this, that he’s been hired to do it by Barr. He’s looking into the investigation seriously, and there may even be indictments. John Yoo, the former deputy AG for the George W. Bush administration, said (summarized), “Look, this guy is not somebody just conducting an inquiry. You can expect indictments if Barr has hired somebody like this.”
So here comes the New York Times today: “Scrutiny of Russia Investigation Said to Be a Review, Not a Criminal Inquiry.” This is a typical New York Times story with three bylines. “The federal prosecutor tapped to scrutinize the origins of the Russia investigation is conducting only a review for now and has not opened any criminal inquiry, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
“The prosecutor, John H. Durham, the United States attorney for Connecticut, is broadly examining the government’s collection of intelligence involving the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russians, the person said. … While Mr. Durham has conducted criminal investigations into allegations of high-level wrongdoing by law enforcement and national security officials” in the past, “his new review does not rise to that level, the person said,” again, unnamed. We don’t know who this source is.
The New York Times assures us, “The distinction means that Mr. Durham for now will not wield the sort of law enforcement powers that come with an open criminal investigation…” Well… (chuckles) They’ve got this, again, backwards. They’re trying to make themselves feel better, and I think somebody is aware that the New York Times is susceptible to leaks of a certain ideological tilt, and the New York Times and its readers would love to believe that there’s really not much to this.
So somebody leaks to them, “Hey, this is nothing serious. Don’t believe all this garbage out there. This is just an inquiry. There’s nothing serious here yet. This is no criminal inquiry,” and yet Mr. Yoo said, “You don’t appoint somebody like this to do an inquiry.” Inquiry is essentially what inspectors general do. But Mr. Durham will have the power to indict. He’ll have the power to convene a grand jury if he wants to do so.
Trump for his part is saying he is so proud of the attorney general for his efforts to conduct this investigation into the origins of the silent coup waged against him. CNN is reporting that Barr is working closely with the CIA to review the origins of the Trump-Russia witch hunt. CNN claims that John Huber is no longer investigating Russian issues. (That’s the guy that Sessions appointed, seemingly eons ago.) CNN claims that Huber has been in a holding pattern until Horowitz, the inspector general, finishes his investigation — which, if that’s true, that’s maddening.
But now with Durham on the case, we’ll just have to wait. I know a lot of you are still not believing any of this. I understand that you don’t care what the news stories are, you don’t care what Huber or Durham’s resume is. Until there’s actual action on these people, you’re not gonna fall for it because you’re sick and tired of being set up, your expectations raised, and then nothing happens. I understand that. John Brennan says that Barr is fishing for something in the FISA warrant to misrepresent as a deep-state plot against Trump.
Fishing? To call this a fishing expedition is fascinating because that’s essentially what the investigation into Trump was. Let’s start here with audio sound bite number 2. This is John Brennan last night on MSNBC, and Nicolle Wallace said, “What are they gonna find? Three examinations of the origins of the Russia investigation, what was the concern? What was going on? What are they gonna find when they do this?”
BRENNAN: I think they’re just trying to, uh, you know, demonstrate that there was problems with what the Obama administration did as far as pursue this investigation. But it went through a rigorous due process within the Department of Justice, the FBI. It was approved by the FISA court. It went through all of those steps. Now, if they look back at it in 2020, are they going to find that there was something that should have been said differently, whatever? They might. But I think that’s what they’re trying to do is to uncover something that they will misrepresent as being part of this deep-state effort to try to undermine Donald Trump’s, uh, election.
RUSH: “[T]hey’re trying to cover something they will misrepresent as being part of this deep-state effort to undermine Donald Trump’s election.” Not just his election, but his presidency. And it is purposely… John Solomon with another story today indicating that the FBI knew well in advance that the Steele dossier was uncorroborated, unverified, that there was nothing true in it, and yet they used it to get the FISA warrant to spy to Carter Page. Here’s Andy McCarthy reacting to Brennan and his suggestion that Barr is out to misrepresent something.
MCCARTHY: Sometimes they abuse their powers. I think that not only should the activities of the Justice Department and the FBI — the presentation of the warrants — be looked at. I actually think they ought to be looking at what on earth the FISA court was thinking about when it issued some of these warrants. But this is an oversight exercise, and if what director Brennan is saying is true, then what’s he worried about? But to hear them talk about, like, it’s a fishing expedition? After we just had a two-year investigation of the administration under circumstances where the Justice Department didn’t articulate a crime that it was actually looking at? We spent two years on a fishing expedition under the guise of collusion. They’re now gonna complain about oversight of the intelligence and the Justice Department and the FBI? That seems ridiculous to me.
RUSH: No, it’s not ridiculous. The rats are scurrying. They never expected this to happen. This is the last thing they ever thought would happen, that anybody would investigate them. In their world, this isn’t possible. In their world, they determine who gets investigated and who doesn’t — and it’s never them. In their world, they get away with this. And, you know, I think any other president, they would have. If they had mounted a campaign like this against any other president, any other president would have caved at some point during this process.
With all of the character assassination and all of the attempts to ruin friends and associates — and all of it made up. I mean, any other president would have gotten the message from these people, “We are gonna destroy, and we’re gonna destroy your kids, and we’re gonna destroy your family. Unless you find a way to get out of this office, unless you find a way to resign, we’re gonna get you all.” And a lot of people… I don’t know anybody but Trump who would have put up with this, and that’s the last thing they expected.
This is another thing where they were caught short. They never expected this. They think… In their world, Trump is a bumpkin. He’s not sophisticated enough to even be able to compete with an effort like this. I mean, they sent Comey into the Oval Office how many times to lie to him? They sent Comey in there to set him up on a number of occasions; then Comey comes out and tells Clapper and Brennan, “Mission accomplished.” I mean, they really thought they were dealing with — and this is a characteristic of arrogance.
Arrogance breeds hubris, and you think nobody is anywhere near in your league of intelligence or intellect. You think you’re smarter than everybody. They just didn’t calculate anything, because they’ve never, even now, taken the time to understand who Trump is. You know, in the world in which they live, folks, here’s Donald Trump… Let me start this way. Here’s Donald Trump, who we all know is not of Washington. He’s an outsider.
What he did in getting elected president is one of the single greatest personal achievements in his life and in many others. It was a phenomenal thing to pull off. It was a singular, great achievement, and he did it without any real assistance from the Washington power structure. He did it, by the way, in opposition to them the whole way. So he pulls it off. He succeeds. And these people — and I put Brennan and Hillary and Obama at the top of this list, and it’s a long list of people.
These people don’t even take the time to examine or contemplate what this achievement means to Donald Trump as a human being. This is an incredible thing to do! Not very many people have ever done this. I mean, the number of people who have been elected president is a small number. The people who have been elected president from outside a political organization or apparatus, I mean, how many is it? It’s not many. It’s something that…
I don’t know Trump all that well, but you can tell you I know him well enough to know this is something he was as proud of as anything he’s ever done, and there are a lot of things he’s done. And he’s not just gonna sit there and let it be mischaracterized or lied about, and he’s not gonna let a bunch of that he doesn’t like take it away from him. But these people trying to take it away from him are used to being able to take from anybody what they want. They’re used to being able to destroy whoever they want.
They haven’t the slightest idea still who they are dealing with. The idea that there’s now an investigation into them? Never in their wildest dreams did they ever contemplate anything like this as being even possible. When Strzok Smirk and Lisa Page talked about an “insurance policy,” it was not an insurance policy in case they screwed up. It was an insurance policy in case Trump got elected. “Okay, how do we deal with it if he does win? How do we get rid of him then? If we can’t stop him, then how do we get rid of him then?”
But at no point did they ever calculate their own failure, because they never considered that they would fail, and that’s why they can’t believe where they are. Then the Mueller report! The Mueller report.. They were gonna get him then. They were gonna force him out with the Mueller report. The Mueller report was gonna intimate him, was gonna scare him. They were gonna put his family in jail, gonna ruin his businesses — and he stood there and told them to go to hell every day for two years. And people don’t do that to these people.
You don’t tell the Washington establishment that. Whoever these powerbrokers are, you don’t tell them to go to hell. They’re used to people acquiescing. So now, there is a serious investigation into what they did, and they’re scurrying around blaming each other now, starting to blame each other for what went wrong and who did this wrong and who did that wrong, and who’s misunderstanding what we all did. It’s kind of juicy to see.
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RUSH: Flemington, New Hampshire, and Dave. I’m glad you waited, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. It’s an absolutely pleasure to talk with you today.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I wanted to piggyback on what you said earlier which is that this fellow John Durham may have been running this investigation for as long as eight months. That means he began long before Bill Barr was confirmed as attorney general. That only happened three months ago. So I’m wondering. Why would Barr reveal now the existence of this behind-the-scenes investigation, particularly when it’s not complete, unless he’s trying to provoke a response from someone or something? This is the kind of follow-up question — the “Why?” — that I know you truly love to delve into and are truly expert as arriving at the real answer. So I wanted to get your thoughts.
But I think it’s… You know, while that might be a tactical reason, I think one of the strategic reasons is not complicated. I think for people who think the way you and I do, I think what’s happened here is simply one of the most outrageous, audacious blemishes in American political history. I happen to think — and I don’t know William Barr at all. Never met him. Never talked to him. I happen to think that he is just repulsed by what happened and was scared by how close these people came and the fact that there hasn’t been any accountability.
There’s gonna have be. I think there’s nothing more here than a concerted effort to explain what happened, to hold people who may have done something illegal accountable. I think it’s right in front of us why this is all happening. I don’t think there’s any great mystery to it. Because we came dangerously close to crossing a line that it might have been really difficult to get back on the right side of. If these people had succeeded… If they had done this once, they would be energized to do it the next time they didn’t like whoever won an election.
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RUSH: Bob in Spokane, Washington. You’re next. It’s great to have you, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Pleasure to talk to you again.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I was gonna ask you how you are, but you’re on fire today so I already know. Hey, in your first hour you described as “delicious” the finger pointing going on by Rosenstein and Comey and Clapper and Brennan and all that. It definitely is, because for two years ago they’ve been telling us that the coup is a conspiracy theory, that the Steele dossier is rock sold; there’s no such thing as the deep state. You know, and even Brennan is changing his tune now.
Instead of that he’s saying, “Weeeeell, this investigation is a fishing expedition,” you know. But I think the most delicious part of this, I think, is that with all this finger pointing going on, what it is, is an unspoken admission that all this stuff happened. There was a coup attempt. The Steele dossier is garbage. There is a deep state, and now, instead of, “It doesn’t exist,” it’s, “It wasn’t me. It was him.”
RUSH: That is the key. “It wasn’t me.” They’ve all turned into Bart Simpson.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: “It wasn’t me. Nobody saw me do anything. You can’t prove it. I didn’t do it.”
CALLER: That’s right, and they’ve gone from, “It doesn’t exist; it’s a conspiracy theory,” to “I didn’t do it.”
RUSH: “It wasn’t me. He did it!”
CALLER: It’s an unspoken admission that this stuff that you’ve been talking about is valid, this happened.
RUSH: Yeah, it’s a great observation, because it’s no question that it happened. I think it ties in. I had a question earlier, “Why would Barr even announce this? Why not just hire the guy. Don’t say anything about it. Just do the investigation. Don’t alert them,” and the answer is the obvious. It’s right in front of us. They’re scurrying around now. I mean, Rosenstein/Trump on Comey. Comey dished on Rosenstein. Comey’s out there saying, “Rosenstein didn’t have anywhere near the moral character to stand up to Donald Trump. I knew he didn’t.”
He threw a couple other names in there too, as well as Rosenstein.
Rosenstein goes and gives a (impression), “I will not sit here and listen to James Comey analyze my character and my godly soul! I’m not gonna put up with it.” So the rats are starting to my carry around and seek safety, while indeed getting close to pointing fingers. It’s why I said earlier that if this keeps up, we’re gonna be able to leverage some of these people into fingering others for (shall we say) immunity or a lesser penalty or what. And then, how high can it go? Because this does go to the Obama administration. It goes to Susan Rice and Samantha Power unmasking people.
It goes to Comey and that press conference of his.
Oh, speaking of which, I want to go backwards. I’m looking for the Lanny Davis sound bite and I’ve now got all my sound bites out of order, but I think it was number four. I want you… This is Lanny Davis this morning on, I think, it’s a New York TV station, Good Day New York. Might it be Channel 5, Fox? I’m not sure. It is. The cohost is Lori Stokes. She says to Lanny Davis, “Going back to your book about the 2016 election, you blame much of your good friend Hillary Clinton’s loss on James Comey. Do you really feel that way?”
DAVIS: First of all, she’s such a good friend that they say five stages of grief. I haven’t reached stage five yet, which is acceptance. James Comey cost Hillary Clinton the election. His sanctimony… It’s the one thing I agree with Donald Trump on is that James Comey is so self-righteous. They share the narcissism together. That he’s allowed to break the rules and swing the elections to Donald Trump, because he’s James Comey. The rules forbid him doing what he did; he did it anyway. So I’m still pretty angry at James Comey.
RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen… No, no, no, no, no, Lanny. You don’t get a do-over like this. So now even Lanny Davis says, “It’s the one thing I agree with Donald Trump about: James Comey’s sanctimony.” Now, Comey, up until this thing blew up — up until the Mueller report came out — Comey was close to Mueller in terms of godlike status. CNN was giving Comey town hall-length interviews. Comey was being celebrated.
He was being feted on his gigantic book tour. He was being treated as the second most important guy in the get Trump coup, right behind Bob Mueller. Now they’re turning on Comey and they’re talking about his sanctimony, because he’s doing weird things like taking pictures of himself out in the woods looking at trees, as he berates the lack of character and moral turpitude of his former conspirators. But where Lanny Davis is really wrong about this — and I find it fascinating that at this point, Lanny Davis wants to bring this back up.
He’s talking here about Comey’s July 5th press conference. That’s where Comey went out and pretended that he was attorney general, and he did what is verboten. Prosecutors are prohibited by law and regulation from listing a bunch of offenses if a perp is not gonna be charged. You do not do that. You do not. If you’re not gonna charge a person, you do not tell anybody about your investigation of them. You’re not allowed to smear them. You’re not allowed to destroy them. You’re not allowed to ruin them.
Well, that’s what Comey did in Lanny Davis’s eye. In Lanny Davis’s opinion, Comey went out there and listed all of Hillary’s offenses and then said, “We’re not charging her. No reasonable prosecutor would. She didn’t intend to do any of this.” Lanny — and you know this without me telling you. Comey didn’t condemn her in that press conference. He exonerated her, and that’s what was wrong with it. All of you people now, after the fact, thinking Comey is the reason Hillary lost the election? Hillary last the election, Lanny because she was not a good candidate.
James Comey exonerated her on that July 5th press conference. He let her off the hook. He basically listed everything she had done that broke the law and said, “We’re not gonna pursue it.” In fact, she was exonerated before she was even interviewed. These guys, even after that, they ended up loving James Comey. This is a very circuitous cycle. Comey does this July 5th. They then put this big show of anger on, saying, “How dare you! He just cost us the election.”
Then people pointed out, “No, no, no. He just exonerated her. He just let her off the hook!”
“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah! You’re right. You’re right.”
Then Comey, after the election, when Comey starts angling to take Trump out, all these people that hated him started loving him. “He’s the greatest guy!” It was odd. Media, CNN, they all loved Comey. Lanny Davis, all these people did. Now that the effort to get Trump has blown up, guess what? Let’s go back to July 5th; let’s hate on Comey again. This is what we’re observing. The rats, for lack of a better term, are starting to turn on each other.
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