RUSH: You know the book I told you about, Lee Smith’s book? Sidney Blumenthal is trying to get it shut down.

The Clinton administration, the Clinton machine is trying to stop the publication of the Lee Smith book which connects the Clintons and Obama to the coup attempt to get rid of Donald Trump. Sidney Blumenthal, who was a major player in many aspects because he’s always at Hillary’s side, tried to get the book shut down. Lee Smith is starting to do interviews now. The book comes out this week. There’s another excerpt that has been published. We’ll have the details for you.

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RUSH: Now, Lee Smith’s book. I have my copy here. As a powerful, influential member of the media, I (tapping book) got an advance copy. The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History. This is the book. I think it’s out this Tuesday. I know you can pre-order it now, and I think it actually gets released tomorrow. It could be already out. If not, it’s this week. This book… Lee Smith is a columnist, and I’ve read every word that he has written about Crossfire Hurricane, about this scandal.

Now, his book does something that I think is very important. It credits Devin Nunes for uncovering practically all of what we know when he was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The book recounts how Nunes got suspicious, what made him suspicious, how he tracked it down, what he did learn. It really makes the case that Nunes — Devin Nunes — is the hero in this. Now, something about this book by Lee Smith — and you’ve read what he’s written at numerous websites. One of the websites, I think, is called The Tablet.

Now I’m having a mental block on some of the others. But those of you with exceptional memories will remember that I have quoted from Lee Smith during this whole sordid tale numerous times. On Friday, I came across this headline: “Clinton Machine Tries to Stop Publication of Book Connecting Democrats with Russia Investigation — A new book set to release October 29th,” yeah, I was right, tomorrow, “has the Clintons very upset.

“Fox News reported that ‘Clinton family associate Sidney Blumenthal has made legal threats to the publisher of a forthcoming book featuring allegations against Democrats in connection with the Russia investigation in an attempt to stop publication.'” Well, this is the best thing that could happen for the book. So now the Clinton machine’s trying to get the book squelched? They’re trying to get it taken off the shelves, making sure it never gets to the shelves?

That’s gonna make people want to read it even more. “Blumenthal claims the book… is defamatory. The book includes allegations ‘about the origin of the Russia probe and the involvement of Democratic operatives with the unverified anti-Trump dossier compiled by … Christopher Steele.'” I’m just gonna tell you, there’s an embargo on this because the book doesn’t come out until tomorrow. But there’s pretty interesting news about this dossier in Lee Smith’s book.

I don’t know if it’s gonna be as big a deal to you as it is to me, but to me it is big. And I wish I could tell you. And if I didn’t have any moral boundaries, I would tell you. But there’s an embargo on it. So I’ll just have to titillate you. I’m sorry. And I haven’t read the whole thing yet so there’s bound to be more than that.

Blumenthal is intimately involved in the Podesta email story, is intimately involved in the creation of the dossier. He’s intimately involved with Mrs. Clinton. This was entirely a Democrat operation. When I go back, folks, and think about this, when I just stop everything and go back to the basics of this, it still outrages me, and it’s why I lose my cookies when I see Andrew McCabe up on CNN.

I have tried to come up with a number of different ways of synthesizing this so as to explain this ongoing scandal and coup attempt in the most easily understandable way that I can. And you know, it’s not that hard. The hard part is that it’s so unbelievable to some, it’s not unbelievable to me.

But here are some facts. And I apologize if you’ve heard me say these before, but please understand there are new people listening each and every day. This program’s audience is growing by leaps and bounds. Subscribers to the website, people downloading the app, it’s expanding faster than at any time in the program’s history. And we’re now in our 31st year.

There was never any evidence that Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election. There was never any evidence that Russia colluded with Trump. There is scant evidence that Russia succeeded in their ongoing meddling attempts at all. Folks, there is no evidence. There never has been any evidence. Do you know what drove this entire operation? It was the Steele dossier, which, there’s more to learn about that when this book hits release tomorrow.

The Steele dossier does not have one true thing in it. There’s not one factual assertion in it, not one, folks. And it was all they ever had. They used the Steele dossier to go to the FISA court, to tell FISA judges that it looked like the Russians had found a way to get involved in the Trump campaign and needed a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.

They used nefarious methods for people that were peripheral players like Carter Page and Paul Manafort. But the bottom line, there was never any evidence, and I’m telling you, there’s no other way to say this, there was never any real investigation. The Mueller investigation was not an investigation. There was no attempt to try to learn what happened because nothing did! All of this was entirely made up!

Now, that’s hard for a lot of people to believe. But it was all made up. It was part of a plan that was hatched even before Trump won the Republican nomination. This thing goes back to 2015. But we still don’t know when it was officially artificially hatched. They have tried to tell us that it began when George Papadopoulos started bragging in Europe about the Trump campaign’s knowledge that the Russians had Hillary Clinton emails. But that is also bogus because they made that story up. And they fed that information to Papadopoulos via two different operatives that were acting as FBI informants, Stefan Halper of Cambridge, and Joseph Mifsud, a professor from Malta.

Papadopoulos was set up. He was wined and dined by Stefan Halper. They even brought along some honeypot woman to try to coerce him while he was engaged. They planted this story that the Russians had Hillary’s emails, knowing that he as a young newcomer to the Trump campaign might go out and brag about it, and they set up meetings for him with people who are other operatives, the Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, and that’s when they claim — and McCabe was saying this last week — that’s when they claim it started. That’s been debunked I don’t know how many times, but they’re still going with it.

I want to read to you an excerpt here, the way the book touches on this. “Still, Nunes believed that all the talk of Trump and Russia was a waste of time. ‘They,’” meaning the FBI, “’kept promising us,’” this is Nunes and his investigators on the Intelligence Committee “They kept promising us evidence of collusion, week after week.” They never came up with anything. We never saw anything. They never had anything.

“Nunes’ disdain for the ICA,” which is an acronym for an intelligence analysis “Nunes’s disdain for the ICA forced the Crossfire Hurricane team’s hand.” In other words, he refused to accept what they were telling him. He kept demanding evidence. They didn’t have any because there wasn’t any. There was no evidence. Folks, do you realize how profound that is? There was never anything.

Mueller’s two years were as fraudulent as anything has ever been fraudulent. There could not have been an investigation. There was a hunt and an effort to plant and create evidence, not to find any, because there wasn’t any. They kept promising Nunes it was coming. They never showed him anything.

He said, “Right around the time that they came out with the ICA, they kept saying that we were waiting on something to show us, something important that was coming in,” Nunes said. “They said it was some significant figure who they couldn’t quite track down yet.” They were setting Nunes up for the Papadopoulos story.

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RUSH: So Devin Nunes continues to ask for the evidence the FBI says they’ve got on Trump colluding with Russia. They keep putting him off. They issue an intelligence analysis that he doesn’t believe, so he confronts them. And he says right around that time they came out with the intelligence analysis, they kept saying that they were waiting on something to show us, something big, something important was coming in. They said it was some significant figure who they couldn’t quite track down yet.

“But the FBI knew exactly where its missing link was, the piece of evidence that they thought would convince hardened skeptics like Nunes that collusion was real. They didn’t have to chase him down, because he was sitting at home in Chicago. He submitted to a voluntary interview January 27 and without a lawyer because he had no idea what the FBI had in store for him.”

Exactly what they did to Michael Flynn. “The Crossfire Hurricane team was figuring how they were going to set up the Trump adviser they’d used to open up the investigation in July 2016: George Papadopoulos.”

Now, they set up Papadopoulos in July 2016. That’s where they fed him the story. Halper offers him a speaking gig in London as an energy expert. They pay him 10 grand plus his travel and entertainment. He didn’t spend the money. He kept the money. His instincts told him something was — look. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not being critical of Papadopoulos at all. But he’s asking himself, “Why me?” He was new to the team.

So they set the story up, they plant the story with Papadopoulos that the Russians have Hillary Clinton emails, so that Papadopoulos will start talking and, you know, gossip about it in July 2016. They don’t interview him officially until January of 2017. Six months went by. Nunes is demanding evidence. The FBI says we’re waiting on something big to come in. They waited for the Papadopoulos story to settle in. And that’s when they claim the investigation began, and Nunes did not believe them for a second. And they are sticking with that story even now. McCabe was telling this lie last week on CNN.