RUSH: Look, folks, I’ve had some emails questioning my own take on this impeachment business. To me, this all is made up. There’s nothing real here. It’s a grand illusion, as I’ve told you. And yet you turn on the news like right now, “Impeachment fight: White House preparing…” Rush, you gotta understand you’ve got to deal with it, right, because the Democrats are actually trying to do it. Of course, I understand. Here’s my problem. Let me try to explain it one more time.

I guess the best way to do it is — and I’m not calling anybody out. I can’t even remember who I saw write this, that the White House had better have a substantive answer to the charge. Okay, well, what’s the charge? The charge is that Trump in the phone call — which we know didn’t happen because the transcript has been released. But the charge is that Trump was asking the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on a possible 2020 presidential opponent, Joe Biden and his kid, and was withholding aid to Ukraine until he got cooperation from the Ukraine president.

Now, that didn’t happen. But I understand. Here’s the thing about impeachment, folks — and it’s a tough thing to understand if you’re judging it by the U.S. criminal justice system. The U.S. criminal justice system does not apply. The House of Representatives has what is called plenary power over the entire process and pursuit of impeachment. Meaning, absolute. The Fourth Amendment, the First Amendment, the Sixth Amendment don’t matter.

Not legally. If they want to deny Trump and his lawyers the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses, they can. The price they will pay for that is in public opinion not supporting what they’re doing, but they can do it. Schiff can do all this stuff in private that he wants. Remember this is an impeachment inquiry, and he himself has said that it’s akin to a grand jury — and, in a grand jury, the accused gets no representation and no presence whatsoever. So that’s why Schiff is drawing that analogy.

Now, when there are — if there are — articles of impeachment drafted and then voted on, signaling that there will be a trial in the Senate, that’s where the president gets to cross-examine. That’s where the president’s lawyers get to participate. That’s where they get to present a case. But if Adam Schiff and Pelosi want to run this as a tinhorn dictatorship would, they can. They have plenary power. So when the president’s out there saying he has a right to face his accused, he doesn’t, unless the House gives it to him.

The House of Representatives is absolute. The U.S. criminal justice system here doesn’t apply because the proceedings are not criminal and they’re not legal. Not really. They’re purely, purely political. Now, my point is that they don’t have anything. This is like being told to mount a defense of a negative. It’s impossible. Yet they do have a charge. But the charge keeps floating. The original charge was that Trump demanded the president of Ukraine “make up and dig up dirt on his opponent.”

Well, Trump blew that sky-high releasing the transcript. So now they’ve moved it. The target’s moving. Now they’re moving after the area that Trump engaged in bribery, the withholding of aid until Ukraine did what he wants. And then they’re gonna go to obstruction, that Trump is preventing the House from finding out what he did. In truth, the whole thing is imploding on Schiff, but it is not being reported that way. Everything being reported in the news is as though this is entirely legitimate.

And it is legitimate in the narrow sense that the House can do whatever it wants, and they can charge Trump with anything they want. The House of Representatives determines high crimes and misdemeanors, what they are. But the facts of the matter is, I don’t know how you defend this because there isn’t anything. So the Trump team is going to have to demonstrate that all of this is bogus, that all of this is what Mark Zaid admitted it is: A coup.

That’s the best defense Trump has, not an answer to the “substantive charge” that he attempted to get the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt. How do you say, “No I didn’t. The transcript’s been released.” So, yeah. I’m frustrated as hell when I see this list of “witnesses,” White House witnesses, State Department witnesses “testifying.” Nobody’s testifying to anything! You’ve just got a bunch of eggheads being called in to ask their opinion by Adam Schiff and the Democrats of what they think Trump is alleged to have done.

Let me illustrate — and to do this, I gotta shovel two stacks of paper out of the way and move over here to one. Let’s talk about Ambassador Taylor. William Taylor, stand-in ambassador to the Ukraine — Mr. Mueller II — impeccable, unassailable. You can’t even breathe the same air he breathes! That’s how insignificant mere mortals are to this august human existence. Lee Zeldin was questioning Bill Taylor. “Ambassador Taylor: September 7th. Are we looking at the same paragraph? Mr. Zeldin: Third paragraph down on page L2.

“Ambassador Taylor: Right, in which he described a phone conversation with Sondland and President Trump, yes, sir. Mr. Zeldin: This is the only reference in your opening statement to Biden other than your one reference to the July 25th call. And this isn’t firsthand. It’s not secondhand. It’s not thirdhand. But if I understand this correctly, you’re telling us that Tim Morrison told you that Ambassador Sondland told him that the president told Ambassador Sondland that Zelensky would have to open an investigation into Biden? Ambassador Taylor: That’s correct.” Yes, sir.

Folks, this isn’t even thirdhand. Can I read that again? This is Zeldin summarizing for Bill Taylor. So “if I understand this correctly, you’re telling us that” the extent of your knowledge about this “Tim Morrison told you that Ambassador Sondland told him that the president told Ambassador Sondland that Zelensky would have to open an investigation into Biden?” “That’s correct.” Yes, sir. Folks, this isn’t even thirdhand. Bill Taylor doesn’t know anything, yet he’s been presented as a star witness who’s got the goods that’s finally gonna nail Trump.

And all he knows is what somebody told him that somebody said they told somebody else that that somebody else then said the president told them that, yeah. “U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor, during his deposition last month, identified the New York Times as the sole [only] source of his claim that President Donald Trump wanted Ukraine to help him get dirt on Joe Biden…” Trump never asked for dirt on Biden! That is an Adam Schiff, completely manufactured slur.

But regardless, the ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, admitted the New York Times was “the sole source” of what he knew. Not hearing the phone call, not talking to Trump about the phone call, not talking to Zelensky about the phone call but reading about it in the New York Times. So he’s there being called to testify by Schiff and his Democrats. (paraphrased exchange) “Okay, what do you know?” “Well, I… (sputtering) I saw in the New York Times that,” blah, blah, blah. That’s it. This is the same way that the FBI used the media to get so-called evidence before the FISA court.

The FBI would plant a story in the New York Times. The New York Times ran the story. The FBI would then get the story from the New York Times, put it in the rest of the file, take it to the FISA judge, say, “Judge, it’s not just us at the FBI. Even the New York Times has this.” Well, the New York Times had it only because FBI gave it to ’em. So Taylor’s going up there as a firsthand witness, and all he knows is what he read in the New York Times — and we all know how New York Times is making things up.

The transcript of the testimony described the Zeldin-Taylor exchange as follows. This is Lee Zeldin, New York Congress, talking to Taylor. “What was the goal of requesting investigations into the 2016 election and Ukrainian company that employed Hunter in Burisma? What was the goal?”

Taylor: Well, as I understand it from one of the — maybe the article in the New York Times about Giuliani’s interest in Burisma. In that article he describes — I think he quotes Giuliani at some length — the article indicates Giuliani was interested in getting some information on Biden that would be useful for Giuliani’s client. I think that’s what he says. He says he’s got one client.

So Zeldin says what was the goal of the president. Remember, this guy’s presented as an expert fact witness. What was the goal of requesting investigations — Trump, what’s the goal of the president requesting investigations into the 2016 election? Because that’s what he was doing. He was asking essentially for Ukraine to help Bill Barr and to figure out how Trump ended up being investigated by the FBI, CIA.

So this fact witness is being asked to explain what Trump was doing, requesting the investigation of 2016. Bill Taylor: “Well, the article New York Times says,” blah, blah, blah, “Giuliani,” blah, blah, blah, “his client.” Bill Taylor doesn’t know jack. But he’s been presented to us expert this, unassailable here, impeccable there, and the only thing he knows is what he read in the New York Times.

Now, Schiff knows this is what he’s gonna say. This was not part of the released transcript. Well, it was, but none of this was among the first leaked releases that Schiff gave to the media. So Zeldin says, “Then it’s your inference that Mr. Giuliani’s goal would be the president’s goal?”

Taylor: “Yes.”

“And your source is the New York Times?”

Taylor: “Yes.”

“So do you have any other source that the president’s goal making this request was anything other than the New York Times?”

“I have not talked to the president. I have no information about what the president was thinking.” Well, then why the hell are you even testifying? “I have no information from what the president was thinking.” So what we have here is Mr. Taylor’s opinion of what he read in the New York Times as a stand in for fact witness expertise testimony.

This is what I mean by, there is nothing, folks. And how do you rebut this? How do you treat this substantive charge? “Well, I read in the New York Times that the president was asking him to find dirt.” Now, Breitbart News story says that Taylor claimed it was Rudy, Rudy Giuliani who requested that Zelensky investigate Ukraine’s meddling into the 2016 election and Burisma.

But Taylor said that his thinking on this was based the New York Times article. It’s laughable, is what this is. I don’t know, folks. And then Bill Taylor: “Ukraine unaware of U.S. hold on aid during July 25th call. Quid pro quo impossible.” Let me translate. Bill Taylor testified — he’s the ambassador to Ukraine — that Ukraine didn’t know that U.S. aid was on hold on July 25th when the president was talking to the president of Ukraine.

Well, my friends, if Ukraine didn’t know that money was being withheld, there cannot have been a quid pro quo. The money was already being withheld before Trump even made the phone call. He could not have threatened to withhold the aid. It was already being withheld. And Ukraine didn’t even know it.

And it turns out that Bill Taylor admitted in his deposition he’s never had any contact with Trump or even Rudy Giuliani. He admitted his only contacts were with John Bolton, who was fired by Trump and Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and Tim Morrison. That’s it. And this is the star witness. He never talked to the president. He doesn’t know — all of this manufactured.

But the coup de grace, the piece de resistance, Byron York with a great story today in the Washington Examiner that all three of these people — Morrison, Taylor, and Vindman — all admitted that Trump has helped Ukraine considerably. That Ukraine is in much better shape with defense money and other general aid than they ever were under Obama, who denied Ukraine aid even as the Russians were moving in and annexing Crimea from them.

“One notable and little-reported conclusion emerging from the House Democratic impeachment proceedings is a consensus among some foreign policy professionals that President Trump’s Ukraine policy has been an improvement over President Barack Obama’s.”

Bill Taylor said so. I don’t have time to get it, but the transcript of what he said about it here. Tim Morrison said so. So what is this? See, this is my point. There isn’t anything substantive here. And yet the Drudge headlines and CNN and everywhere else you go, Fox, they make it look like Trump has been found guilty of all kinds of rotten things and that the White House is in dire straits right now with dire consequences emerging and unless they come up with a defense and explanation for this Trump is toast. It’s BS.

Meanwhile, ABC, CBS, and NBC have stories about how excited they are. They can’t wait for impeachment to begin because they all remember how exciting Watergate was. It was some of the most compelling TV they’ve ever seen, and the American people are gonna be stunned, they can’t wait, they can’t wait. They are doing nothing but living in the past and trying to make something from 1972, ’73 become real again. It just, to somebody like me, the mayor of Realville, Mr. Literal, this just does not compute.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Kenny in Edmond, Oklahoma, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, dittos, Rush. I just wanted to call in. There’s no quid pro quo here. President Trump’s right. We do this to every country all over the world. We’re always making deals with them. “You do this for us, we’ll do this for you.”

RUSH: Exactly.

CALLER: “We’ll give you money for this, we’ll give you money for that.”

RUSH: In fact, that has been, in my own foreign policy suggestion, I have suggested for years an excrement list. And if your country doesn’t want to get on the excrement list, you say good things about us, you thank us for the aid, and you act as our allies. But if you’re gonna rip us, if you’re gonna be unappreciative, you’re going to get on our excrement list and you’re not gonna get any foreign aid. Of course, you’re right. Every bit of foreign policy’s a quid pro quo. Every responsible bit is.