RUSH: Hi, folks. Once again time for more play-by-play of the news. Are you watching this? I got a bunch of emails today, including from a really good friend in California said, “I had to turn this off, Rush, it’s so disturbing. The amount of hate today is so disturbing, I just had to turn it off, otherwise it would ruin my day.”
See, I can’t turn this stuff off because my job is to do play-by-play of the news. So I’m watching this. If you have heard the term “show trial” and never quite understood what it is, this is it. This entire thing is a setup. These three so-called law professors are indeed law professors, but they are appearing today as ultraliberal left-wing hacks disguised as law professors to give this whole proceeding some credibility because the Democrats can’t do that on their own.
These three people — Feldman, Karlan, and Gerhardt — have obviously been coached. The questions are softball setups unlike I have ever heard. Every one of these witnesses testifying is a fact witness. They’re all talking about how Trump sought opposition research against a political opponent from a foreign leader as though they were on the phone call. They were not on the phone call. They don’t know what happened, outside of the transcript of the phone call.
Jonathan Turley, who was the one voice opposed to the impeachment, not a pro-Trumpster, but he’s opposed to the impeachment, not even asking him any questions. Like Noah Feldman, one of the professors, just said that Trump put personal gain before national security. He doesn’t know that. This is nothing more than left-wing political hackery dressed up. And, folks, the reason why is because the Democrats, none of their civil servant witnesses captured the American people’s attention two weeks ago.
So they went now over to Nadler’s committee and they’ve got these academics, the smartest people in the world we are to believe, these law professors. And by virtue of that they’re supposed to be nonpartisan, you see. They’re just interested in the law. They’re just interested in the Constitution, and they’re just uber, stinking liberal hacks. And I’ve got some audio coming up in a moment that will show you what these people were saying two weeks after Trump won the election, even before the so-called impeachable offenses came up.
You know what this really is about? This is about attempting to continue the Russia-Trump collusion lie. That’s what this is really all about. They can’t get over that that came up dry. They can’t get over that there wasn’t any evidence of it. And so all of this, even though it’s ostensibly about Ukraine, if you listen to the language, it’s the identical language these hacks were using all during the two years, three years of trying to convince people that Trump colluded with Putin to steal the election from Hillary.
This professor Feldman says that Trump has put the USA at risk by withholding aid to Ukraine. He did not withhold aid to Ukraine. Obama withheld aid to Ukraine for eight years. Ukraine got its defense aid from Trump after a temporary hold. Trump got nothing for it. There was no investigation of Biden, but if you listen to these people, there was.
In fact, based on what these people said today, it is Joe Biden who ought to be indicted, not impeached. Joe Biden has admitted bribery. Joe Biden has admitted that he interfered in Ukraine’s domestic politics when he was vice president and got a prosecutor looking into his son fired. The prosecutor was fired after Biden gave them six hours. Biden has confessed.
It’s on videotape at the Council on Foreign Relations, bragging about what he did. And he told these people, he’s repeating the story, he said, if you don’t believe me, Mr. Ukraine leader, call Obama. Obama will back me up. If you don’t can that prosecutor, you’re not gonna get your aid.
Six hours later, Biden says the son-of-a-bit-me fired the prosecutor. It is just unreal what is happening here. These people are literally testifying as fact witnesses. None of them have ever met Trump. None of them were on the phone call with Trump. Feldman declared that Trump put personal gain before national security. How does he know this? He’s never met Trump. These people are simply going off media reports.
If this is what’s going on in law school classes at Harvard and Stanford and the University of North Carolina, God help us!
“And so in your opinion, if the president had stolen the money, what would that mean for impeachment?”
“That would mean impeachment is something you must do.”
“Well, if — if the president did tell the president of Ukraine that he was wanting him to investigate the now debunked CrowdStrike theory, what should Congress do?”
“Congress should impeach.”
I mean, that’s the extent of what we’ve had here. Now, the Republicans are gonna get their go at this this afternoon, but… (chuckles) This is exactly what I told you it is. They’re now in a mad dash to get this done. They are scared to death what’s gonna happen if Donald Trump gets reelected. They don’t have a candidate who can beat him. Oh, man. You ought to see… Kamala Harris is gone, and the Democrats are beating themselves up over the fact that there aren’t any people of color left in the race. I mean, it’s the strangest thing.
Cory Booker. (impression) “I’m very devastated that there are no more people of color remaining in the race.” “What about you?” “Well…” Gayle King on CBS This Morning said (impression), “I am so distressed that Kamala Harris’ voters did not move over and support Cory Booker.” Why, because of race? Is that why? So you’re disappointed in your own party because your own party’s voters didn’t support the black babe, and then the black babe gets out and the meager number of supporters she had is not going over to the black guy — and you tell us we are racists?
And I’ve got a big problem with that, because these people and the party they’re in are in the process of undermining the founding of this country, and they dare show up here today and say what the founders feared and what the founders were warning against and that it’s Donald J. Trump? If the founders were alive today, it’s these three law professors they’d be having a cow over, and the whole Democrat Party over which the founders would be thinking, “Maybe our experiment has failed. If this bunch of hacks has become a majority political party in America, our experiment’s over.”
I wish that I could have turned this off, but I can’t because I do play-by-play of the news. Spying on the Republican candidate for president, a witch hunt by Robert J. Mueller — a silent coup that they have admitted to, to overturn the election results of 2016 — a phony impeachment, spying on journalists, shadow banning on social media. That’s what the Democrat Party is, and that’s what this hearing is today — and if it isn’t stopped, we are gonna lose the country. If these people are not politically defeated in this effort, what they’re trying to do, we’re gonna lose the country.
The Democrats are out there accusing Trump of all these phantom abuses of power because that is precisely what they have been doing since Obama was in office. It is blatant, easy-to-spot projection. Abuse of power is a game to them. Character assassination is standard operating procedure. The Steele dossier. Steele dossier is a microcosm of how Democrats go about their business: Lie about people, make it up, pass it off as legitimate. Hillary Clinton laundering money through a law firm to produce a smear document with the help of Russian operatives is how Democrats prepare for presidential elections.
An FBI director covering up criminal behavior of a Democrat running for president, Hillary Clinton, James Comey? That’s considered necessary to protect our democracy? You have the FBI director covering up for the legitimate crimes committed by the Democrat nominee in order to protect our democracy? Give me a freaking break! Deceiving the FISA courts with a phony dossier made up of totally false allegations that is used to get warrants to spy on the opposition political candidate, and they tell us we are threatening our democracy, that Donald Trump is threatening our democracy!
The transcript of the phone call has been released. There isn’t anything in it that constitutes an impeachable offense. There isn’t a single witness they have called yet who has met Donald Trump. There isn’t a single witness they have called yet other than Lieutenant Colonel Vindman — O say can you see — who wasn’t even on the phone call. We have a two-tiered justice system, two-tiered journalism, which is how a singular, totalitarian state is established.
If you want examples of abuses of power, you will not find them with Donald Trump.
But you can find them in spades with the Democrats and their academics and their civil servants and their ambassadors and their FBI director and their CIA director and their Director of National Intelligence. You can find all kinds of abuses of power, because they abuse power as a matter of course — and I’m not engaging in rhetoric here. I’m not engaging in speculation. We have watched in real time a coup unfold before our very eyes.
Witch hunts.
Stalinist impeachment hearings.
A show trial.
The Democrats get off on this stuff like their former hero Jeffrey Epstein got off abusing minors.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I’m gonna tell you more about these three hacks that showed up here today. They’re law professors at Harvard, Stanford, University of North Carolina. I’m not mentioning Turley ’cause they didn’t ask him any questions. Turley’s opening statement told ’em, “I think you got dangerously thin stuff to go on here. I’m not sure you should be doing this. I don’t support Trump, but I think this is…” They ignored him. He’s up there just for show. He’s up there just to make it look like there’s some kind of balance.
But here is 50 seconds of audio. It’s actually from video that Brad Parscale has posted. It’s a Trump fundraising campaign ad. These are the three lawyers, Michael Gerhardt, Noah Feldman, Pamela Karlan, the three “witnesses” today. They aren’t any witnesses to anything! But they are there testifying how honorable Donald Trump is and how he abused his power. They are nothing but uber-left-wing hacks. That’s what they are first and then they are law professors second, and this audio comprises statements these three made as soon as two weeks after the election in 2016.
(bouncy music)
GERHARDT: I was at the University of Pennsylvania law school yesterday where I teach a class, and my class is still in therapy.
FELDMAN: I’m a registered Democrat and have been — have been my whole life.
KARLAN: There are other bad things in the world to fear — including, of course, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and ICE agents who are out of control.
GERHARDT: On the Republican side, it’s largely not fact based.
FELDMAN: There are all kinds of things that the President has done thus far that already I think would reach that — reach that level, most likely.
KARLAN: Even if as a progressive you would believe as I do that I should be paying higher taxes.
FEMALE ANCHOR: Noah, you do urge Congress to start thinking clearly about the power of the impeachment if the President Trump did indeed invoke emergency powers after this tonight?
FELDMAN: (phone) The courts block you, and then eventually Congress sets out to impeach you.
NADLER: (music ends) With a trial in the Senate, we may be able to find out who started this coup d’etat.
RUSH: “With a trial in the Senate, we may be able to find out who started this coup d’etat.” The Democrats have admitted that that’s what this is. So here are the three — Gerhardt, Noah Feldman, Pamela Karlan — and they literally are left-wing Democrat hacks who were disturbed as all get-out after Trump won the election in 2016. Pamela Karlan: “There are other bad things in the world to fear — including, of course, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and ICE agents who are out of control.” Gerhardt: “On the Republican side, it’s largely not fact based.” It’s these people that don’t have any facts.
There’s not a single bit of evidence that anybody’s produced. These people are up testifying as though they were in the American foreign policy establishment when Trump was doing whatever he was doing with Ukraine. But I’m telling you, folks, the way to understand this — if it’s possible. The way to understand this, if you listen to the language here, is these people are still litigating the Trump-Russia collusion case.
Every time they talk about “colluding with a foreign power,” every time they mention “using a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political opponent,” these people cannot get over that they bombed out on the Russia-collusion affair. They can’t get over it, they can’t accept the Mueller report’s findings that there wasn’t any, and so they’re still living it, trying to make it real. And all Ukraine is, is a little tiptoe in the direction they wish this had gone.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I want to go down the list of the cast of characters here. Now, the Republicans have just begun. Doug Collins is a ranking Republican from Georgia, and he’s giving his opening statement now, soon be asking questions. He’s listing all of the evidence they have not been given from the Schiff report. All the things that are still being kept in some closet somewhere that they’re not being allowed to see.
So as this transpires this afternoon, it will be following the same course as all the others. The morning testimony will look devastating. It’s over for President Trump. He may as well just resign. And then they get to the afternoon session, things blow up, so we’ll even keep you apprised.
I want to first tell you who the lawyer is that the round mound of the gavel has chosen as staff counsel to interrogate the witnesses. Of course, this is all a script. Folks, if you watch this, this is essentially a kindergarten teacher asking his students if they can remember the answers to the test that he gave them 30 minutes prior to the hearing beginning. It’s sophomoric. It’s embarrassing to watch this.
(imitating the hearing) “And do you think on this basis the president should be –”
“I think he should be hung! I think he should be hung right now, not just impeached.”
Norm Eisen, the Democrats’ lawyer asking the penetrating questions, is a former White House official under Obama. Eisen founded a left-wing hack group called CREW, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which targets Republicans and conservatives and ignores Democrats except just for show. CREW, C-R-E-W.
The Democrat lawyer Norm Eisen founded CREW before going on to join the Obama administration. In 2011, Norm Eisen served as the ethics czar in the Obama Regime. Obama later appointed an ambassador to the Czech Republic and then after that Eisen served as a CNN political commentator. Schiff’s lawyer was an MSNBC commentator. Nadler’s lawyer is a CNN commentator. He was a supporter of the Russia collusion conspiracy theory.
Norm Eisen, the Democrats’ lawyer on this committee, cowrote a New York Times op-ed in December 2018 talking about new evidence of collusion with Russia, one year ago, new evidence. There has never been any. There hasn’t been a shred of evidence that Trump colluded with Russia. Mueller couldn’t even find it. This guy one year ago writes an op-ed in the New York Times talking about new evidence of collusion with Russia.
I’m telling you, they have not given that up. They are still trying to make that connection with as many of their supporters as they can. No evidence has been found. The lead counsel on Schiff’s committee, Daniel Goldman, he was also an MSNBC pundit. And he also endorsed the Russian collusion hoax. So the two lawyers that Democrats have chosen to ask questions of the so-called witnesses are a bunch of hacks that believe in the coup, that supported the coup, that believe the Trump-Russia collusion story that no evidence exists for.
Now to the lawyers, the guests. Noah Feldman. All three of these people hate Donald Trump. They loath him, folks. They have been calling for Trump’s removal from office since the first week after he was elected. Noah Feldman was among the first to pronounce that Trump’s call with Zelensky was a crime. Feldman has declared a number of Trump’s actions to be impeachable offenses, including Trump’s pardoning of Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona. When Trump pardoned him, this guy Feldman said that’s an impeachable offense. Get rid of Trump.
He said that Trump tweeting about being wiretapped is an impeachable offense. Get rid of Trump. He even said that Trump deserves to be impeached for calling the fake news the enemy of the people. The lead guest today, the star guest said Trump should be impeached for these three things, pardoning Joe Arpaio, for Trump saying that his wires had been tapped at Trump Tower, and by calling the fake news the enemy of the people.
Noah Feldman also claimed the debunked story about Trump directing Michael Cohen to lie was an impeachable offense. But Trump did not direct Michael Cohen to lie. Feldman even said that an ad for Mar-a-Lago that accidentally appeared on the State Department website was a violation of the emoluments clause and Trump should be impeached for that. Feldman is a proud member of the Russia collusion cult.
More recently the star witness, Noah Feldman, wrote an op-ed in which he declared what makes Trump’s alleged conduct so terrible is not that he froze aid to Ukraine for a policy purpose. What makes Trump’s alleged conduct outrageous is the appearance that he was doing it for his own personal benefit. Except Ukraine got the money. And Trump did not get his investigation. And he did not link the two. The two were not linked. There was no quid pro quo.
Gordon Sondland, what did Trump say? “I don’t want anything from Ukraine. I want Zelensky to do the right thing. I don’t want a quid pro quo.” Trump did not link the two. Ukraine got their aid. It was under Obama Ukraine didn’t get any aid. It was under Obama that his vice president threatens the prosecutor. Well, threatens the country, if they don’t fire the prosecutor, they’re not gonna get their aid.
These witnesses have as much as convicted Joe Biden today, if anybody knew what the hell he had done even though he’s admitted it and confessed to it and it’s on video and it’s all over media except you’ll never see it the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, but we’ve played it for you, Biden bragging about how he got the prosecutor fired. The prosecutor, who was looking into his son, threatened to withhold United States military aid.
And, by the way, when Russia moved in, annexed Crimea, one-third of Ukraine, Obama still didn’t come to their rescue even though we had a treaty promising them we would. Donald Trump gave them their aid. There was no personal quid pro quo whatsoever and yet this kook Feldman is out claiming he’s got new evidence of Russia collusion, all these impeachable offenses that Trump has engaged in. And now he’s withholding aid to Ukraine that he did not withhold for his own personal gain.
And Feldman has called for a new special counsel to investigate Rudy and William Barr, the attorney general. “But Rush, but Rush, he’s just a law professor.” He’s a political hack. He’s a political hack activist. He’s appearing today as an academic. Pamela Karlan, the lone acknowledgment and tip of the hat to diversity on the Democrats’ panel, she was one of 42 legal scholars, quote, unquote, who wrote a letter attacking Trump even before he took office.
That letter told Trump he had to change his views on a number of issues, and it criticized rhetoric. After Trump fired Comey, Pamela Karlan said that Trump had been behaving extraordinarily badly, said Republicans would spur the country towards a constitutional crisis if they failed to hold Trump in check. And where are we?
So these two witnesses have hated, have opposed Donald Trump since his campaign. The hatred has intensified since his election. Their efforts to undermine him and get rid of him have intensified even further. And yet they appear today as reasoned, unaffected, terribly concerned about the future of the Constitution scholars.
Michael Gerhardt. He’s from the North Carolina University of Law school. He’s been calling for Trump’s impeachment for a long time. Even though he testified during Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 that members of Congress are unlikely to pursue similar charges against the president ever again.
Now, Clinton was impeached for lying under oath and suborning perjury. He was not impeached over Lewinsky. Back then Gerhardt said this will never happen again. Gerhardt argued Congress should agree to have bipartisan support before authorizing congressional subpoenas or investigations. They haven’t done that. And yet he’s up there supporting everything they’re doing here trying to get rid of Trump because there is no bipartisan here and he has previously said on the record impeachment must be bipartisan or it is worth nothing.
He said at the very least, members of Congress should require committee chairs and ranking minority members of committees to agree before initiating investigations or issuing legislative subpoenas, none of which has transpired in the impeachment inquiry against Trump.
Jonathan Turley, who was called by the Republicans even though Turley is actually a liberal Democrat, last month Turley said that the Democrats are proceeding on the narrowest basis for impeachment in the history of the country. And they’re not even asking him any questions.
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