RUSH: There’s also Adam Schiff news in the sense that he is once again lying and making up conversations that people have supposedly had.

Now, I pointed out yesterday, Rand Paul tried for two days to get the chief justice, John Roberts, to read his questions about Schiff’s involvement with the whistleblower and the whistleblower’s buddy, Sean Misko. The chief justice, John Roberts, has refused, saying he would not reveal the whistleblower’s name. The whistleblower’s name is Eric Ciaramella, for those of you who haven’t heard it yet. Eric Ciaramella is the name of the whistleblower, and his buddy is Sean Misko.

Ron Johnson asked a question: “Did the whistleblower and other holdovers from the Obama National Security Council conspire with Schiff staffers in an attempt to impeach the president?” Schiff refused to answer! Schiff said, “I’m not gonna dignify those smears on my staff by giving them any credence whatsoever.” What that means is Schiff cannot answer the question. He can’t go up there and deny it, because that would be lying under oath. He can’t.

By the way, the question was asked because everybody knows what happened. Everybody knows what Schiff did with Misko and with Ciaramella, the whistleblower. Everybody knows Schiff’s staff was involved. Everybody in that room knows it, so Schiff is getting all high and mighty, “I’m not going to dignify this question with an answer! I’m not going to stand by and watch my great staff smeared. I’m not gonna give this any credence at all.”

That means that Schiff cannot answer the question without revealing how deeply involved in creating this whole thing he is. Schiff practically burst into tears in his moral outrage being asked about his role in an effort to illegally remove a duly elected president.

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RUSH: Now, I want to move on to Schiff. I got a couple emails from people who said, “Rush, you need to rethink this witnesses business. We need witnesses. Because if we don’t get Schiff called and if Schiff isn’t exposed, we’re never getting rid of Schiff.”

In fact, Adam Schiff is said to be the person that’s gonna win Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat when she finally throws in the towel. So these emails say, “Rush, this guy has got to be exposed. We’ve got to! The only way to do it is to have everything he’s done here be exposed under oath with him being forced to answer questions or lie about it or what have you.” I understand that. But then this whole thing becomes a circus. If you open this thing up to witnesses, it’s not gonna end. Now, Schiff himself said, “I’ll make you a deal.

“I’ll make you a deal. We’ll just call Bolton and we’ll just take one week, one week for the deposition, and then after we depose him, then we’ll bring him up under oath and one week is it.” (chuckling) One week. “I promise you,” Schiff said. Here, by the way, grab sound bite number 16. I’ve got some Schiff stuff that I want you to hear. Now, as a brief recap of yesterday, I recounted for everybody how Schiff was intimately involved in this entire whistleblower episode.

Eric Ciaramella and his friend, Sean Misko. How the whole thing happened, how they coordinated with Schiff’s staff and in Schiff’s office — and that everybody in the room knows it. Rand Paul and others have sent questions to the chief justice designed to get these questions asked so as to… It’s been almost like treating Schiff as a witness by virtue of the questions that you ask, and so he was asked this very question. It was submitted by Senator Ron Johnson, and the chief justice read it yesterday.

“Recent reporting described two National Security Council staff holdovers from the Obama administration,” that would be Ciaramella and Sean Misko, “attending an all-hands meeting of National Security Council staff held about two weeks into the Trump administration and talking loudly enough to be overheard saying, ‘We need to do everything they can to take out the president. ‘ On July 26, 2019, the House Intelligence Committee hired one of those people, Sean Misko.” That’s Schiff’s staff. He was hired.

He was hired to shepherd the whistleblower thing through the committee. He’s one of the two in the White House who was “overheard saying, ‘We’ve got to figure out a way to take out the president.’ The report further describes relationships between Misko, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, and an individual alleged as the whistleblower. Why did your committee…?” This question is of Schiff, and it’s being read by the chief justice.

“Why did your committee hire Sean Misko the day after the phone call between President Trump and Zelensky, and what role has he played throughout your committee’s investigation?” So this is it. Folks, this question is proof of what I said yesterday: Everybody knows it. Everybody knows what Schiff did. Everybody knows what his role in this has been. Summation again, just to make sure there’s no confusion, because I’ve mixed sources here.

Sean Misko, Eric Ciaramella. Two guys on the National Security Council staff. Obama holdovers close to John Brennan, CIA. Two weeks in the House, two weeks after Trump’s elected overheard saying, “We’ve gotta find a way to get Trump out!” The day after the phone call, Misko goes over to Schiff’s staff preparing for the arrival of the whistleblower complaint. But there’s no question that this happened, and so the chief justice says again to Schiff, “Why did your committee hire Sean Misko the day after the phone call between Trump and Zelensky? What role has Misko played throughout your committee’s investigation?”

SCHIFF: This question refers to allegations in a newspaper article which are circulating smears on my staff and asked me to respond to those smears, and I will not dignify those smears on my staff by giving them any credence whatsoever, nor will I share any information that I believe could or could not lead to the identification of the whistleblower. I want to be very clear about something: Members of this body used to care about the protection of whistleblower identities. They didn’t used to gratuitously attack members of committee staff. But now they do. Now they do. Now they’ll take an unsubstantiated pressed article and use it to smear my staff. I think that’s disgraceful!

RUSH: Nobody’s smearing your staff. By the way, your staff deserves to be smeared. Your staff is dirty, Congressman Schiff. You’re dirty! Everybody knows what you did. Vindman gives the contents of the phone call to Ciaramella, Ciaramella goes to Schiff. Misko’s already over on Schiff’s staff. Ciaramella says, “Oh, this is outrageous. This is terrifying! This is… Oh, my God, this is horrible!” Schiff then directs Ciaramella to go to the inspector general, to which he should have gone first.

The inspector general then decides to make a random change in the law, in the regulations permitting secondhand whistleblower knowledge instead of firsthand because Ciaramella was not on the call. Again, I have to remind you: Everybody in the Senate chamber knows what I just told you, and it’s represented in this question, and Schiff will not answer it. He goes through this rigmarole, “I’m not gonna dignify the question!” He can’t answer it because to answer it would be to lie. So this is why people think that we need witnesses, because this is the only way Adam Schiff is going to end up being questioned.

It is the only way his political career is going to be permanently damaged is if the truth of his involvement in all of this comes out. So would that be worth it to you, to blow this trial up, go ahead and call witnesses including Schiff, witnesses that might claim Fifth Amendment or what have you? I’m still maintaining to you the Democrats — for all of this caterwauling and whining today — don’t want witnesses for this very reason. They don’t want the Bidens up there!

Even if they do take the fifth, they don’t want it explained why the Bidens are there to people right now who don’t know. The media, however, wants it all because the media thinks this is the way they get rid of Trump. Now, Schiff, in addition to this answer yesterday, he did it again in the Senate chamber, made up a conversation between Trump and Putin and Rudy and China. Grab sound bite number 21. This is a preference. I want to do this first. This is from September 26th last year, House Intelligence Committee hearing.

Adam Schiff is telling people what President Trump said to Zelensky on the phone call. Now, the phone call transcript by this time has been released. Everybody involved in all this has read it and seen it. Schiff lies through his teeth about it, makes it up. He got away with it for 30 minutes before a Republican on the committee called him out. When he was called out, he said, “Ah, it was just a parody. I was just, you know, doing satire.” No, he wasn’t, because it wasn’t funny. He was purposely lying and misrepresenting and mischaracterizing what Trump had said — a nd this is what it was.

SCHIFF: This is the essence of what the president communicates. “We’ve been very good to your country, very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what? I don’t see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you, though, and I’m gonna say this only seven times so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand, lots of it, on this and on that. I’m gonna put you in touch with many people, and not just any people, I’m gonna put you in touch with the attorney general of United States, my attorney general, Bill Barr. He’s got the whole weight of the American law enforcement behind him. And I’m gonna put you in touch with Rudy. You’re gonna love him, trust me. You know what I’m asking, and so I’m only gonna say this a few more times, in a few more ways. And, by the way, don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I’ve asked.”

RUSH: None of that happened. Now, Schiff did this, in a way, to make people who might happen to be watching, think this is actually what Trump said. This is exactly how they do it. In Schiff’s mind, this is what Trump did. This is how sick these people are. This is how absorbed in their hatred for Trump they are, that they make this stuff up. This is the pathology. They make this stuff up. Trump never said to anybody, “I want you to make up some dirt. I’m only gonna say this seven times, so you listen good! I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent.

“Understand? Lots of it, on this and on that. I’m gonna put you in touch with people, and I don’t want you getting back to me ’til you’ve done what I’ve asked here.” None of that happened. Trump never demanded anything. He never demanded that dirt be made up. He never even used the word “dirt.” But now “Trump” and “dirt” and “the phone call” have become synonymous in media reporting on the phone call, even though the transcript is out. It’s been seen, and it’s not even close. Well, Schiff did this again on the floor of the Senate yesterday.

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RUSH: Grab sound bite number 14. Another question. Adam Schiff making it up again, as we just shared with you. So here’s a question from Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, the Chief justice reading it. “It has recently been reported that the Russians have hacked the Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, presumably looking for information on Hunter Biden.” Have you heard this? Has anybody heard the Russians hacked Burisma? Well, anyway, that’s the question from Ed Markey. They’re making it up, I think.

“Our intelligence community has warned us that the Russians will be interfering in the 2020 election.” Yeah, we got that memo. It’s a memo from the CIA to talk show hosts big and small: The Russians intend to interfere in the election again in 2020. We all get the memo. “If Donald Trump is acquitted of these charges but is later found to have invited Russian or other foreign interference in the 2020 elections, what recourse will there be for Congress under the Dershowitz standard for impeachment which requires a president to have committed a statutory crime?”

SCHIFF: Let’s say it were found that they did so at the request of the president of the United States —

RUSH: Stop the tape! The premise is flawed in the first place because it hasn’t happened. “If Donald Trump’s acquitted but is later found to have invited Russian interference in 2020…” There wasn’t any Trump interference in 2016! They’re making it up that it’s gonna happen in 2020, and Schiff says, “Let’s say it were found that they did so at the request of the president…” So we’re off in fantasyland again here.

SCHIFF: In these meetings that the president had with Vladimir Putin, if the president went further and said to Putin in that secret meeting, “I want you to hack Burisma! We couldn’t get Ukrainians to do it — and I’ll tell you what. You hack Burisma, and you get me some good stuff, then I’m gonna stop sending money to Ukraine — and I’ll go a step further. I’m gonna stop sending money to Ukraine so that they can’t fight you in Donbass — and, what’s more, those sanctions that we imposed on you for your intervention on my behalf in the last election, I’m gonna make those go away. I’m gonna simply refuse to endorse them. I’m gonna call it ‘a policy difference.'”

RUSH: This guy needs to be taken someplace with Antonio Brown so he can get some help. He is on the verge here of seriously losing it. He makes that up off the top of his head as though it has already happened or is gonna happen. “If he’s acquitted, this is what Trump’s gonna do.” Now, folks, nobody has found any evidence that Trump has done anything of the sort with anybody. The Russians and the Democrats are who have been in bed with each other, Hillary Clinton and so forth — and yet this guy’s off and answering a question like this as though it’s happening now.

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RUSH: You know, folks, I made reference to this hours ago on this program, shortly after it began, when this miraculously timed — miraculously, coincidentally timed — bombshell from the New York Times hit. Oh, yes. Right as the program was beginning, a bombshell from the New York Times claiming the manuscript of the Bolton book says, Bolton writes that Trump called him in May, two months before the phone call to Zelensky in Ukraine, and said, “I want you to put pressure on ’em. I want you to get ’em ready for Rudy. I want you to let them know that we’re gonna be pressuring them for an investigation into the Bidens.”

Then the House managers begin their closing arguments, and guess what? They’ve got charts, they got graphs, they got quotes from the New York Times leak! It’s the playbook, and it is now so obvious, it’s become a joke. Every senator in that room knows exactly what’s going on here. We’re listening to closing arguments that are a coordinated, last-gasp, hail Mary for witnesses or what have you, that the New York Times found somebody to leak ’em something else from the manuscript of Bolton’s book.

There’s a chart right there that they’re throwing up with testimony from previous administrations like Condoleezza Rice and Sandy Burglar. It’s all coordinated — and you know what? When this all blew up on them after Kavanaugh was beginning of the end of this, in terms of it mattering in terms of public opinion, because throughout this process, what has happened to Trump’s public opinion? It’s going up. His approval opinion, approval numbers are rising.

The trend line for Trump in all of these approval polls is open. You wonder about Trump-Republican unity? Look at the approval number Trump is getting from minorities, Hispanics, African-Americans, and the unemployment numbers in those groups. They can’t even make a dent in the guy! They’ve gone to the well too many times. They want this to look like it’s a legitimate, “Oh, my God! We just found a… We gotta stop! We gotta stop! Look what we found! Trump did it! Oh, my God, he did it! He really did it!”

Except they’ve gone to the well so many times that they’re now becoming a joke. They have become a caricature of themselves — and the media, ditto. The Democrats and the media are doing a joint exercise that is destroying the reputation and the credibility of both of them. One more Schiff bite and then back to the phones, because this is another made-up story. Last night, Senate floor, impeachment trial. Here is Schiff talking about a new and possible quid pro quo that he’s worried about if Trump is acquitted.

SCHIFF: Rudy Giuliani does another errand for the president, this time an errand in China, and he says to the Chinese, “We will give you a favorable deal with respect Chinese farmers as opposed to American farmers. We will betray the American farmer in the trade deal, but here’s what we want. The quid pro quo is: We want you to do an investigation of the Bidens. You know the one. The one the president’s been calling for.”

RUSH: (Snort!) Again, this hasn’t happened, and yet here’s Adam Schiff of the House mangers — the lead House manager — telling people, “Yeah, here’s the next one! If we let Trump go, if we acquit Trump, he’s what’s gonna happen in China! He’s gonna have the Chinese doing the investigation of the Bidens next. You watch.” You notice out effortlessly these lies — and these manufactured, totally made-up mythical events — just roll off this guy’s tongue, just roll out of this guy’s mouth?

Somebody really does need to get this guy some help. He is… I think he’s lost it. It’s kind of embarrassing to watch, and there’s nobody trying to protect him, nobody trying to draw him back in and prevent him from doing this stuff. This is seriously deranged, frustrated behavior. These people are not used to not getting their way. They’re not used to joint efforts with the media bombing out, and they’ve had to deal with that now going four years — three years and counting.