RUSH: Let’s talk about what happened here with the DOJ, the attorney general, Barr, these four prosecutors, the Roger Stone case, because this, folks, is an object lesson in presidential follow-through.
The proof of the pudding here is I’m watching the Drive-By Media, “Oh, my God. This is horrible. This is so bad. Trump now has no guardrails. There’s nobody stopping Trump from doing anything. He survived impeachment. He survived the Russia thing. Oh, my God. There’s nothing to stop Trump. This is horrible. This is bad.” And, of course, that’s exactly 180 degrees wrong.
Now, the big news here is Roger Stone. You remember Roger Stone was minding his own business one day at home and then jackbooted thugs along with CNN cameras strategically located outside his front door, surrounding his house. At 6 a.m. they stormed in and pulled the guy out of bed and ran him down to jail and charge him with something or other. Why was CNN there? Who tipped CNN? We know why CNN was there.
This whole thing was a setup. And so Roger Stone is charged with some crime having to do with the Russia hoax, some involvement he had with WikiLeaks and the Hillary emails. It was specious because this whole thing has been made up, this entire hoax, this entire coup started out with the Steele dossier. Four FISA warrants were granted on a fake document to spy on the Trump campaign via Carter Page.
There was never anything to it. Not a single crime was committed by the Trump campaign at any stage. There was never any evidence of a crime having been committed. So anything that was charged along the way here was purely political. What happened to Manafort, those things that they charged and convicted Manafort on had nothing to do with when he was in charge of the Trump campaign or working there.
Sentenced to solitary confinement. Sentenced to die in jail. And that’s what they did to Roger Stone. They gave him a seven- to nine-year sentence hoping he would die in jail. Roger Stone didn’t do anything. There’s not a person in the world that can tell you what Roger Stone did of a criminal nature that threatened the people of this country, that violated the laws of the country, that somehow helped the Trump campaign win an illegal election. Nothing. Roger Stone didn’t do diddly-squat.
I could go on about this, but I don’t want to further characterize Roger Stone. Roger Stone was an ancillary player who wanted to make himself look like he was in the middle of everything. And he wasn’t. But because he put himself out there as a major player, a major adviser, he became a target. When I saw the special counsel was gonna indict Roger Stone, that’s the first — I do not mean this as an insult to Roger Stone in any way, shape, manner, form. Please don’t misunderstand me. None of this is intended to be critical of Roger Stone at all.
But the fact that they got an indictment and wanted to charge Stone with anything was all the evidence any of us needed that they didn’t have a thing on anybody, and they never were gonna have a thing on anybody because all of this was factually made up.
There was never a story. There was never a hoax. There was never Russia collusion. There was never any evidence any kind supporting this. This was a pure hatched effort to stop Donald Trump from being inaugurated. And then after he was inaugurated, it was to get him thrown out of office. The Mueller investigation was a very elaborate obstruction of justice trap, a very elaborate process crime trap.
Like I told you, they appoint Mueller as special counsel. He gets to the special counsel office. He’s got his 16 lawyers there. He said, “Okay. Let me see the file. What is the evidence in the Russia case?” There isn’t any. You go back two years on this program where I said if Robert Mueller was indeed the man of honor and integrity that they told us he is, he would have refused the gig. He would have not taken that job once he saw that there wasn’t a shred of evidence when it comes to anything Trump and Russia.
There wasn’t any evidence. There wasn’t a shred of evidence. There never has been. They haven’t produced any. So what happens in those two years? Why did he take that job? Well, we all know why he took the job. He was the figurehead that allowed all of his Democrat lawyers, Hillary-supporting, Trump-hating lawyers to try to build a case that could be used ultimately in impeachment to get rid of Trump and throw him out of office. And it was in the midst of all that that they ended up charging people that had nothing to do with anything. Roger Stone seven to nine years.
So these prosecutors — and this is the truncated version of this — the prosecutors recommend seven to nine years. And anybody who has followed this knows how absolutely atrocious that is. They know how bogus it is and the fact that the attorney general moved in here to stop it ought to be one of the best indications you could get so far that he and Durham are still working this case, and they still have major announcements yet to come over all of these people that engaged themselves in this coup.
To shut this down this way, I don’t care whether Trump was involved in it or not. He has total freedom to be involved in this. If he can pardon Stone, then what the hell’s everybody worried about whether or not he gets involved in the sentence being reduced? And he can pardon Stone. Seven to nine years. Stone’s age, he’s being sentenced to die in prison. He didn’t do anything, folks. Because nothing that was alleged during this entire Russia collusion hoax happened.
And they’re moving and they’ve totally withdrawn those sentencing guidelines seven to nine years. So the four prosecutors resign. Now, who are these four prosecutors? One of the prosecutors was Robert Mueller’s lead investigator. These four prosecutors are holdovers from the Mueller investigation who are still trying to make all of their time pay off somehow, some way.
And this is Trump and this is Barr blocking them. This is justice taking place. But it’s still a matter of some question because the judge, Amy Berman Jackson, can do whatever she wants when Stone is sentenced on February 20th. Now, this judge — and Trump has tweeted about it — this judge is the judge who demanded that Manafort be put in solitary confinement.
Seven to nine years. Can anybody up there tell me what Stone did? Do you know what the average rapist sentence is? Four and a half years. Beat somebody up, grand larceny, one and a half to two years. Manslaughter second degree starts at 15 years, plea bargained down to under 10. Here’s Roger Stone, seven to nine years, and he hasn’t done diddly-squat, certainly by comparison.
So Trump’s out there attacking the judge as well, in addition to praising Barr for moving in on the case this way. It is a gutsy thing for Barr to do. This goes flat-out, smack-dab right in the face of the Washington establishment and the people who are in charge and responsible for this coup. But the thing is, the judge can do whatever she wants. Now with Trump attacking the judge, the judge can sentence the guy to maintain the seven to nine years if she wants on February 20th.
She could do it out of spite. She could do it on the grounds, “You’re the president; I understand that. But you don’t get to tell me how to do my job. I’m independent. I got a lifetime appointment; you don’t, you schlub. You can’t talk to me this way. Your guy’s going to jail for seven to nine years!” Despite all this, she can still do that — and then Trump could still pardon him.
I have no idea what the judge is gonna do, but my guess would be that she’s gonna slap the seven to nine years back on him. My guess, that’s what some people want to happen here so that the establishment will show they’re vindictive. (interruption) What do you mean? You don’t think they want that to happen? I think they do. Barr’s not a dummy. Barr’s not just playing one move ahead.
But this is outrageous.
Every aspect of this case was outrageous.
This should have never happened. This remains the most outrageous political scandal that has occurred in our lifetimes, folks, and there’s nothing even close, including Watergate, which is nothing but Romper Room compared to what happened here. They can’t find a single crime involved or undertaken by anybody in the central charge of the case, and that is that Russia meddled with the election, and Trump helped, to benefit him and hurt Hillary.
That’s what they said. There’s no evidence. It didn’t happen. In fact, the meddling with Russia was occurring between Hillary and the DNC, their law firms. The meddling with Russia did happen. The rigging elections did happen against Crazy Bernie: The 2016 Democrat primary. But Trump didn’t do anything. Trump nor his team did anything. They had 40 FBI agents from the Mueller investigation. Forty FBI agents!
Everybody on the Mueller side, the Democrat side, the special counsel side — everybody on this side — knew that there was not a shred of evidence ever to back up one single charge they were making. This was a made-up, manufactured attempt to get rid of Trump, and they had 40 FBI agents looking for dirt, trying to make up dirt. Talk about Ukraine and making things up?
And even with that and with spies from the FBI and informants, they couldn’t find one thing that Trump or anybody in his immediate circle had done that violated election law. Forty FBI agents. What did they do for two years? Forty FBI agents, 16 Hillary lawyers, Robert J. Mueller III, whatever, and they got Roger Stone? Did you say to yourself, “Who the hell is this?” when that indictment came down and they’re ramrodding his house with the jackbooted thugs and the CNN cameras?
After Manafort’s been given solitary confinement, did you say, “What did he do?” You find out he did nothing with the Trump campaign. The stuff they got him for happened in his businesses before he was even part of the Trump campaign. How can any so-called crime have occurred in a bogus, no-evidence allegation of collusion between Trump and Russia? If they couldn’t find one shred of evidence to support it, what the hell crime occurred anywhere?
If there was no Trump-Russia collusion, then what the hell did Stone do with WikiLeaks that was criminal? Zip, zero, nada. WikiLeaks got hold of John Podesta’s emails ’cause John Podesta fell for a phishing scam on his own computer. So it only makes sense that the attorney general, seeing an outrageous seven- to nine-year sentence for a guy.
That means he’s gonna die in jail for something that nobody in this country can name that he did criminally. Moves in… This is excessive. Then these four holdover prosecutors from the Mueller investigation decide to resign in a huff, in anger, because their work has totally been blown up now.
Moving in and reducing the sentence on Stone is the final move on blowing up everything having to do with Robert J. Mueller III and Andrew Weissmann and the rest of that bogus team with those phony FBI clowns and all of the subterfuge they engaged in to overturn the election results of 2016. There wasn’t a single crime committed in anything they alleged.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So I checked the email. “So what did Stone do, Rush? Can’t you be more specific?” Okay. I’ll tell you what Stone did, if you really want to know. You’re gonna… (sigh) You’re gonna demand more, but I’m gonna tell you what it is. Roger Stone’s crime boils down to him having tweeted, “Congratulations to WikiLeaks” when they published the DNC emails.
He was never charged with anything involving the Russians or election meddling, folks. Roger Stone was never charged with anything that had to do with the Mueller team being constituted and put together in the first place. Now, the average sentence for rape in this country is four years. The average sentence for armed robbery is three years.
If you beat somebody up while snatching their purse or wallet, that’s a year and a half to two years. Roger Stone was given seven to nine years for essentially tweeting, “Congratulations” to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks when they published the DNC emails. This sentence, this seven- to nine-year sentence is proof beyond any shadow of a doubt of the vindictiveness of the Mueller team and their last-gasp effort to make what they did seem relevant.
Forty FBI agents, folks — 40 FBI agents who knew there was nothing to the case. What did they do? Robert J. Mueller III, who knew there was nothing to the case, Andrew Weissmann who knew there was nothing to the case, and the other 15 Hillary lawyers on that team who knew there was nothing to the case, what did they do? Why, they snared Roger Stone, and they set up essentially an obstruction of justice impeachment case for the House Democrats because they didn’t have collusion.
So they had to manufacture obstruction — and that blew up on ’em! That’s why they had to go to that Ukraine phone call. Nothing to do with Mueller, nothing to do with Stone, nothing to do with Manafort. And they’re trying to do the same thing to General Flynn. That is another thing. “No, we can’t criticize Vindman! Oh, no! He’s decorated military. We can’t criticize Vindman.”
We can certainly lie about General Flynn and try to put him in jail.
Barr’s had enough of it, folks. So has Trump. So should we all.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here are the names of two of the prosecutors who quit. Jonathan Kravis (summarized) “wrote in a court filing that he had resigned as assistant U.S. attorney, leaving government entirely, totally frustrated.” They spent 2-1/2 years trying to get Donald Trump, and they got nothing. See ya later! “Aaron Zelinsky, former member Robert Mueller’s team, said he was quitting the special assignment to the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office to prosecute Stone.”
His spokeswoman said he’s gonna go back to Baltimore, as U.S. attorney in Baltimore. But this was Mueller’s team and trying to exact revenge, trying to get anything out of this that they could. Devin Nunes was on with Lou Dobbs last night on the Fox Business Network. Dobbs said to Devin Nunes, “There’s something terribly, terribly wrong happening in that Justice Department. The president’s right. This is just outrageous.”
NUNES: The lawyers that stepped aside today —
DOBBS: The prosecutor.
NUNES: — that made the seven- to nine-year recommendation, this is not gonna be the only example. We think there’s other examples of things that they did during the Mueller investigation that I think you and your listeners and the American people will be very interested to learn in the coming weeks as we start to unpeel the onion of what the Mueller team was really doing.
DOBBS: Mmm.
NUNES: When Mueller was appointed — we have to ask ourselves — he walks in the door the first day and said, “Okay, show me all the evidence you got on the Russians.” They’re like, “Uh, Bob, sorry. Uh, we don’t have any Russians here. We don’t have any evidence.”
DOBBS: Yeah.
NUNES: So what the hell did they do for two years? They set up an obstruction of justice trap.
RUSH: Stop and think of that. I made the same point. Mueller shows up; asks to see the file. There’s no evidence. Why take the job? Well, I mean, it answers itself. But I’m saying if he’s Mr. Honor and Mr. Integrity, Mr. All of This that we were told he is, then he should have known he’s involved in a railroad here, he’s involved in a coup — and he chose to be part of it. He chose to be the figurehead while the underlings did all the dirty work.
Two years.
What did they do?
There was nothing to find.
I’m being redundant here. Two years, nothing to find, but a lot of time to create potential traps down the road, which is what they did. If you read the Mueller report, you find out it makes a perfect primer for House committee chairmen who might be planning impeachment investigations. Now, last night on CNN’s special coverage of the New Hampshire primary, they were so outraged here over the attorney general moving in to reduce the sentences on Roger Stone, they broke away from coverage of their own presidential candidate to talk about this — and who did they go get?
Andrew McCabe.
Andrew McCabe — who has been fired from the FBI for lying, for engaging in this coup — is now an accredited commentator on CNN, and they wanted to know what he thought of all of this.
MCCABE: It’s preposterous to think that the president’s own public statements had no impact on the department’s reversal of their position on the recommendation. Look, this is something we’ve seen before. I’ve seen it myself, very personally in my own situation. The president indicates on Twitter for the world to see exactly what he wants done, and the department lines up behind that and executes his, uhhh, vision. We have seen that before.
GERGEN: He’s setting up two classes of people. One class of people, he — he likes and he’s gonna give favor to. Another class, he hates, and he’s gonna treat harshly, and he’s compromising the Department of Justice in a way we have not seen, I don’t think, since Watergate, and even then —
RUSH: Stop the tape. That’s just flat-out B.S. The compromising of the Department of Justice took place by your buddy McCabe and by Comey and by all of these people running this bogus investigation. You’re talking about a two-tier system of justice where Hillary Clinton is totally exonerated for legitimate crimes of an off-site server, unsecured emails all over the place. Hillary Clinton committing crimes by colluding with Russia, fake dossier, all of this.
She is exonerated by the director of the FBI, not even the attorney general! She’s totally exonerated, because the attorney general met with her husband on the tarmac in Phoenix in the midst of all this. The two-tier system of justice is: “Democrats innocent. Republicans guilty.” Except Donald Trump came in and put the kibosh on their effort to, once again, rid the town of elected Republicans. I know you people that voted for Trump have a great deal of admiration for him.
But you don’t know how much admiration you have in reserve for him, because he’s the only Republican you could have elected who would have ever fought back against any of this and beaten it — and they’re not finished. He and Barr are not finished. I’ve been convinced ever since I saw Durham impanel a grand jury that they’re serious about meting out some serious punishment to the people who engaged in this hoax or this coup or what have you.
Okay, back to the phones. This is Bob in Spokane, Washington. I’m glad you waited. I appreciate it. How you doing, sir?
CALLER: Doing fine, Rush. Mega dittos. Hey, lemme run something by you. I’m thinking that these four prosecutors are trying to set up Trump, because they went to the DOJ first with lesser sentencing. DOJ looked it over and said, “Yeah, okay,” then they go to court with this outrageous seven to nine — and, you know, the more outrageous, the better, ’cause they know they’re gonna get a reaction from Trump (and they got it) and the DOJ (and they got it).
Then they make this dramatic, “We quit,” okay? Now you got Schumer sending a letter over to Horowitz: “This needs to be investigated.” They’re trying to set him up for obstruction of justice on the sentencing, because last time, they didn’t have a crime. Now they can point — for the new, you know, impeachment — and say, “We have the crime: Obstruction of justice.” Boy, to me it just looks like lather, rinse, repeat, you know?
RUSH: If that’s what it is, if you’re right, and if this whole thing is yet another Democrat scheme, that the seven to nine years is designed to trap Trump into engaging in activity that might be criminal, they have failed.
CALLER: I hope so.
CALLER: No. They don’t need a conviction. They just need to keep this ball rolling and keep nagging at him and running at him and another impeachment trial and anything to keep him from being successful.
RUSH: All right. For four years… I hope they do. You know what? I really hope that that’s their gambit, because if they can’t see what’s happening as a result of their three years already… Have you seen Trump’s approval numbers — in the Gallup poll, not Rasmussen? Have you seen the numbers of the American people satisfied with life in America? Trump has record turnout in uncontested primary races in New Hampshire and in Iowa.
Trump’s approval rating is at an all-time high. Congress, all-time low. The Democrats are in an absolute mess. There’s not one… The Drive-By Media is bleeding ad revenue and audience. There’s not a single thing they have done that has worked, and so they want to keep at it and try again? This is suicide, if this is what they’re doing, and they’re entirely capable of it. I just think they’re knee-jerk reaction-ing — and if it is a setup?
If it’s these four prosecutors saying, “Okay. Let’s set Trump up. Let’s sentence his buddy Stone seven to nine years. Then that’ll…” (Snort!) This is hardly the stuff. Then Schumer goes on TV. “This is outrageous. I’ve never seen a president interfere in the Justice Department like this.” They are forgetting that the electorate is up to speed on the things they have tried and failed. They ran an impeachment circus with the full-fledged support of the Drive-By Media, and they bombed out.
None of it has worked. Now, I know it bothers you that they won’t stop going after Trump and that you might fear that the American people are gonna get so fed up with this that they gotta stop it by getting rid of Trump. We’re not there yet. And, by the way, for all of this the Democrats are doing? Trump, Barr, Durham have not yet revealed what they are going to reveal later this year. Devin Nunes just alluded to it. The Democrats don’t know yet what’s about to hit them.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I was gonna shelve these until the next hour but they kind of dovetail with our last caller who is very, very, very alarmed, very concerned this whole thing is a Justice Department — with these four lawyers — a trap to get Trump to act this way so they can restart impeachment hearings and just an ongoing, never ending attack on Trump as somebody unqualified, shouldn’t be there. And we have evidence that the Drive-Bys are looking at it this way.
This is Gloria Borger, who is — well, they’re out of their minds here. This is just this afternoon on CNN. And the question to Gloria Borger: “This move that shows DOJ is backing a convicted criminal, whose crimes were on the president’s behalf, done for the benefit of the president in part –” All the guy did was tweet “Congratulations” to WikiLeaks when they released the DNC emails. And he made it look like he had something to do with it ’cause he wanted to be seen as a player. I knew when this happened — anyway, here’s Gloria Borger reacting to the question.
BORGER: What I see is a president who believes the Department of Justice is the law firm of Donald J. Trump. And that is the way the Attorney General behaves. And remember, during the campaign and early on in the president’s tenure, he kept saying, “Where is my Roy Cohn? I need a lawyer like Roy Cohn,” who was his infamous friend and attorney in New York, who would do anything for him and of course had few scruples. The question is – has been answered I think. And his Roy Cohn seems to be the current Attorney General, Bill Barr.
Now all of a sudden he’s his Roy Cohn. I realize a lot of people don’t know who the hell Roy Cohn is, and obviously Gloria Borger doesn’t know much about Roy Cohn, either. I’ll tell you about him in a minute. But I want to play the next sound bite. This is a hack, liberal hack, Manu Raju, ran up to the Senate trying to gin up new impeachment hearings on this Roger Stone business.
RAJU: In light of the president’s actions do you think there’s any lessons that he learned from being impeached?
SUSAN COLLINS: I don’t which actions you’re referring to. I’ve made very clear that I don’t think anyone should be retaliated against.
JOHN KENNEDY: I don’t think it had anything to do with this. I haven’t seen any proof that it has.
RICK SCOTT: Well, first off, I don’t – I don’t know, you know I don’t know exactly what happened. But I do believe everybody, there ought to be equal treatment under the law. So, I mean, I’m sure I’ll get more information on it.
RUSH: He ran up to the Senate and ran into any Republican they could, “You think Trump needs to be impeached over this thing in the DOJ?” Susan Collins didn’t even know what had happened yet. She thought she was being asked about retaliation to Colonel Vindman — O say can you see.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I remember back in the day where the attorney general of the United States said that he was Barack Obama’s wingman. And remember back in the Obama administration when all of these race riots were occurring all over the country, what did Obama do? He sent Eric Holder into every one of those towns to take over those police departments with consent decrees. The idea that Barack Obama was not directing the Justice Department to implement his political agenda is absurd. And Eric Holder admitted that he was Obama’s wingman.
We did segments on this program detailing how Obama would, in channels, let Holder know what he wanted the DOJ to do. The idea that Trump has turned the DOJ into his personal law firm is outrageously incorrect. Obama did it with Eric Holder. And CNN and Gloria Borger and all these people celebrated it. They applauded it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Farmington Hills, Michigan. David, great to have you, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. Mega prayers. This morning I took a peek over the fence to see what the other side was saying about things, and they went way overboard, bad-mouthing Barr and his team for involving themselves in Roger Stone’s case. I just think that the media are trying to discredit and tarnish him because they know that the upcoming results of their investigation of the swamp is gonna be embarrassing when it’s public, and I think they’re just trying to make ’em look bad in advance, to build a foundation. It seems like more than one or two people are ranting and raving like that.
RUSH: Well, you know, that’s a good point, and it’s been mentioned before. There’s no doubt that they know what’s coming. Everybody knows! Everybody involved in this knows what they did, and they are very aware that if it’s uncovered and reported, that it ain’t gonna be good. Andrew Weissmann, Mueller, these people know what they did. Those 40 FBI agents who for two years found nothing, they know what they did. All these FBI staff pukes and Comey — you name it — they know what they did, and they are quaking in their boots.
So if Barr and Durham are doing this, then what’s left to these people but to discredit Barr and to discredit Durham and to discredit Trump and to make it look like what they report is nothing more than sour grapes. So, yeah, there’s no question that that’s probably an element here. But you know what? Despite that, David, what you saw on MSNBC today would have happened anyway. You’re looking at borderline insanity when you turn on MSNBC.
You’re looking at borderline (let me qualify it further) political insanity.
You’re looking at borderline delusional political insanity when you turn on CNN.
And then you add the frustration of failure to these people who don’t know failure. When they decide to take somebody out, they generally succeed in doing it. But they have failed with Trump. So even if there weren’t a need to discredit Barr, if there weren’t a need to discredit Trump, investigate, whatever, they would still react this way. Trump is in their heads, has totally poisoned them, and no matter what he does, no matter what he says, this is the reaction they’re going to have to it.
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