![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/FB-002-020718-Complex-002.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRUSH: On Friday, the House Intelligence Committee released a new report that featured a whole bunch of redactions being viewable. There\u2019s been an argument — there\u2019s been a fight — between the House Intelligence Committee and the Department of Justice and the FBI for information and data relating to all of their investigations and Flynn and the whole kitchen caboodle. And the FBI, the DOJ have submitted — they\u2019ve responded to some requests — with a lot of heavily redacted documents.<\/p>\n
But Devin Nunes persisted, pressure was applied, and on Friday we had a disclosure of previously redacted sections of the intelligence community\u2019s Russia report. And, folks, it was a bombshell, and I\u2019ll tell you why. The FBI and the DOJ said the reason for the redactions originally was to protect national security and the usual excuses. (impression) “Protect national security and protect people who may not be involved in this but have been named here. We\u2019ll just protect their identities and so forth.” Just total BS.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Do you know what the redactions were? The redactions were the FBI and the DOJ covering up what they had done to protect themselves, primarily in the pursuit of Michael Flynn! They had redacted pretty much all of the information, data, memos and so forth that really gave up the ghost in terms of what they were doing. It had nothing to do with national security. It had nothing to do with legitimate reasons for keeping information private. It was strictly to protect themselves. To protect their bad judgment.<\/p>\n
To protect the scam that they were engaged in in this entire Russia investigation.<\/p>\n
They redacted information that would have been helpful to Michael Flynn. Andy McCarthy submitted a column in National Review last night<\/a>. It was published today. It\u2019s quite lengthy, and if you want the lowdown on every smidgen detail of this, I would strongly suggest that you read Andy\u2019s column today at National Review Online. I\u2019m just gonna give you some highlights and overall, like, headline material. The basic premise here is that everybody that talked to Michael Flynn and everybody who wrote memos after the interview of Michael Flynn was convinced that he had not lied.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve got Comey telling two different stories under oath about this. They\u2019ve got McCabe dead to rights! I mean, it is outrageous what has gone on here. Flynn has pled guilty to something that nobody in the FBI thought that he did! They did not think that he lied, tyhe agents that interviewed him — one of which was Peter Strzok — and the way that interview happened. It was in the White House. Flynn was in the White House, or Flynn was somewhere that he was supposed to be during the transition.<\/p>\n He was somewhere where the team was and he got a note that somebody at the FBI wanted to talk to him, and Flynn thought that it was a standard, ordinary, run-of-the-mill conversation that he would have with the FBI as any person in his position would be. He\u2019s the national security adviser getting the new president ready to assume office later in January. It turned out that was an actual interview where they tried to get Flynn to lie and trip up. He was not even told that\u2019s what it was — and despite even that, they didn\u2019t think that he had lied!<\/p>\n It has become obvious now that the FISA court was misled about the Steele dossier. Pretty much everything that we think has gone on has in fact factually gone on here. Flynn was railroaded. He did not lie, according to the people that investigated and interviewed him. But this points to another problem, folks, that really needs to be discussed. Remember last week during a couple of segments on the program here, I said:<\/p>\n “If you just landed from Mars, you would get the idea that there\u2019s this guy with a permanent job to investigate the duly elected president and to sit in judgment of him every day and leak information about what you found.” In other words, the president\u2019s not the president. This guy — in this case, Mueller. This counsel, special counsel, that\u2019s the guy that has the power. That\u2019s the guy determines whether or not the president is legit and stays in office. And why is that?<\/p>\n Because the way things have been structured, it looks like Mueller is the guy with the ultimate power in Washington, and Trump is merely a subordinate. And, of course, as Mr. McCarthy points out so cleverly in his piece, the Constitution does not mention the Department of Justice. There is no DOJ in the U.S. Constitution. You know who created it? Congress! Congress created the DOJ. Congress created the court system.<\/p>\n As such, they have review authority over it! And the president runs the executive branch and is subordinate to no one there. Not Mueller, not Rod Rosenstein, not anybody. So there needs to be a question asked. The president of the United States can authorize the declassification of anything he wants at any time. These redactions have been allowed to exist for months while the case against Flynn was built and he was charged — or he copped a plea because they were bankrupting him.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m not kidding!<\/p>\n This may go deeper than any of us know, but the point is the president of the United States could have seen to these redactions being unredacted weeks ago, months ago. He runs the Department of Justice. He runs the FBI. The reason that he hasn\u2019t I think are twofold. I think his lawyers, his team of lawyers up until now — maybe including the ones that he\u2019s got now — are truly on the defensive and are scared to death that if Trump exercises any of his legitimate constitutional authority that they\u2019re gonna start shouting, “Obstruction of justice! Obstruction of justice!”<\/p>\n The president of the United States cannot obstruct justice by executing his constitutional duties. He simply cannot. Firing James Comey is not an obstruction of justice. Telling the FBI and Rosenstein and Sessions to unredact all this stuff weeks ago, months ago, would not have been obstruction of justice. But Trump\u2019s lawyers, I think, are convinced that a public media case could be made that Trump was obstructing and do Trump damage in terms of public opinion — which, of course, is the objective here.<\/p>\n It always has been. It\u2019s to drive Trump\u2019s public approval numbers, presidential approval numbers way, way down because that\u2019s the only way they\u2019re gonna be able to get rid of him if they can\u2019t at the ballot box. A president cannot be indicted. It\u2019s Justice Department guidelines and rules: He cannot be indicted. It\u2019s an open question whether he can be forced up to answer a subpoena, but indictments, no way. The second reason — and I may get in some hot water for this.<\/p>\n The second reason I think Trump has not made a move to unredact all this stuff and let the truth be known is because in a political sense, I think the White House views Trump being seen as a victim as a positive politically. Trump as a victim of Mueller. Trump as a victim of Rosenstein. This permits Trump to continue tweeting out left and right how unfair it is, what a witch hunt it is, what all of this is and questioning the motives and the actions these people are taking and that he sees value in this. In other words, that Trump base voters will stay tightly bonded to Trump as long as they think he\u2019s being persecuted, as long as…<\/p>\n I think this is the White House calculation, that there is a political plus in being seen as a victim of this deep state, of this cabal that\u2019s out to get him. But in the process, he\u2019s allowing this circumstance I just described. If you land here from Mars, you think Robert Mueller runs this country — and behind him, Rosenstein — when neither of them do, and Trump could get rid of any of \u2019em any time he wants. I know, “political fallout.” But I\u2019m just talking about legally, constitutionally, Trump can get rid of whoever he wants.<\/p>\n There is no obstruction of justice when you… If it would come down to impeachment or whatever, there would be no obstruction of justice by simply executing his constitutional duties. And there certainly would be no obstruction of justice if Trump\u2019s approval numbers are not down in the twenties or thirties \u2019cause they\u2019re not gonna make a move to impeach him anyway. We\u2019ve got sound bites coming up where you\u2019re gonna hear more and more Democrats worried as they can be about all this talk about of impeachment.<\/p>\n Something\u2019s happened out there. I think it\u2019s Trump\u2019s approval numbers moving up. Something has happened. The left is getting a little bit squirmy, if you will, about this whole notion of impeachment. And more and more of them are urging Democrat candidates to drop it, don\u2019t talk about it. Their internal polling on it has got to be disastrous, because the people that elected Trump are in no way anywhere near ready to abandon him.<\/p>\n He could have seen to it the House had what it wanted weeks ago by ordering whatever was redacted to be unredacted. But I\u2019m sure his lawyers are scared to death that if he does that, that he\u2019s opening himself up to the perception of obstructing justice, when it\u2019s in no way obstructing justice. (interruption) Yeah, The Great Revolt. That\u2019s Salena Zito\u2019s book<\/a>.<\/p>\n It comes out tomorrow. The Great Revolt — and, folks, it is fantastic, I might add. But this is really an important point here that the White House, I\u2019m sure, envisions value in being seen as a victim here, in terms of keeping the bond, keeping Trump\u2019s voters tightly bonded or glued to him.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: Now, as I try to make the complex understandable, let me go through this from top to bottom again in terms of structure. The House Intelligence Committee has been requesting information from the FBI and the DOJ in its investigation into the investigation. House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes, his gang, they\u2019ve been looking at the way the investigation has been handled. They have requested all kinds of stuff, and the DOJ has stalled. The FBI has stalled.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve said (summarized), “We\u2019re not gonna send it to you. You don\u2019t deserve it! Just \u2019cause you want it doesn\u2019t mean you get it. We\u2019ve got important stuff to do here.” Well, Congress created the DOJ. Congress created the FBI. Congress has oversight. The president runs all of that. The Congress is entitled to whatever they want to see here — and the president, by the way… (chuckles) It would not be obstruction of justice for the president to order the DOJ to turn over what Congress has been requesting. That would not be obstruction.<\/p>\n This stuff could have been dealt with a long time ago if Trump would have simply decided to tell the DOJ and the FBI, “Let \u2019em have it.” Trump runs the DOJ. Not Mueller. Not Rosenstein. Trump has not done so, I\u2019m convinced, because his legal team inside the White House thinks that that would be seen as obstruction of justice, and so he\u2019s staying out of it. I think there\u2019s another component. I think Trump loves… When I say “Trump,” the White House, the entire team loves Trump being seen as the victim.<\/p>\n And so they released some information that caused the House Intelligence Committee to reveal on Friday a report that had unredacted some of the redacted information. And what was unredacted blew a bunch of things to smithereens, including the fact that Michael Flynn has been railroaded. What was originally redacted was not damaging to national security. It wasn\u2019t damaging to other cases going on.<\/p>\n The FBI and the DOJ redacted things to basically cover up their bad judgment and their mistakes that they had made during the course of this investigation of Flynn per se. But it\u2019s broader than that because it also includes Comey. So they simply were redacting things to protect themselves from being discovered and seen for what they had done. Now the report has released all of this, and we find out that there isn\u2019t a single person who interviewed Michael Flynn who thought he had lied.<\/p>\n And yet there he is pleading guilty to that very charge from Mueller. So what the heck is going on? Why did Flynn plead guilty to something he didn\u2019t do and that nobody in the FBI thinks he did, and was the judge who accepted the plea in the case told that nobody in the FBI thought Flynn had lied? Was Flynn told — were his lawyers told — that nobody in the FBI thought he had lied? This is why the sentencing of Flynn has continually been delayed and why there\u2019s a new judge in this case. Flynn pled guilty to protect his family, to save whatever was left of his estate.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/APP-050718-Flynn.jpg\")
Michael Flynn got railroaded, and the redactions from the DOJ and the FBI — the material they submitted to the House Intelligence Committee — now has been unredacted, and it\u2019s plain as day to see, and it is truly outrageous. And if these people at the FBI and the DOJ are burying their own judgment, burying their own information that was helpful to Flynn — if they\u2019re willing to do that — think they might bury information regarding tarmac meetings, disruption of emails, misleading FISA courts, whatever. This is another thing.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Sergey-Kislyak.jpg\")
There\u2019s nobody in the FBI who thinks that he lied in any of the interviews with him! Remember, we\u2019ve always thought that the NSA, the DOJ, whoever, was surveilling of Russian ambassador, Kislyak, and that Flynn was picked up inadvertently because we\u2019re surveilling the Russian ambassador like we monitor all phone calls of foreign agents, ambassadors and so forth. It\u2019s standard practice. The possibility… After these redactions have been unredacted, the possibility exists is that Flynn in fact was targeted and was surveilled on purpose.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/BookZito.png\")
<\/a>Salena Zito\u2019s got a book coming out tomorrow that\u2019s gonna explain exactly why that is. She\u2019s the only journalist that has taken the time to actually get to know the people responsible for electing Donald Trump, who they are, where they come from, who they used to vote for, why they voted for Trump, why they\u2019re sticking with Trump. Her book is out tomorrow. I\u2019ll get to the title here in a minute. The point is that Trump could end this and could have ended this.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-031918-DEEP-STATE-Obama-CIA-FBI.jpg\")
They think that Trump as the victim of these big, big, bad deep state guys will solidify the relationship he has with his base. I have no doubt that this is the case, \u2019cause Trump could have forced this release weeks ago, months ago. But then there wouldn\u2019t be any need for the tweets about how unfair the witch hunt is and all of that. Now, this does not involve Mueller per se; this is the DOJ and the FBI. And these redactions that were released on Friday, eventually the DOJ and the FBI complied simply because of pressure being brought to bear.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/APP-050318-Caputo-FOX.jpg\")
<\/a>He\u2019s had to put his house up for sale. He\u2019s had to just stop the battle here \u2019cause he can\u2019t afford it. So that\u2019s what has happened. That\u2019s what the unredacted information is, and these unredactions show that, once again, James Comey (chuckles) is not to be trusted. I touched on this briefly in the opening hour. The unredactions in the Friday release of the House intel report show that Comey has been lying to the American public during his book tour when in his interviews he\u2019s claimed he did not tell the House Intelligence Committee that the agents who interviewed Flynn didn\u2019t think he lied.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MikeFlynn635157390-218x300.jpg\")
CALLER: Regarding the Flynn railroading. Perhaps an alternative view of this could be that, as I remember, he was being investigated for issues regarding Turkey and hundreds of thousands of dollars of payment and other issues. I\u2019m very sympathetic to Flynn and his situation, and maybe both sides agreed to plead guilty to lying to the FBI as a fig leaf so that he could turn state\u2019s evidence and not have all those other issues — Turkey, the payments, or whatever else they were investigating — come up. Not that they were railroaded so much as it was by mutual agreement. ‘Cause I notice we don\u2019t hear from Flynn or his attorneys with regard to this now.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/APP-021318-Callers-FEMALE.jpg\")
CALLER: I think that General Flynn was the original target of the Obama administration and the Obama State Department. He was a vocal opponent of the Iran deal, which was Obama\u2019s legacy\/foreign policy achievement, and the State Department targeted him. They, you know, unmasked his name. They trapped him in lying to the FBI.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-031318-Obama-Lying-to-America.jpg\")
And what the Obama administration found out was that they had enough reporters who were literal groupies and sycophants that they\u2019d accept whatever intelligence community people told them and run with it, without even trying to verify it. One example is a guy named Adam Entous who has worked at The Atlantic, I think New Yorker, maybe Washington Post. They leaked to this guy that the Russians had actually engaged in sabotage of the electric grid in Vermont so successfully that a major dam in Vermont had been taken offline.<\/p>\n