RUSH: You know, programs like yesterday can be frustrating for me because the news is breaking while the program is happening, and I simply don’t have time, I just don’t have the opportunity to do the proper amount of research, education, or what have you, such as Comey’s testimony. I mean, so many contradicting things, so many questionable things, so many weird questions, questions that weren’t asked, answers provided that raised other questions. But there wasn’t time to dig into it, so I left here frustrated as I could be yesterday because of that.

So I had some time yesterday and last night to really get into this stuff, and I was really gratified, I have to tell you I was gratified, because much of what I opined yesterday, particularly in the third hour of the program was just knee-jerk reaction opinion. Well, “knee-jerk” is the wrong term, but immediate opinion based on what I was seeing rooted in my instincts, and I was gratified to learn that my record is unbroken, my instincts are unparalleled here.

So we’ll spend some time going back over some of these things to point out what I think some people might have missed and some of the glaring questions that ended up not being asked yesterday. For example, let me just give you an example. You probably think, based on what’s been reported, whether you saw it or not, you probably think that there was some collusion between Trump and the Russians, that everybody thinks there was, they just haven’t found any evidence yet. So the investigation is ongoing.

And some of you — and I don’t mean this in a negative way, but you are worried that there may be some guilt here that Trump has engaged in that they’re gonna find, and you’re gonna be “Oh, no.” And all this is based on the way this has been reported. The Democrat questions, which were not really questions, they were Democrat talking points yesterday, over half of the questions the Democrats asked Comey were just Democrat talking points designed to keep that lunatic base of theirs at bay.

I also am more convinced than ever that what the Democrats were largely doing yesterday was just that: feeding the paranoid, insane Democrat base, because the expectations that there’s going to be an impeachment of Donald Trump have been raised so high that the Democrat base will accept nothing less than that. And that’s the pressure that everybody’s operating under here, including, I believe, Comey.

For example, we learned yesterday that the Obama FBI — this is very important here, folks — we learned that the FBI began to investigate the Trump campaign back in July for colluding with the Russians to rig the election. That was the Obama FBI. That was the Obama Department of Justice. That means that was Loretta Lynch, who was the attorney general. That means it was Obama who clearly would have been in the loop on it. Despite Obama’s public statements that there’s nothing there, they couldn’t have cheated, they couldn’t have done this, that was for public consumption, but what was really happening was an investigation.

It may have even begun before Trump got the nomination, but certainly it happened in the month of July because Comey admitted that it did. Seven months later, admitted to by Comey, there is still no evidence of any collusion whatsoever. None. And was affirmatively stated by Comey and the director of the National Security Agency that there is zip, zero, nada evidence that the Russians tampered with anything to do with votes on Election Day or in the early voting, at any time, none. There won’t be any evidence because that would be impossible to pull off.

Meanwhile, we know for an absolute fact that there was real, provable collusion between the Democrat National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to rig their primary. We know without doubt, because of Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz and her computer at the Democrat National Committee, that the Democrat National Committee and Hillary Clinton sabotaged the primary and the Democrat Party to ensure that Crazy Bernie Sanders would lose.

There has been no investigation by the FBI of this collusion. There doesn’t seem to be even any interest in the collusion between the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee, which involves computer hacks, folks. You might say, “Well, Rush this is interparty, didn’t involve Russia.” It involves computer hacks. According to them, the DNC computer was hacked. We also know that the FBI repeatedly asked to inspect the DNC network, and they were refused permission to do so.

The NSA has surveillance on the Russian ambassador. The Russian ambassador has a phone call or two or three or four, whatever, with Michael Flynn. The NSA, therefore, knows what Michael Flynn said and what the Russian ambassador said, but Flynn was not the target. The law clearly states that since Flynn’s not the target, what he says can’t be disseminated. A special warrant would have to be granted, would have to be sought for them to take action on what they heard Flynn say. No such warrant, we have been told or we have been able to find, exists.

And yet the deep state has released details of the conversation involving Flynn and the Russian ambassador. That’s the unmasking. In normal legal circumstances, we’re not even supposed to know who the Russian ambassador’s talking to; he’s the target. And if it inadvertently picks up conversations involving Americans, inadvertent is what predominates here, and it’s not supposed to be used, it’s not supposed to be disseminated. But it was, and that was the only crime that was actually mentioned yesterday.

And on that only crime that was mentioned yesterday, the FBI director, James Comey, refused to say whether there was an investigation of that going on. He would not characterize an investigation. He would not answer yes or no because he didn’t want anybody to know whether or not classified data, information had been discussed in any of these phone calls, so he said no, not gonna tell you. Didn’t get permission.

We also find out that Comey said that he sought permission from the Department of Justice to reveal the investigation into the Trump collusion with Russia. He made a big deal of saying (paraphrasing), “Normally we don’t make public these investigations, but this is so important, this is so, so, so important that we sought permission.” And it was granted.

Yeah, well, Jeff Sessions has recused himself from all this. Permission was granted by an Obama appointee that’s still the deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, Dana Boente, a man. So Obama fingerprints are all over everything in this, which means to me that all of this is political, that very little of this is legal.

And that’s what was rubbing me raw all day yesterday while watching this and being hamstrung by not being able to… I just didn’t have the time to check things as they happened. Comey did not even say that there would be an investigation of the unmasking of Flynn, and yet he said he was announcing the investigation of Trump colluding with Russia because the public had a right to know. I guess the public doesn’t have a right to know that they might be unmasked for partisan reasons if they end up being in a conversation with somebody that the NSA is surveilling.

Numerous other things were learned yesterday during all of this. One of the things that I mentioned… It dovetails here to the fact that we learned there is actually this investigation going on, and I made mention of this. This is stuff I said yesterday were the instincts and were validated. I mentioned that the former Director of National Intelligence for Obama, James Clapper, had said unequivocally on Sunday show after Sunday show that he saw no evidence ever of any collusion between Trump and the Russians.

And, by the way, every media report has said… Despite all of the other incriminating leaks, the incriminating speculation, every one of those stories from last October to the present has mentioned (in a small, little paragraph buried deep down in every story), “Despite all of this, evidence has yet to be procured or found to actually prove this.” They’ve actually said this in every story. They placed that little paragraph so deep that they figure most readers will never get to it. But, anyway, Clapper says no evidence, and the former CIA director, Morell — who is a Clinton supporter.

Mike Morell is a Clinton supporter. He was a Clinton confidant at the CIA. They both said no connection had ever been established between Trump’s campaign and the Russians. One of the questions I asked yesterday was: How can they know that if there isn’t or wasn’t an investigation? This is key. Because when Trump lobbed that little grenade that Obama had wiretapped him, all of these people jumped up and said that Trump was paranoid and being Nixonian. “This is crazy! Obama didn’t wiretap anybody. What do you mean investigation?” So they’ve tried to say…

Despite all these leaks and all the use of wiretaps in headlines in newspaper stories — and despite all of the speculation there was something deep and dark going on here — they say there’s been no real investigation. Comey supposedly revealed it for the first time yesterday. Well, my question yesterday and it remains today: How did Clapper and Morell know that there’s no link if there’s no investigation? That’s not something that they would know just by getting up and going to work. Somebody bops in, “Hey, you know what? We can’t find any evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians.”

“Really? You’re looking for some?”

“Oh, yeah, there’s an investigation.”

“Oops, sorry.”

How would they know? Am I making this clear? And how could…? This is really key as well. How could Clapper and Mike Morell be so certain? How could they be? I mean, they left no doubt, both of them. Morell even said (summarized), “Yeah, because of what’s been leaked, you can see the smoke out there, but there’s no fire. There’s not even a lit candle. There’s not even a campfire. There’s nothing.” How do they know so conclusively if there hasn’t been any electronic surveillance? How can they possibly know?

My point to you is that there hasn’t been an investigation and it has used surveillance, and it’s the only way these people would know for certain. So then we’re back to this. There was an investigation — there had to be — for Clapper and Morell to definitively know no collusion. The assumption would be that part of this would involve surveillance. We know that the Russian ambassador and all these other foreign actors are surveilled, so we know that surveillance is taking place, and we know there’s probably more than Flynn that have been caught up in it.

So did Loretta Lynch know of any of this when it was going on? Did Obama know of any of this when it was going on? Were they made aware of it? Were they told? Comey would not say one way or the other. He would not confirm; he would not deny. He said he couldn’t go there. My point is that I still think… You know, Trump has doubled down on this, the fact that he was being surveilled; and I think part of the reason is common sense. There’s an investigation which we alternately are told exists, and then we’re the next moment loudly told that there isn’t one and that Trump’s paranoid for thinking there is.

What got Trump in trouble was identifying Obama and wiretap. If Trump had said something more generic, then they wouldn’t have had that to focus on to refute what Trump said, ’cause it’s easy to say, “Obama didn’t wiretap you. You’re crazy! You’re Nixonian. You’re paranoid.” But there had to be some kind of electronic surveillance going on for these people to know definitively that there hasn’t been any collusion found. They’re not just guessing, and it’s not coming from person-to-person interviews, ’cause nobody trusts what people say in those circumstances.

So if there was no investigation (but there was) and if Trump is so screwball, so screwy, so paranoid — and there was not any kind of electronic surveillance, wiretap, whatever — then where did all the stories come from from the deep state? Where did all of this stuff that was reputedly told to us by “intelligence sources” who were speaking under the cloak of anonymity…? Where’d all this come from? Are they making it up? Were they just making it up as they went along?

Or is there something going on that gave them at least some foundation on which to base the lies and speculation? My point is that this is all out of whack. This is 180 degrees out of phase. They haven’t found any crimes whatsoever. They’re ignoring the crime — looks like ignoring the crime — of unmasking Mike Flynn, and we have no idea whether they’re pursuing any of the crimes involving Hillary and her server and national security being released and this and that and the foundation. And that’s why it looks all political to me.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Going back to the Comey hearings yesterday, we finally found… I asked yesterday: When did this investigation start? What started this? And then we learned he later said July. You know what it was? Do you know what started this? That fake dossier. The FBI took it as real. The fake dossier, the one with the golden shower, the prostitutes supposedly being hired by Trump to urinate on Obama’s bed in the Moscow hotel. The FBI went out and talked to the Brit who made that stuff up and wrote it in the dossier. That is what began this investigation. Fake intel is what led to this investigation. By the way, 97% of the members of the DOJ, Department of Justice, voted for Hillary Clinton — 97% — and probably just as many donated.