RUSH: Here’s what Sarah Huckabee Sanders had to say. This was on Fox & Friends today. Ed Henry was the guest host. He said, “Does the president want the attorney general to go? He called him ‘beleaguered’ yesterday. I’ve never had a commander-in-chief call his own attorney general ‘beleaguered.'”

SANDERS: I know that he is certainly frustrated and disappointed in the attorney general for recusing himself. But as we’ve said, I think that’s a decision that if the president wants to make, he certainly will, and he’s continuing to move forward and focus on other things. But that frustration certainly hasn’t gone away, and, you know, I don’t think it will.

RUSH: So the White House, they’re not even denying that Trump wants Sessions to resign. Something’s going on here. Something has to be explain this. There has to be a reason. I mean, these people are not idiots. Something has to be going on. There has to be some reason behind this. I mean, I’m not gonna take a stab at a wild guess. I have no idea. But in any normal circumstance if something like this happens… Imagine you’re in a job at a private sector company, and the boss is running around running you down every day. Making it clear you’ve got no future, making it clear that you are not appreciated, making it clear that you’re not liked.

I mean, I think I understand Sessions here. Sessions likes the job, he’s committed to the job, and he’s got a tough exterior, and he’s not gonna be forced to resign. He’s gonna make Trump fire him if it comes to that. But remember the ongoing theory and the conventional wisdom is that all of this is part of a big strategy to set up the eventually firing of Mueller. Scaramucci is next, the White House communications director. He was on the Hugh Hewitt radio program this morning. Question: “It’s clear that the president wants Attorney General Sessions gone, isn’t it, Anthony?”

SCARAMUCCI: I do know the president pretty well, and there’s this level of tension in the relationship, that that’s public, you’re probably right. But I don’t want to speak for the president on that because he’s a cabinet official and I sort of think that has to be between the president of the United States and the cabinet official.

RUSH: “Yeah, I do know the president pretty well and, yeah, I think he probably wants Sessions…” (chuckling) What do you mean, probably? So Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and now “The Mooch,” Anthony Scaramucci, both confirming that Trump wants Sessions gone. If it really is over Sessions recusing himself, hasn’t there been enough time to get over that? There has. Now, his latest tweets on Sessions are dumping on Sessions for not conducting any investigation of the Clintons and not appearing interested in examining the Clintons and their role with Russia.

But you have to go back to Trump himself, who said during the transition that he would not pursue the Clintons, that he was not interested. He was being magnanimous in victory. So unless he’s issued an order to Sessions to do it and Sessions is defying it, the guidance that’s out there has been provided by Trump, and that was no investigation of the Clintons. I still say that this boils down to Trump thinking he had a brawler and a fighter. It’s understandable he would think that. Sessions was the first in the United States Senate, the Republican Party, of major stature, to endorse Trump, which took some guts.

And it was primarily over Trump’s position on immigration and the wall and the correlating cultural issues that result from wanton illegal immigration. Sessions was first up, and he was loud, and he was clear, and he was fearless. And he was going against the entire grain at the time of the Republican Party. So I’m sure that Trump assumed that he had a brawler here. At least he had somebody who was unafraid to do the heavy lifting and get down and dirty in whatever needed to be done, and he just hasn’t seen that since Sessions was confirmed.

Then of course the recusal is one thing. But Sessions is not gonna do anything to dishonor the office. He’s a man of I think considerable class and stature, and I think he reveres this job. I think he holds the whole position, attorney general, the Department of Justice, in the highest regard. And he wouldn’t want to do anything himself that would sully its reputation or image.

And I think Trump believes that all that is secondary because his presidency is at stake. And he thought he was assembling a team of people that were going to join him in doing battle here with the swamp. As I say, there’s plenty of time to have gotten over the recusal. Now, maybe it’s just been a lingering source of frustration that’s still eating away at Trump and he can’t let go of it, but there’s been sufficient time since that happened.

I want to grab a call real quickly here, line 2 in Yucaipa, California. This is Dennis. And Dennis, you’re up first today. Great to have you with us. How are you doing?

CALLER: Oh, I’m doing fine, Rush. It’s amazing. I just have this question I want to ask you about employer-employee relations in relationship to Donald Trump.

RUSH: I’ve not done well in those myself, so my answer must be qualified.

CALLER: This may be, but you have a loyal following. You have loyal employees.

RUSH: Oh! Well, yes, that’s true.

CALLER: Right. So here we have Donald Trump, who is, by the way, in my opinion, guileless. I don’t know too many people who use that word anymore, but it really means what you see is what you get.

RUSH: Wait just a second here. I need to translate that. Remember Rio Linda.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: And Rio Lindans would understand this better explained in the case of men and women. For example, there’s no such thing as a woman without guile. Would you agree with me on that?

CALLER: I’m glad my wife is not listening, but yes.

RUSH: Well, guile is not sneakiness. It is exactly what he said. You see what you get. There’s no clouding or masking of real intent. There’s no attempt to deceive. There’s no attempt to fool. There’s no attempt to go around the edges. It’s just right in your face what you see and what you get. That’s somebody without guile.

CALLER: That is somebody without guile.

RUSH: And there aren’t very many people who have no guile, by the way.

CALLER: And that’s exactly right. You are one of them. And so you are an employer. You have an employee that you hire to do a certain job in certain way, doing it the Rush way. And it turns out that this person wants to do it his own way because he loves the job, and he thinks the job should be done one way and you think the job should be done another.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: What is the issue between Donald Trump and AG? It is that he loves the job more than he loves being in Donald Trump’s cabinet. He loves the job to the extent that he will put whatever Trump believes to be true about whatever the situation is as a secondary consideration. And so I am sure that Rush has talked with him.

RUSH: You mean Trump? You’re sure that Trump has talked with him, you mean?

CALLER: I’m sure that Trump has talked with him in private. I have no reason to doubt that he hasn’t said, “Look, you surprised me. You shocked me when you recused yourself. Is there anything that we can do at this moment to mitigate that and get on with getting a special counsel that really will do the job but do it without prejudice?” I don’t think there’s anybody on the right who believes that Mueller is there because he’s not interested in promoting what he —

RUSH: Wait, wait just a second here. I need you to hang on because I have to go to a break, but there’s a lot of people on the right who want Mueller to clean house. There are a lot of people on the right who would happily join Mueller as co-counsel, lead investigator, and if they had to, firebomb the place to get rid of Trump. There are a lot of people on the right that would do that. Do not doubt me on this. I could name names.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So my brother, who is one of the many kings of Twitter… My brother is all over Twitter, and he has just tweeted about three hours ago: “Outrageous that Obama can get 60 votes to pass the linchpin of socialism and the GOP can’t even get a majority to get a revision of the damn thing to the floor.” That’s right on. I can tell you why, which I will do. This is not complicated. I’ve said it over and over again. I’m reluctant to tell you why because I’ll be repeating myself.

So before I do that, let me go back and get Dennis in Yucaipa, who I intended to go back to but circumstances eventuated and as such took precedence, and now we’re back because I wanted to get the closure on your theory. You were talking about Sessions and you’re convinced that Trump and Sessions have spoken. Your analogy is that he’s loyal employee who’s off the reservation, doing things his own way. Take it from there. What is your ultimate point with this?

CALLER: My ultimate point is, Rush, that when Jeff Session accepted the position, he knew what Donald Trump was. He knew what Donald Trump was trying to do. Yet he still decided that he was going to go his own way. So what Donald Trump is now doing is putting some outside instead of inside pressure on Jeff Sessions to, again, figure out a way to get Mueller fired without Jeff Sessions losing his job. I have no honest way of understanding how that might work.

I’m just looking at the human dynamic here. Rush, Donald Trump would never ask Jeff Sessions to do anything illegal. He is guileless. We both agree on that. What you see is what you get. So Jeff Sessions must feel, in his heart of hearts… To continue to not do what Donald Trump wants him to do, he must feel in his heart of hearts that Donald Trump is trying to get him to do something illegal, and I just don’t see that.

RUSH: No, I don’t… (sigh)

CALLER: Did I confuse that?

RUSH: No. You’re the first I’ve heard alleging that Sessions might think that what Trump wants him to do is illegal. That’s what gives me pause. I haven’t thought of it in those terms. I’ve thought about it in other ways. We’ve had some conflicting information. Admittedly, I’ve played a role in this. We’ve had some conflicting information presented regarding separation of powers.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: We talk a lot here about the president runs the executive branch. He’s in charge. That’s why he can fire Mueller. That’s why he can fire —

CALLER: And the AG. The AG is under the executive.

RUSH: Exactly right. I mean, everybody serves there under the president. If fires Sessions, if he fires Mueller, it’s constitutionally legal.

CALLER: And he doesn’t have not give a reason. All he has to do is do it.

RUSH: Well, yeah. But while it’s not legal, it’s political.

CALLER: Yeah. Right.

RUSH: And there are going to be political ramifications. Now, when you talk about the Department of Justice, even though the president has total control over the executive branch — can hire and fire — the one thing the attorney general is not is the president’s personal lawyer.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: That’s why there’s the White House counsel’s office. So he cannot order Sessions to act as his personal lawyer and have him go out there doing the things that he wants done. If Sessions thinks that such behavior is unbecoming of the department — and it must have some independence. It has to have political independence. Justice is blind, as you know. You’ve heard the old saw.

CALLER: Rush, do you…?

RUSH: So this —

CALLER: I’m sorry.

RUSH: There’s a little bit of a conflict here with the idea that the president has total sway over the executive branch, which he does. But when you get to the Department of Justice, it should be enough said that the attorney general is not his personal lawyer. The attorney general does not take… To help you understand this and everybody else, J. Christian Adams worked at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department under Obama. He’s the guy that quit when Eric Holder determined that they were not gonna pursue the New Black Panther Party for voter fraud in Philadelphia. Do you remember that?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Okay. He quit because he said, “This isn’t justice. I mean, we’ve just had an attorney general who just said, ‘My people aren’t gonna be prosecuted here.'” He was talking about African-Americans. I subsequently talked to J. Christian Adams on this program, and I asked him. I said, “I know that Holder and Obama are fellow travelers.” I know that their ideology is identical. Their vision for our country is identical. I said, “But how does it happen?”

“Tell me how a president would convey to an attorney general, like-minded and politically motivated as much as Obama is? How would the communication from Obama to Holder happen? How would the marching orders be given?” He said, “It would never happen without a bunch of intermediaries. There would never be…” I remember this like it happened yesterday. Chris Adams said, “There’s no way that Obama… Even if Holder is at the White House in a meeting, you don’t have meetings where the president orders the attorney general to do something. It happened two and three intermediaries removed.”

CALLER: Okay. Do you think Donald Trump talked to Jeff Sessions prior to Mueller being hired as the counsel?

RUSH: No idea. I mean, I really don’t know.

CALLER: I don’t know, either. But if he did and Sessions, again, decided to continue on with Mueller, that would mean something. So I don’t know. I just wanted to get your take on it.

RUSH: What do you mean, “Sessions would continue on with Mueller”? What do you mean by that? You mean not fire Mueller, or work with him?

CALLER: Yeah. What I mean is work with him. Continue to work with him.

RUSH: He can’t work with him.

CALLER: Right. That’s right. I’m getting that now.

RUSH: Mueller is independent. There’s nobody can stop Mueller from doing anything because it’s the deputy attorney general, what’s-his-face. Sessions had nothing to do with it. He recused! This is about Russia, supposedly. This is about Trump and Putin playing cards one night and deciding to steal the election from Hillary. Well, Sessions recused himself. It’s Rod Rosenstein that chose Mueller and chose no parameters. I went through this last week. We have a special counsel who should not even be in office.

You do not… The regulations — I read them to you, justice department regulations — say there has to be a crime. There has to be a known crime for a special counsel to investigate! There isn’t one here. They are looking for a crime — and they will find one, believe me. Because there’s not a person in that town that hasn’t done something. I’m hearing, folks, between you and me… Don’t repeat this to anybody. Don’t tell anybody at the media. But I’m hearing the scuttlebutt that Mueller’s already started “flipping” people.

When I was told that I said, “Flipping who? Over what?” I mean, as I say, when you start talking about the swamp, everybody there has something they’ve done that they wish nobody knew about, which means practically anybody there is flippable. By that, “snitch,” for those of you. Apparently, Mueller’s found a couple snitches. But I asked, “Snitches on what?” There’s no crime. We don’t know when the crime is, we know what alleged crime is but there’s no evidence of a crime. So what the hell is the guy investigating?

The appearance is he’s looking for a crime. That’s not what special counsels do. That’s not why they’re appointed. This whole thing is a complete bastardization of the entire process. In addition to that, there are no parameters. Rosenstein, not Sessions… It’s Rosenstein that Trump ought to be mad at. It’s Rosenstein that ought to be the subject of this abuse if Trump’s really upset about Mueller and his investigation.

Because it’s Rosenstein that did not put any limits on Mueller as far as where he can look and what he can look for. Under normal circumstances, there would be a crime. Let me illustrate it this way. According to the Justice Department regulations… Let’s say there is a crime. Pick a crime, and it’s been established that a crime was committed. They appoint a special counsel. He’s investigating it. If, in the investigation, he comes across another crime, he cannot go look at it.

He cannot include it in the original charge. In that instance, he has to go back to the attorney general or deputy attorney general who appointed him. In this case it’d be Rosenstein. He has to go back and get permission to follow up this newly discovered crime. That’s how normally focused and limited these things are. This whole thing is — well, it doesn’t do it justice to call it a joke. It’s worse than that. This is obviously a setup.

You know, if you want to deal with this up front and honest, I could make the case that Mueller wouldn’t be appointed, we wouldn’t have a special counsel if Trump had not fired Comey. If Trump hadn’t fired Comey, we wouldn’t be here. Comey’d still be there. He’d still be St. Comey. He’d still be doing what he’s doing, but we wouldn’t have a special counsel. But Trump fired him, which he’s totally entitled to do.

Bill Clinton fired Sessions, Bill Sessions, who ran the FBI. And, by the way, it was the same drumbeat back when that happened. That was in the nineties sometime and I’ll never forget it. We had three weeks, we did parodies of it, of Bill Clinton having nightmares, “Must fire Bill Sessions. ” I mean, the media and the Washington establishment basically pressured Clinton into firing Bill Sessions, who was the FBI director at the time. None of this is unprecedented.

But the distaste, the irrational hatred for the fact that Trump is there, is behind all of this. But this special counsel with no limits and no parameters, this is so far beyond what was ever intended with the special counsel or independent counsel law. In the practical sense it means that Mueller, if he wants, can go back and investigate Trump’s mom and dad to see if they wanted to abort Trump and discover that if they had and if they had, Trump won’t even be here. They could do anything they want here.

Mueller’s already looking at all Russians who may have purchased property at Trump Tower or other properties. He’s looking at Russian members of Trump golf clubs. I guarantee you he’s gonna find somebody that’s done something that he doesn’t want known, and if that person can flip, snitch on Trump, as I’m telling you I’ve had a couple people tell me that Mueller’s already flipping people, but nobody can tell me who and for what.

What this is all about remains absolutely absent any evidence, Trump collusion with Russia. But that’s not what this is about anymore. What this is about is exclusively and expressly getting rid of Donald Trump. This is a silent coup that’s underway. I don’t care if you think Trump’s a reprobate. If you think this is horrible, the way he’s treating his loyalists and so forth, fine and dandy. But those are not grounds for what’s happening here.

The guy was elected, duly so. They don’t have a crime. They do not have a crime. They’re looking under every rock, every sand pebble, and they can’t find a crime. As such, there should not even be an investigation.

Now, as to what’s going on with Sessions and whether it’s a prelude to part of a grand strategy to ultimately fire Mueller, better start including Rosenstein in some of this stuff if that’s what they’re doing. ‘Cause Rosenstein picked the guy. Rosenstein’s the guy that gave him no boundaries and no limits.