RUSH: I checked the email here during the break. I got some, “Why aren’t you talking about Rosenstein on Fox News Sunday yesterday? Why aren’t you talking about Rosenstein?” My friends, I know about Rosenstein on Fox News Sunday. We’ve already talked about that! This is what I mean about being on the cutting edge of societal evolution. We’ve already talked about Mueller’s charge from Rosenstein. We’ve already talked about the wide berth that Mueller has. We’ve already talked about how there were no limits.
Rosenstein — the deputy AG who appointed Mueller as the special counsel — was on Fox News Sunday yesterday. It was an amazing interview. Because one of the things I took away from it is that Rosenstein, at least publicly, wanted to get nowhere near the possibility of putting journalists in jail if they don’t identify people that are committing felonies by leaking information to them. There is no shield law. The federal government can put journalists in jail if they don’t reveal their sources when it comes to things like national security.
Judith Miller of the New York Times was in jail for three weeks for refusing to give up the source. Rosenstein made it plain, “Oh, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to punish journalists for doing their jobs,” which told me that branch of the Justice Department doesn’t want to antagonize the media at all. This was in reaction to the announcement by the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to really go after these leaks and leakers and find out who they are.
Chris Wallace asked some really tough and good questions here. “Well, what about the journalists that help this happen? What about the publishing of this information? You have the leakers, yeah. But if they didn’t have access to the media then they would have anything,” pointing out it’s a two-way street. Rosenstein made it clear as day that the Justice Department under Trump right now doesn’t have any interest in pursuing the journalist half of the illegal leaks being published conundrum or dilemma.
Now, the other aspect of this, the thing that we have discussed in great detail, is Mueller’s appointment and how it violates several Department of Justice regulations. The big one being that there has to be an underlying crime to investigate, and there isn’t one. There was not a specific crime that Mueller was charged with looking at and looking into. So he has pretty much no boundaries. He can go anywhere he wants — and in fact, it appears with the impaneling of this grand jury, that he’s doing that.
Now, the discussion has evolved. It’s something else we’ve talked about, and that is what happens when Mueller finds something that’s not related to Russia? Rosenstein made it plain yesterday that he did give boundaries to Mueller and that this is about Russia, Russia, Russia. And that if Mueller finds crimes elsewhere that he’s a gotta come back to the DOJ and ask ’em. But, folks, I have tell you: The letter from Rosenstein to Mueller doesn’t say that. That’s what all the hubbub here is about.
You’ve heard the conversations about, “Did Mueller cross Trump’s red line?” Trump was asked if he would have a problem with Mueller going beyond the Russia aspect here (collusion, obstruction, what have you). Trump said, “Hell, yeah. This not a fishing expedition into my business life and into my family. If he goes there, yeah, that constitutes a red line.” Well, impaneling the grand jury may, in fact, have crossed the red line.
So people are now wondering if Trump will actually make a move on firing Mueller or whether Rosenstein’s gonna try to rein him in. I think that kind of misses the point of what’s really going on here, and it’s understandable that people would miss it because it’s hard not to get caught up in the daily ebb and flow of what we call “the news.” It isn’t news anymore. There really isn’t any news. There is an agenda that powerful people have, and that’s what passes for news. Let me… In explaining what I think is going on, let me ask you a question.
In any significant organization where power is a central element, do you understand what I mean when I ask, “Are you aware that in any such organization there are always two or three people that you don’t know”? They’re not public, and they wield all the power in that particular organization. Not the people you see. Not the denoted leaders. But there’s always powerful people behind the scenes actually making things happen. I think that’s true of the swamp, of the Washington establishment.
I don’t know who they are. Don’t misunderstand. But I don’t think the swamp, for example, is led by Ryan and McConnell or even Schumer and Pelosi. I don’t think those are the true powerbrokers. I don’t know who they are. “What I do “know”… I put that in quotes ’cause I don’t know this incontrovertibly, but I think it instinctively, that there are people in the swamp who are lifers who are there no matter which party is in the White House, who are there no matter which party controls Congress. I don’t know what they do.
They may be lawyers. They may be business executives. They may have their wealth that connects them to the highest regions of power everywhere. Their wealth and their careers give them inside contacts at the CIA, at the FBI, and everywhere. We just don’t know who these people are. Now, there are people that do know who they are; I just don’t. And these people, I think, are hell-bent on getting Donald Trump out of town, for a variety of reasons, beyond those that I have previously specified.
I think the list of reasons they want him gone are that they genuinely think he’s insane, that they think he’s unstable, and that poses its own set of problems. And then the usual problems of, “He’s an outsider; we’re insiders. We can’t allow some doofus like this and the things that he has said publicly and the reputation… We can’t allow some guy like this to come in here and take over and take control. Much less accomplish things! We cannot allow a guy like this to show us up.
“We have manufactured a little swamp here where the public has come to accept a snail’s pace. The public has come to accept a creeping expanse in the scope, size, and power of government. The country has come to, not — in some cases — accept it, but demand it! People on the left, the climate change people are demanding bigger and bigger government and more authoritarian government. So the people I’m talking about running this show and their predecessors have invested a lot of time and a lot of money in making sure that this slow creep away from democracy, away from public opinion as expressed in elections, being the direction the country goes.
These are the people that don’t want to have to pay fealty to that. They make it look like they do. They talk the game, make it look like elections matter. But at the end of the day, what happens in that town is what they want to happen no matter what happens at the ballot box. In these people’s minds, it doesn’t matter which party’s running the White House. These are the people I’m talking about, people way above this.
That doesn’t matter. Their power is entrenched no matter who wins, and they don’t really care in the big picture. They care personally, maybe individually, could be Republicans and Democrats. But overall, in the big picture, that’s irrelevant to them. The swamp staying what it is, growing slowly, creepingly, and the public accepting it — warrantless wiretaps, searches, you name it.
The surveillance. Everything is predicated on a slow creep with the public pretty much accepting it. Trump has upset all of that! He has just thrown all of that up, and it’s up for grabs now. And if Trump succeeds and continues to succeed — and maybe does so over two terms — then the possibility in these people’s minds exists that this whole game could be exposed, and they don’t want it to get that far.
By “game,” I mean, the way Washington really runs. And in that sense, the way the world really runs. Now, Obama, for example, was loved and adored by these people. Obama was probably a puppet, not that he had to be, but he was probably advancing these people’s agenda left and right. Their agenda is not just liberal; it’s not anti-conservative; it’s just personal power, globalist power over the world. Power using the wealth and power of the United States to guide the world in their view. But they must remain invisible at all times.
Trump blows all this up in ways we have previously discussed. So there was a piece by my buddy Andy McCarthy — what are you smiling at in there? Oh. Snerdley has a caller making him laugh. Of course, I would think that he’s laughing at me, but then I hadn’t said anything funny, so I said, “What’s going on in there?” Don’t worry. I haven’t lost my place. Andy McCarthy has this piece, I think it was on Friday, about what the Mueller investigation is really all about. And helped me compress this opinion and argument that I just advanced to you.
And very briefly, McCarthy’s theory is that what Mueller is actually doing is the first stage of the impeachment of Donald Trump, that this is not a criminal investigation and never has been. It’s been counterintel, which another reason, why do we have a special counsel? There’s no crime. Keep in mind the swamp. If I’m wrong about this group of people, this cabal that nobody knows. If I’m wrong about that, the swamp is still the swamp and everything about it is still true.
They don’t want an outsider succeeding. They don’t want an outsider winning. This simply cannot be. Trump simply cannot last. Trump just can’t stand. This whole thing is just palpably frightening to them and has them angered to boot. And they want to get rid of Trump, they have to get rid of Trump. And this special counsel investigation, in addition to being able to charge people with crimes at the end of the investigation, they also can write a report.
The McCarthy theory is that they’re collecting so much information on Trump and his family over so many years, his business practices dating back to the casino days in New Jersey, owning the New Jersey Generals, to Trump Tower, you name it. They may not even find any crimes. They’re just gonna find stuff that’s gonna destroy Trump’s reputation and his image. And they’re happily doing this because they can then prepare a report on everything they’ve seen and turn it over to the House of Representatives as the first step in a process that would end in impeachment.
And I think that is a very right-on perception of what’s going on here. I think Mueller has a vast responsibility that nobody’d ever admit to, nobody would ever own up to.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Absolutely. That’s the whole point. These people that I’m talking about, whether they exist or not, we know the Washington establishment exists, and we know that it has its power base. We know that there are people that lead it, that define it, who run it. We just don’t know — I guess names. The point is, they’re even willing to invalidate an election. They are willing to say that an election doesn’t matter if it goes against their wishes, that an election is unacceptable.
They are totally willing to do this. That is, in fact, what they are doing in this attempt to get rid of Trump. There isn’t a crime. There isn’t any high crime or misdemeanor. There’s nothing yet other than they don’t like the guy and they don’t like his personality and they don’t like the way he talks and they don’t like the way he tweets and they don’t like the way he does his hair, and they don’t like the way he goes about talking about people. They gotta get rid of him.
He is a threat to all that they hold dear, their sophistication, their cosmopolitanism, their refinement, whatever it is, plus the real thing, their policies, their dyed-in-the-wool things they have been devoted to all their lives, which largely enrich themselves and their friends. And so if they have to invalidate an election, whatever, whatever it takes. And that’s what we’re in the middle of here. And the media, its party establishment, and their allies with this cabal, that’s how they advance. Everybody sucks up to bosses, or many people do.