RUSH: This is absolutely incredible, what we have learned today. Not only what we learned about Trump actually being wiretapped, he was wiretapped, and I knew it. We’re gonna go back to the audio sound bites, we’re gonna replay what I said after Trump made the allegation.
When the media pooh-poohed it, when everybody called him insane, when everybody told him he didn’t know what he was talking about, when it was dangerous, when everybody was saying this is typical of having an outsider that doesn’t know what he’s doing, it turns out that the Obama administration and James Comey’s FBI wiretapped the head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, including conversations Manafort had with Trump.
We also know the New York Times has a story today that there was a raid on Manafort’s home not long ago, predawn. The FBI picked the lock at Manafort’s home while he was at home in bed and stormed in the front door and demanded computer files and computers and documents and walked out of there. This is the result of the Mueller investigation. And there are threats now they’re trying to get Mueller to flip on other people by threatening to indict him. And we now know there was a wiretap that James Comey was pooh-poohed and laughed at during congressional testimony.
You remember. When Trump said his wires were being tapped at Trump Tower and they didn’t find anything, and the establishment smirked, and the establishment snickered, and they all started laughing and said, “Trump, this is typical. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s insane. He’s shooting from the hip.” It turns out that all of that was correct.
This is much worse than Watergate, folks. That was a third-rate burglary that went awry. Trump was called a liar. He was mocked for tweeting about Trump Tower being wiretapped. David Gergen, you’ll hear on the sound bites today, practically chokes when confronted with the news that Trump was right and doesn’t quite know what to say about it. But, I tell you what, folks, in many ways it’s worse than Watergate, and it’s still going on even with Trump in the White House.
Richard Nixon was accused of spying on the DNC, but Nixon never ordered any such spying. In fact, he didn’t know anything about it. He was accused of using the IRS against his political opponents, but he never did. We know for a fact that Obama did both of these things, used the IRS against political opponents and probably more. There’s no outrage in the media on this. They think it’s great that Manafort’s lock was picked.
The New York Times reports this as though it’s something that happens every day. Yep, the FBI showed up, they picked the lock of Manafort’s front door in Virginia and walked in and woke him up along with his family and then started demanding things and taking things.
So now we know that not only Obama and Comey’s FBI were wiretapping Trump Tower where Manafort has lived since 2006, although it was his Virginia home where they showed up and picked the lock. That was a no-knock search, Manafort’s house, picked the lock at his house to seize records while he was asleep in the bedroom. That used to happen in other countries, that kind of thing here. Maybe it happens against drug lords, but we’re not talking about drug cartels or anything here.
So we have a whole stack of that, and we’re gonna relive all the stories from the smart aleck Drive-By Media assuring everybody that Trump was off his rocker, that nobody cared enough about Trump to be wiretapping anything he was doing. I don’t care whether they had a warrant for the wiretap. That’s not the point. I don’t care if they think they had a legitimate case against Manafort. The fact is, Manafort’s phone calls were tapped, he talked to Trump, Trump said he was tapped, and they made a mockery of him. This is not the first instance of this where Trump has made an allegation that people think is off the wall, and it turns out to be true.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Everybody’s talking about the wiretapping of Paul Manafort and how that most likely included a wiretap of Trump, meaning Trump would have been talking to Manafort. And those conversations, since Manafort was tapped, they were recorded. Trump claimed that he was being wiretapped, Trump Tower, where, by the way, Manafort has an apartment. Did you know that, Mr. Snerdley, Manafort lived in Trump Tower?
So Trump says they’re tapping my wires at Trump Tower. Nobody thought to look. Does Manafort or anybody on the campaign live there? Turns out Manafort has a place there, primary residence in Virginia. That is where the FBI picked the lock in the predawn hours sometime in August and walked in and woke up the Manafort family. Picked the lock. Didn’t knock on the door. They picked the lock and went in. And we’ll get to the details of all that, including media reaction, which is juicy and delectable.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now we know, ladies and gentlemen, that Obama and James Comey’s FBI wiretapped the head of a political campaign. This is bigger than Watergate. The phone lines and other aspects of life that were wiretapped and surveilled were that of Paul Manafort, the first campaign manager for Donald Trump.
Donald Trump said that his wires were being tapped at Trump Tower. The media laughed. The media chortled. The Democrats said, “He’s insane, he’s unfit, you see? We told you all along the guy is not fit. He’s too dangerous. He’s not grounded in reality.” They mocked Trump. They made fun of Trump. No such thing could happen here in the United States. And yet it was happening by their own President Obama.
The Obama administration surveilled more Americans than any previous administration in this country. All under the guise of surveilling foreign combatants and potential terrorists. That’s how they got Mike Flynn. With Manafort, ladies and gentlemen, what actually happened was that the FBI showed up before dawn at his home in Virginia and picked the lock and walked in, woke the family up, and began taking computers, making copies of files, lifting entire pieces of equipment, taking it outside the house. All in an attempt to intimidate Manafort, to get him to flip, maybe, on Trump and Russian collusion.
The New York Times is cheering this. Listen to the headline: “With a Picked Lock and a Threatened Indictment, Mueller’s Inquiry Sets a Tone — Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and raided his Virginia home,” as though this happens routinely.
The New York Times is not outraged, they’re not shocked, they’re not appalled. They would be if it had been David Axelrod running the Obama campaign or whoever it was running Hillary’s campaign.
“Federal agents took binders stuffed with documents and copied his computer files, looking for evidence that Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, set up secret offshore bank accounts. They even photographed the expensive suits in his closet.”
If only Hillary had gotten this kind of investigation from the FBI.
“The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him, said two people close to the investigation. The moves against Mr. Manafort are just a glimpse of the aggressive tactics used by Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors in the four months since taking over the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia … Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many white-collar investigations –” White-collar investigation? Are there blue-collar investigations?
What’s the difference, Mr. Snerdley? What’s a blue collar investigation? “Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many white-collar investigations, Mr. Mueller’s team has used what some describe as shock-and-awe tactics to intimidate witnesses.”
What’s a blue-collar investigation? See, it’s all about intimidation here. It’s not a search for truth. It’s not a search for justice. They’re looking for a process crime, somebody lying to investigators or they’re looking to flip somebody. They want somebody to admit that, “Yeah, Trump was colluding with Putin.” They want somebody to admit it, just take them there, even if they lie, just take them there.
Special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to attorney-client privilege. And so now the stories are all in. “Exclusive: U.S. Government Wiretapped Former Trump Campaign.” This is CNN. Too many sources cautioned the evidence is not conclusive, meaning the evidence that they might have procured after storming Manafort’s house.
What it all means is that we know that the Obama FBI wiretapped the head of a political campaign. So the media was right; they were claiming that what Trump was doing in colluding with Russia was bigger than Watergate. It turns out this is bigger than Watergate. What the government’s doing is bigger than Watergate. Nixon never did any of this. He may have dreamed about it, and he may have gotten drunk and talked to people, but he never did this. Nixon never actually used the IRS to penalize enemies, but Obama did. Ever heard of Lois Lerner?
I don’t know if we know for a fact in the history of this country has a sitting president gone so far as to use the FBI to defeat a political opponent? Do we know that? I mean, it may have happened, but I don’t know that we know about it.
This is the 2016 archives at CNN: “Donald Trump Flat-Out Lied About Trump Tower Wiretapping,” by Chris Cillizza. “On a sleepy Saturday morning back in March, Donald Trump dropped this bombshell on the political world: ‘Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!’ Turns out, he was lying. That’s the conclusion the Justice Department reached Friday night in a court filing; ‘Both FBI and NSD (National Security Division) confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets.'”
Manafort has lived in Trump Tower since 2006. Trump Tower is not where the predawn raid took place, but they might have — well, they had to. They had to tap the phones in Manafort’s homes and Trump was right. Trump knew all along he was being wiretapped, probably ’cause Manafort knew. But as recently as September 5th — this is September 19th — 14 days ago, Chris Cillizza: “Donald Trump Flat-Out Lied About Trump Tower Wiretapping.”
And then from Breitbart: “James Comey Tried to Discredit Trump’s Wiretapping Assertions That Now Have Proved True.” You know, Comey was lying about this under oath during one of his days of testimony on Capitol Hill. “Director Comey, are you familiar with the allegation that the FBI may have wiretapped Trump Tower?” And Comey (imitating Comey), “Ha! Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of things in my day, Senator, but I can unequivocally say that I’m unaware, totally unaware if any orders to wiretap Trump Tower.”
They laughed at Trump. They mocked him, they joked, they made fun. And now the New York Times, “With a picked lock and a threatened indictment, Mueller’s inquiry sets the tone.” So let’s go to the audio sound bites. I want to start here with what I said back in March. Trump’s tweets were March the 4th where he said that his wires had been tapped.
RUSH ARCHIVE: So it isn’t unreasonable at all for Donald Trump to suspect that he’s being tapped, that his aides are being tapped, at Trump Tower. We know that there were two FISA warrants. I think part of what President Trump is doing by tweeting out on Saturday that he believes the Obama administration’s wiretapping him, I think he’s not just tweeting to the American public and tweeting to the news media. I think Trump confounds these people because he’s always a step or two ahead. Trump plays the long game. And I think, in addition to whatever else these tweets are intended to accomplish, it’s also a direct line to the Democrat Party and Obama and members of the Obama administration that Trump is signaling, you don’t face the usual feckless bunch of opponents who never fight you back. You’ve got me here, and if you’re gonna start lying about me, if you’re gonna keep lying about me, I’m not gonna sit here and take it.
RUSH: This is during the time we’re talking about a silent coup, an effort to bring down the president with all of these surveillance tactics being used and the deep state leaks to the media about collusion, when there was never a shred of evidence. Well, all this time, James Comey knew that Trump was not even a target. James Comey had told Trump three different times he was not a suspect and not a target, but he wouldn’t make it public.
He told members of Congress during the committee testimony that Trump was not a target. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi knew it, and yet they’re on television every day alleging that Trump colluded with the Russians, or Trump’s campaign. And they, despite that, knew that he was not a target. It was in the heated stages of the focused effort to remove Donald Trump. The days of us describing a silent coup and any number of other ways to characterize what was going on.