RUSH: San Francisco. This is Tim. Great to have you, Tim. How are you doing?

CALLER: Hey, Rush, you know, I want to talk about something that no one has brought up. You haven’t brought it up very much. Where is this FISA judge? This guy got lied to by the Department of Justice, he was manipulated, he was made a fool of, and yet he doesn’t seem to be upset about it. We’re not hearing any reports of him hauling the DOJ back in front of him and saying, “Why did you lie to me? Why did you misrepresent me?” You know, to me, this guy, imagine what —

RUSH: Wait just second now. We don’t know that that’s happened because, even if it did, we wouldn’t know. The FISA court is totally secret. We’re not even allowed to know who the judges are. We’ve raised your point. I asked Devin Nunes about this since people have been asking me what can be done, and the judge could file, he could issue an injunction, demand they come back up. The judge could take harsh action against them if he wanted to.

CALLER: You know, Rush it almost begs the question, was this FISA judge, was he a willing accomplice in this, was he okay with being manipulated and lied to, because that’s his agenda, part of the liberal swamp. And, Rush, let me say this as well. You know, even though I’m from San Francisco, I’m the only conservative in San Francisco, I did an entire military career, I was a high-ranking military officer, I dealt my entire career with classified information.

I think that President Trump should get in the Oval Office and do an address to the nation and say, “I’m gonna declassify everything,” because I’ll tell you what, the damage to sources and methods of revealing this is minuscule compared to the damage that’s happening to the country because of this entire thing. This Schiff memo, it’s gonna get released with sources and methods in there that Trump’s gonna have to redact so that liberals TV a talking point and say that Trumps hiding something. He ought to just let it all fly —

RUSH: You know what? I agree with you on that. In fact, I’ve got a different thought. I think, because, you’re right, shifty Adam Schiff did this on purpose. He included sources and methods knowing that Trump would have to redact ’em, right? Well, if I were Trump, I would send this little Pencil Neck’s memo right up to the FBI and say, “You guys redact this. You guys tell us what we can’t learn. I’m not falling for this. You guys, the FBI, you’re the ones concerned about source and methods, fine. I’ll run the executive branch. You deal with this. You tell me what we should not allow to be seen from this memo.” You redact it so that Schiff can then not bitch about Trump, but instead has to complain about the FBI.

CALLER: Rush, the sources and methods here, we’re not talking about foreign agents living in Russia that are acting as double agents whose lives were on the line here. We’re talking about embarrassing FBI agents.

RUSH: Exactly right! There is no intelligence gathering here!

CALLER: No.

RUSH: Because the memo is a total crock of lies! And so the sources and methods — (laughing) there aren’t any! So little Pencil Neck just included this stuff in there. Look, I get where you’re coming from. I don’t know the judge on this. I don’t know how he’s reacting to it or what he was doing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, about the FISA court, I’m assuming too much here. There isn’t a single FISA court judge. There’s a slew of ’em. We don’t know who they are. This particular FISA application to spy on Trump, Carter Page, whoever, had to be renewed three times. Each renewal is for 90 days. So they had to go back and renew the application where they, you know, substantiate the original evidence, add whatever evidence they want to try to pass of as real. You may get a different judge each time.

So to sit here and say, “Does the judge know that he was lied to?” We don’t know. I don’t… In this instance, I don’t know how we’re ever gonna know. We don’t have leaks coming out of the FISA court. That generally… It really is super-secret. I think the location of the FISA court is known. But you just can’t walk in there, folks. There’s no sign outside, “FISA court, 3rd Floor, Suite 25.” It just doesn’t exist. (interruption) What, were you gonna go try to find it? You can’t. There may be more than one, depending on where the judges are.

Now, we’ve heard that the application process is rigorous, that you just can’t put anything over on these judges. And these applications have to be vetted, signed off on, edited, reviewed by who knows how many people. (Have you heard all that?) Well, how many people does this incriminate, then? How many people passed this on to the next level? This phony, fake opposition research document. We’re being told, “Nah, Rush. You’re wrong. There couldn’t have been any shenanigans there. The process is too vigorous and demanding.”

It just means to me that everybody that looked at it passed it on up to the next level until it got to the judge. We know. Folks, we don’t know. This is why this is inherently bad in a nation where the rule of law is literally the glue that six everything together. Can I ask you another question? I like to do this now and then, to try to focus on the — what would it be? — the sheer luck that we still exist as founded. What is it that continues to define the kind of country we have? It’s the Constitution.

But what is that? It is a bunch of pieces of paper, and yet the words on however many pieces of paper are required to write the Constitution have been — for the most part — obeyed, respected, adhered to by 42, 43 presidents and by any number of other people in power, for over 200-plus years. Stop and think. To me, it is a testament to the power of the document, yes; but at the same time, it’s an illustration of how precarious the structure of the nation is. It is the honor system that has kept the Constitution adhered to and abided by.

The honor system.

It’s a set of rules.

Now, look, I know that we could have individual stories of this president or that doing things that are unconstitutional with executive orders. Look, I know all that. I know there have been little abuses here and there. But for the most part, you can’t deny that the country still exists as founded. That’s the struggle we’re in, is that a bunch of people are trying to transform this country into something it was never intended to be. That’s the big battle here. But it’s still very sobering to me to realize that words on a piece of paper have been enough to hold things together.

What are the odds over 200-plus years that one time the people of this country would have elected somebody who wanted to turn this place into their personal dictatorship? It has not happened. I know there are checks and balances and we’re told, “Well, Rush, it can’t happen. That’s the brilliance of the document.” I understand that. But to the best of our knowledge it hasn’t even been attempted. To the best of our knowledge. Not gonna speculate further.

My point is that while it is powerful and has held its ground, it still is very precariously perched out there, and it’s largely the honor system. The honor system is the rule of law. The rule of law is the glue. The respect for the Constitution, respect for the rule of law. It’s a more powerfully adhered-to concept in this country than anywhere else in the world at any time in the world. And now look. We’re asking questions about a secret court that’s designed to protect Americans from terrorist attack.

That’s its purpose. You know, FISA goes back, I think, to the eighties or seventies. But it really ramped up and get popular after 9/11, and its purpose is to permit spying on people in America. And it required… To spy on Americans it required a special court granting such permission within the realm of the Constitution, ’cause there’s this amendment there, No. 4, that says you can’t do this. But we’ve got this secret court, and we’re told that it is designed to protect Americans from bad actors who are in our country either acting badly here or making phone calls are acting badly or what have you.

But look at now.

How many people in this country are asking, “Was the FISA judge in on this scam, or did he not know and was he bamboozled?” And look at all these liberal judges from all these courts that have tried to stonewall legitimate Trump executive orders designed to protect the country. So there are really serious questions about our judicial system and the rule of law, and to me, it’s not good when there are this many people believing… And courts have become the last source authority in our chain. We pass a law in Congress, but that’s not the final word on it. No. At some point, if it’s in any way controversial, it’s gonna be decided by nine people who wear black robes in the Supreme Court.

They are going to say whether or not that piece of legislation passes muster or not. Now, you better have respect for the system if you’re gonna live under it. Because that was not the original intention of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court basically claimed that power in an early decision called Marbury v. Madison.

They basically said, “You know what? We’re gonna decide what’s constitutional or not,” and then that became the new mission of the court. Rather than adjudicating disputes, it became the place to go to get the final word. This is why the left is so intent on stacking every court with activist leftists masquerading as judges, because everybody respects the final word of a judge. There’s nowhere else you can go, other than to appeal it, to another judge.

So I’m just saying it isn’t healthy. We just had a caller from San Francisco who is up in arms, rightly so, who doesn’t believe what he’s being told by the FBI, the DOJ, the judges and so forth. When we start having people with legitimate questions of the truthfulness and the professionalism of various people in positions of great authority and power, that’s not good. And we find ourselves there.

“Did the judge know? Was the judge in on it? You think the judge knew? I mean, is everybody in this against Trump?” And people think it might be possible ’cause judges are part of the establishment too. Judges go to cocktail parties. Judges get invited to ’em. Judges may even host ’em. Somebody knows who the FISA judges are. A lot of people know who the FISA judges are. A lot of people socialize with ’em just like you’d socialize with anybody else.

But when instinctive respect for these institutions begins to fail, it’s not good. And that’s where we are here. And, by the way, the suspicion is legitimate. We’re in the midst of having a scam run on us, those who supported and voted for Trump. It’s undeniable. There is a clandestine effort that has been discovered, meaning it’s not clandestine anymore, to unseat a duly elected president and probably much more, like protecting the behavior of a previous president, making sure whatever that guy did we don’t learn about, for a whole host of reasons.

The Washington establishment, powerful, elite bunch, what’s to stop them from taking whatever steps necessary to protect themselves and their club and whatever else they deem necessary, even if what they do is not permitted by the Constitution. It’s always been this rough acceptance, respect for, honor system of the Constitution that’s kept it together.

But once enough people come along and think it’s nothing more than a piece of paper that’s actually in their way — and we have a lot of liberal Democrats who look at it that way. They look at the Constitution as an obstacle. Precarious times. And we don’t have a news media that’s willing to tell the truth, anywhere near it, about this story and what’s really going on.

The news media, who claims that their validation is that they speak truth to power. Meaning, they are gonna hold the powerful accountable. They’re not gonna let the powerful get away with running roughshod. They take great pride in destroying people. They take great pride in ruining people. But they’re not interested in exposing any of this that’s going on. They’re helping to cover it up.

And while they’re helping to cover it up, they are working to destroy and impugn the reputations of people trying to get to the truth of this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, I erred. I misspoke. The FISA court judges are known. Their names are now published. They’ve got their own website. There’s 11 of them, and it’s not a very diverse court. There are only three female judges on the FISA court, but one of the females is the presiding judge, so that counts for two or three judges. But there are 11 of them. They come from all over the country, but not much else is known, I mean, who appointed them and all that kind of thing, date designated, not published. But the names are there.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Pete in Nashville. I’m glad you waited. Great to have you, Pete. What’s shaking?

CALLER: Hey, Rush, great to talk to you. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: Just a minor point on the FBI and the rank-and-file agents being honorable and reputable people. My take on that is, if my company president committed treason — and Comey committed treason, McCabe has, Strzok has, Page has, Rosenstein in my opinion has — if my company president committed treason, I would resign my position, pure and simple. So I guess my question is, these good and wonderful rank-and-file agents, where are they, and why aren’t they coming out and saying —

RUSH: You’re not buying the rank-and-file are clean and pure as the wind-driven snow and it’s only the leadership tainted?

CALLER: I have a very difficult time with accepting that. Now, I understand that they’re a huge organization, and, yeah, I’m sure there are —

RUSH: Look, everybody needs a paycheck. But, you know, there has been one significant FBI resignation. An FBI agent resigned because of Devin Nunes and his pursuit. And guess where he ended up? CNN has hired him. He’s now a panelist consultant, an FBI agent mad at the pursuit and the insults aimed at the agency, quit and was picked up I think the same day. When CNN heard about it, they hired the guy.