RUSH: Here’s Fred in Cleveland. Fred, you’re next on Open Line Friday. Hi.

CALLER: Well, hi, Rush. Thank you very much. I have a question for you and a comment.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: My question is: Do you think Trey Gowdy is retiring to have the easy life, or do you think he is going to do the Chaffetz and go to Fox for the easy money, or do you think he’s going to take Sessions’ position and really clean this government up?

RUSH: Well —

CALLER: That’s my question.

RUSH: When Gowdy announced his resignation, I first speculated — with no knowledge at all — that he might be going the Fox route, because I saw him on the set of Fox & Friends one morning when they were all in Washington. They were outside. I guess it was State of the Union day. He was there, and he didn’t appear as a guest. He looked to me like he was part of the team. He was a guest; don’t misunderstand.

But his demeanor and his presence, it looked like he was very comfortable there as part of the team with Doocy and Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt. So I thought, “You know, maybe he’s angling to go to Fox ’cause there’s a lot more money there than there is in Congress.” Then he came out and said that he wanted to go back to the courtroom. He’s a prosecutor. With politics in Congress, he doesn’t get to do what he loves. If that’s true, that rules out AG.

CALLER: Okay. Interesting. All right. I can’t wait to see how it shakes out.

RUSH: I think he’d be a great AG. Do you?

CALLER: Yeah, I think he would… You know, a year from today, he could be George Washington figure, you know? If somebody with Trey Gowdy’s masterful mind could get in there and clean this deep state and clean this government up and give Trump some help, jeez. He’ll be hailed as another George Washington.

RUSH: Well, I know it.

CALLER: What’s going on is madness.

RUSH: A lot of people have that fantasy. You’re not alone in that. But I’ve seen… You know, he pointedly said that he wants to get back to the courtroom and he loves prosecuting. Remember, prosecuting is a government position. It’s either state or federal, but it’s still a government salary. It’s not Fox News money or private… If he hung a shingle or joined a big-time, white-shoe firm, those are defense lawyers or plaintiff’s lawyers, depending. And there’s money there, but not on the prosecution side.

CALLER: What about special prosecutor?

RUSH: Well, that’s a one-time thing, and you can parlay that into a small fortune because you can —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — bill it double your billable hour, your hourly rate. You can hire 15,000 stupid investigators —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — and hang around for four years investigating breadcrumbs if you want.

CALLER: (chuckling)

RUSH: That’s how a lot of those guys get rich. They charge the government twice what their normal hourly rate is, and there’s no end in sight to it.

CALLER: Right. Rush, if I could I have a comment about George Bush I’d like to express.

RUSH: A comment about George W. Bush?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: I think I have had a revelation, and I figured something out. George Bush would never defend himself when the media called him a dummy and everything else.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: And my thoughts are that George Bush didn’t defend himself because he wasn’t defending us, the American people. He had no care, like Donald Trump does, for the people. He cared about the party and power and winning, and by not defending himself, he insulted every American that had to stand up for him for eight years and look stupid standing up for him.

RUSH: Okay, I can assure you that this interpretation of yours is incorrect. I’m gonna tell you what it really was — and I’ve mentioned it before. I’ve asked him, I can’t tell you the number of times. I have been with George Bush when he was with donors, 45 minutes uninterrupted, maybe answering a couple questions. But just telling his donors what’s up at the moment in the world. I’ve been in meetings where he’s conducted himself that way was with me, just a few others. And it was not the same guy you saw on TV.

When he announced he was owner of the Texas Rangers, George Brett was finishing his career. His last series as a player for the Royals was in Texas, and I was Bush’s guest for the weekend, and it was that Saturday — that weekend — at lunch with a bunch of donors in the stadium club where he announced he was gonna kick Ma Richards’ ass, and he detailed how he was gonna do it. It was not the George Bush that you and I saw on television.

So I asked him about it — numerous times — and I asked Karl Rove, and he said almost verbatim, “I have way too much respect for this office to drag it down into the gutter of modern-day politics. I am not gonna respond to these obviously political attacks, personal attacks. I have too much respect for the office to turn it into that.” I don’t think it’s true at all to say he didn’t care about the American people. You’re really wrong about that.