RUSH: Of course, the Peter Strzok Smirk, I’ve been trying to figure out who this guy is. We all know this guy. There’s a Peter Strzok in all of our lives. In one sense, the guy is Bill Clinton. We all knew one of these guys in college. We all knew one of these guys in high school. And of course the lid was blown yesterday. Grab audio sound bite number 23. The lid was blown off of the roof of the hearing room when Louie Gohmert got his turn to ask Strzok Smirk a couple of questions. And here it is.

GOHMERT: I’ve talked to FBI agents around the country. You’ve embarrassed them, you’ve embarrassed yourself, and I can’t help but wonder, when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife’s eyes and lie to her about Lisa —

CICILLINE: Oh, Mr. Chairman, this is outrageous.

GOHMERT: — credibility of a witness.

CICILLINE: Mr. Chairman, shame on you.

COLEMAN: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, please.

CICILLINE: Have you no decency? This is intolerable harassment of the witness. (gavel)

COLEMAN: What is wrong with that? You need your medication?

GOODLATTE: The gentleman controls the time.

RUSH: That was Bob Goodlatte, the chairman, saying it’s still Louie’s time. I mean, if he wants to continue, he can. Did you hear all that? That was the Democrats, who, prior to that suggested that Strzok Smirk deserves the Purple Heart. And they weren’t joking! The Purple Heart for enduring this vicious, life-threatening question by the Republicans on the committee. He deserves the Purple Heart for forging on with this bogus, phony, biased, made-up investigation. The Purple Heart!

I tell you, the Democrats once again showed us who they are yesterday. Did Peter Strzok Smirk have an affair with Lisa Page or not? He did. Okay. All during the hearings yesterday, Peter Strzok Smirk told us he would never lie, that the investigation was paramount, that there was never any bias that found its way into the investigation. Of course we all have opinions.

“What do you mean when you went down there to Walmart and you could smell the Trump support?” Well, I didn’t really mean smell. I wasn’t smelling. What did you mean that you could smell the Trump support? Well, you know, I just meant, Congressman, that where I live people are decent. Down there it was bvious that a bunch of Trump supporters. We all know what he meant! And he meant smell. He meant Trump voters stink.

In his elite world, going to a Walmart or anywhere else where he thinks Trump supporters are. He does condescend. It’s exactly what he meant. But did he not lie repeatedly during this hearing when he said the bias didn’t matter, it didn’t find its way in the investigation? Did he have an affair with Lisa Page? Yes, he did. Isn’t that relevant when you’re trying to determine the credibility of a witness?

So one of these Democrats in the reaction that we heard here, David Cicilline or something, “This is outrageous.” And Louie said, “This goes to the credibility of a witness.” And it does. And then some Democrat said, “This is attacking the integrity of the witness.” It was. It’s exactly what it was intended to do.

But you see in the swamp, I guess so many people are having affairs that it’s just not the thing to do to talk about them. Why was that so outrageous? I mean, even some people on Fox News needed the vapors after that. It was a little bit overboard. But this guy was getting away with trying to make the FBI sound like it was heroic. This guy was getting away with continuing this silly lie that Trump and Russia colluded!

What I saw of it, Peter Strzok Smirk was doing everything he could to continue that allegation, that Trump and Russia colluded! He was asked, “What do you mean when you texted Lisa Page ‘Don’t worry, we’ll stop it?'” He said, “Well, I don’t remember sending it.” “Come on! You don’t remember sending that!” “Well, I don’t. I sent, you know, 50,000 texts to her.” And then he said, “Oh, wait. I remember. I remember. I was outraged that Trump would attack a God-fearing American whose son had been killed in action in the United States military.”

This is Khizr Khan. And Trump had not attacked anybody. He had just made the reference that while Khizr Khan was up there on the stage at Democrat National Committee that his wife was standing nearby but wasn’t permitted to say anything. So Trump makes an allusion to that and Strzok Smirk was so offended, was so outraged. And every time he opened his mouth it was inescapable the guy hates Trump. It was inescapable that he still believes Trump-Russia collusion has some legs to it. It was inescapable that he was doing everything he could to undermine the Trump campaign.

But he had this arrogant, condescending attitude, “You can’t touch me. I’m bigger than any of you. You here are nothing but a bunch of little insects yapping around at my ankles. I’m bigger than any of you.”

“Why did Mueller get rid of you?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t for bias in the things you were doing?”

“No. I don’t know why Mueller got rid of me.” Maybe Mueller didn’t. Maybe this guy still is involved in the investigation. How the hell do we know? The guy sure as hell sounds to me like he’s loaded for bear.

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Peter Strzok, the guy is just, as I say, we’ve all known a guy like this, and we don’t like him, and we resent him. He’s arrogant and condescending and seems to get away with everything. No matter what, gets away with everything. And has the audacity to tell you that what you saw you didn’t see and that what you know you don’t know.

Now, he is a top FBI counterintel official. He set himself up for blackmail with his affair with an FBI coworker. He obsessively texted that he hated and wanted to stop Trump. He texted that Trump was an F-ing idiot. But he didn’t just hate Trump. Strzok Smirk texted that Trump voters were stinking, ignorant hillbillies. And after all of that Strzok Smirk said he had no bias.

He portrays himself as the quintessential FBI agent when it comes to investigating Trump. And it’s just outrageous. And there were people that expected something serious to happen here, and nothing did in terms of damaging the investigation or harming its credibility. I think it’s what people were hoping for. But this is one of these guys that has no character, no character whatsoever in many ways. We’ve all known a guy like this. Maybe more than one.

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RUSH: So election rigging and framing a sitting president deserves a Purple Heart. That from the Democrats on the House committee yesterday applauding Peter Strzok Smirk for his defiance of the Republicans on the committee and his continual lying and his claim that his bias had nothing to do with the investigation. So the Democrats reject the Constitution, they reject American law with sanctuary cities, and now they want to give a fired FBI agent the Purple Heart. I don’t think we need any more information about what we’re up against, folks.

I mean, we’ll just have to decide that it’s time to double down and defeat these people, politically, every opportunity we get. Let’s see. Peter Strzok also admitted that the phony Trump Steele dossier came from Nellie Ohr at Fusion GPS. This is kind of significant to me. Strzok Smirk admitted during his hearing that that phony Russian dossier was funneled through the FBI by Nellie and Bruce Ohr, husband-and-wife combo. She worked at Fusion GPS, which… That’s Glenn Simpson, and to retrace some steps, they are who hired Christopher Steele.

Perkins Coie served as the law firm, served as the cutout in order to funnel payments from the Democrat National Committee and the Hillary campaign to Christopher Steele. Nellie Ohr worked at Fusion GPS, and this dossier — the Trump dossier, golden showers dossier — went from Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS… This is after Steele has composed it. It went to Simpson at Fusion GPS to Nellie Ohr, who was at Fusion GPS, who passed it to her husband, Bruce Ohr, who worked at the Department of Justice.

From there it was walked over and given to Strzok Smirk at the FBI — and that, folks, has been one of the many excuses for the beginning or explanations given for the beginning of the investigation into Trump-Russia collusion. Now, there have been many other alternatives presented in the House committee that Devin Nunes chairs is still trying to get documentation from the DOJ that would identify what it really was, what was the first thing that triggered the investigation.

They got a FISA warrant based on this dossier. The dossier is packed with lies! There’s nothing in the dossier ever confirmed or ever corroborated. There’s no question that this was an effort to undermine Trump! There’s no question that they knew that it was false and nothing in it was true. That’s what makes Strzok Smirk’s testimony yesterday so frustrating and maddening is that they knew everything they were doing. They knew they didn’t have any goods. They were trying to manufacture evidence. Now, Strzok Smirk said the documents now called the dossier were given to the FBI, not to him.

But he was the lead investigator. He was the lead investigator in the Hillary email investigation and this bogus thing. So he ended up with it — and probably from the FBI. Now, it should be also noted that Strzok Smirk had previously, stubbornly refused to answer questions from [Congressman] Jim Jordan about Ohr and about the dossier claiming the FBI had told him he couldn’t answer those question. But Jim Jordan, to his credit, contacted the FBI and they reversed that guidance.

So Strzok Smirk was on the spot, and he had to very reluctantly give up this information, which he had previously said that he couldn’t wait to do but he couldn’t do it because the lawyers wouldn’t let him — and now they can and he could, so he did. Prior to that, Strzok Smirk refused to tell Jim Jordan how he got different versions of the Trump dossier. But they all came from Fusion GPS after Steele had written it, the various elements of the dossier.

I mean, the whole thing was manufactured! It was created out of whole cloth. Remember, this is Hillary Clinton opposition research. That’s all the dossier is, and we now know how it found its way from the Clinton campaign through Fusion GPS. That would be Nellie Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr. So she gives it to her husband at the DOJ and he gives it either to the FBI or Strzok Smirk. Strzok Smirk ends up with it and we are off to the races on this.

Trump tweeted out something couple days ago that really is a good question. “How can the Rigged Witch Hunt proceed when it was started, influenced and worked on, for an extended period of time, by former FBI Agent/Lover Peter Strzok? Read his hate filled and totally biased Emails…” How in the world…? And, by the way, why was he kept on this investigation after all of this was learned? Put yourself in the position. You own a business, and your business is to collect data and information.

You know, say you’re running a security outfit, and one of your agents is running around having a torrid affair with one of your other agents. You find out that the agent is maybe stretching the truth a little bit, exaggerating things, is loaded with bias. You can’t really trust and count on what he’s saying, and yet you continue to rely on the guy. Why? It means you’re in on it too! It means everybody’s in on it. So Trump’s question: “How can this rigged witch hunt proceed…?”

Meaning now that we know what we know — now that this seriously flawed guy, Strzok Smirk, did what he did and is lying about it — how can this whole thing continue, when it was bogus to begin with? I have to say, the answer doubles back. Mr. President, you could end this today if you wanted to. At least you could declassify all of this and you could force the DOJ and the FBI to release everything they’ve got to Devin Nunes or to the public. There’s a reason Trump doesn’t do this, and there may be many reasons why. One of them I think is that his lawyers have told him, “If you start messing around like this, they’re gonna get you on obstruction.”

Trump’s reaction, “How can I be obstructing anything when I’m making it public?” And they say, “By that very fact you’re making public classified information that may involve you, and you’re trying to destroy the investigation, and if you end up being a target…” That’s probably what his lawyers are telling him on his other side, as we’ve postulated countless times, he might enjoy being seen as the victim pursued by a bunch of dishonest, possessed, lying bunch of people that are invested in anything that can to get rid of him.

There could be valid reasons in addition to those as to why this stuff is not released. There was one other moment yesterday in the hearings where the Drive-By Media was outraged, just outraged. I think even some at Fox News were. Now, forgive me. I’m looking… I’ve got 20 pages of sound bites here, and I don’t think we have this. So I’m gonna read it. I’m not asking for it. I’ve got more than I can use, so don’t take this as… If you’re up there in the production room, I’m not asking for it. Lord knows I’ve got more I can use here. Darrell Issa made Strzok Smirk actually read some of his texts.

Because Strzok Smirk was out there saying, “There was no bias. No, there’s a reason for all of these! It wasn’t… It’s not what you think. It wasn’t bias,” and gave this demonic smirk. Like Rosenstein has a tell. For a prosecutor, this guy gives himself away. When he’s being asked a question he doesn’t like, he smirks and kind of sighs and has a condescending facial reaction to the question and the person asking it. Strzok has much the same kind of thing. He gets this very intimidating facial expression — that’s why I call him “Struck/Stroke Smirk” — and it was all over the hearings yesterday.

Appearing before a joint session of House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees Thursday, disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok was ordered to read aloud his own text messages expressing anti-Trump sentiments. Rep. Darrell Issa: ‘I’m going to ask one series of questions very quickly if I could. You did a number of texts. All of the texts that were presented to us, as far as I know, came from your government phone, correct?’ FBI Agent Peter Strzok [Smirk]: ‘I believe that to be the case, yes.’ Issa: ‘You made no text available from your private phone, is that correct?’ Strzok: ‘That’s correct.’

“Issa: ‘Did you ever text on your private phone?’ Strzok: ‘I did.’ Issa: ‘Did you ever text Lisa Page on your private phone?’ Strzok: ‘I did.’ Issa: ‘Did you ever text Lisa Page on your private phone similar texts to the ones you did on your government phone?’ Strzok: ‘By “similar,” you mean what? ‘ Issa: ‘Commenting on Mr. Trump or Hillary Clinton or anything else politically in nature.’ Strzok: ‘I don’t specifically recall but it’s probably a safe assumption that yes I did.’ Issa: ‘It’s likely that they’d be similar.’ Strzok: ‘It’s a safe assumption.’

“Issa: ‘So your personal phone has likely similar texts to the ones we found on your government phone, that’s correct?’ Strzok: ‘I would say it has similar expressions of personal belief.’ Issa: ‘Okay, in front of you, you have one sheet of paper that was presented to you a few minutes ago. I’m going to just go to a date and ask you to read your own words. March 14, 2016.’ Strzok: ‘You want me to read this?’ Issa: ‘Yes, please.’ Strzok: ‘“OMG, he’s an idiot.”’

“Issa: ‘May 4, 2016.’ Strzok: ‘“Now the pressure really starts finish MYE.”’ Issa: ‘July 19, 2016.’ Strzok: ‘“Hi, how was Trump other than a douche? Melania?”’ Issa: ‘July 21, 2016.’ Strzok: ‘“Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his presidency would be.”’ Issa: ‘August 6, 2016.’ Strzok: ‘I don’t believe I wrote this text, sir.’ Issa:’ Okay, it’s been attributed to you, so we’ll go on to the next. August 8, 2016 and I’ll preference it by saying this for context – Ms. Page said, “Not ever going to become president, right, right?”’

“Strzok: ‘No, no he’s not. We’ll stop it.’ Issa: ‘Repeat that again.’ Strzok: ‘“No, no he’s not.”’ Issa: ‘August 15, 2016.’ Strzok: ‘“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he could be elected, but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”’ Issa: ‘On October 20, 2016.’ Strzok: ‘“I can’t pull away” — I defer to the chairman whether or not…’

“Issa: ‘You could just use one letter if you don’t mind.’ Strzok: ‘“Why the F—, what the F— happened to our country, Lis?”’ Issa: ‘Okay, read it again that way.’ Strzok: ‘Sir, did you not – you just want to hear it, for me to repeat it?’ Issa: ‘Please.’ Strzok: ‘Okay sir, happy to indulge you. “I can’t pull away, what the F- happened to our country, Lis?”’…” So made Strzok Smirk read his texts and be and the Drive-Bys were apoplectic. “How dare he humility him this way! How dare he call him out this way! How dare he make him read his texts. That is embarrassing! It’s beyond the pale. It was unnecessary, and it’s prejudicial!”

Of course there are even some people on Fox News thought it was over the top. How can that be? How can forcing the guy to read what he wrote so that it’s heard…? It’s a good thing, because how many low-information people do you think even know about these texts? The Drive-Bys aren’t recording this garbage. I don’t even know how many low-information people had access to what he was on TV yesterday. You never know.

Did CNN have their…? Were they covering this? (interruption) Yes? Okay, so people in the airport saw it at least. You know, CNN and MSNBC’s ratings are below the the Food Network and HGTV last week? MSNBC and CNN’s ratings are below the Food Network and HGTV. You know what HGTV is? You don’t know what HGTV is? What? One at a time. Right. Home and Garden TV. It’s a home improvement network, where you can also buy little trinkets and stuff. And MSNBC and CNN ended up trailing that!

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RUSH: This is Mike in Northern Ohio. Welcome, sir. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I wanted to first thank you for all that you do for our country, and thank you for taking my call. I called because I wanted to express my frustration with what I saw yesterday and what I’ve been seeing, but yesterday you could tell there was abject bias by this FBI agent and the seemingly lack of anything criminal that could be done to him. Just aside from losing his job, this kind of action by a law enforcement officer just seems to be criminal to me. And I’m really frustrated, and I know other people are frustrated. Nothing seems to happen to any of these folks that are tied up in this.

RUSH: Yeah, and they know nothing’s gonna happen to ’em, and they sit there with that attitude say, “You can’t touch me.” That was basically his attitude all day yesterday.

CALLER: I couldn’t agree more. I saw this confidence that was in his smile that he looked like “There isn’t anything you’re going to do to me, and I’m just going to be as –” Well, he was just awful. I just hated it. But, anyway, I wanted to express that, and I wonder, is there any kind of criminal charges that can be brought up on someone like that?

RUSH: Well, we had the inspector general report which has some fairly hard-hitting stuff in it. But whether or not the FBI would — Congress can’t charge anybody with crimes. They can conduct oversight of various elements of the executive branch, and they can make recommendations, they can make referrals, but they can’t indict anybody. They can hold ’em in contempt of Congress if they refuse to testify, things like that.

CALLER: To have a person who didn’t do his job, and he took an oath, he took an oath of office to perform to protect the Constitution, serve and to investigate whatever the FBI office office oath is, and he didn’t do those things, it was clear that he didn’t do those. And so it’s just so frustrating that does that destroy our rule of law? I mean, people people are shaken by this, can a person just not do his job and say, “Well, it wasn’t his intent to not do his job,” and just walk away and that’s —

RUSH: (imitation) “Yeah. It wasn’t my bias which was clearly, you know, I hate Donald Trump as much as anybody, but it didn’t have a thing to do with my investigation. And I think I think Donald Trump’s human debris, he’s trash, but it didn’t affect anything I did and I challenge you to prove otherwise, Congressman.” And he acted there all offended.

I think what you saw yesterday — and I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for your question. But he’s a swamp dweller. Nothing happens to them. Nothing has happened to them. And he knew it! He knew nothing’s gonna happen to him as a result of this. He’s not sweated bullets over this since it happened. I’m telling you that many of these people, like the guy you saw yesterday and others, really think themselves above and apart the rest of the country.

They are immune from the daily concerns of law and order. Hell, they are law and order. They can make it whatever they want to be. They can justify their pursuit of bad guys and criminals however they wish to. And the most fundamental punishment that he’s been dealt with is being fired, you know, I think they fired him before he could fully collect his pension, which was some punishment. But in terms of facing criminal charges, nah. I don’t ever see that happening.

CALLER: Well, it’s a shame that there can’t be something like that and that they can’t get this man for his action. I just find it really frustrating, and all the people in the country, you can hear it in the other talk show people in the evening, the frustration of nothing can be done, and yet we take this, and I don’t think our framers of our Constitution expected this kind of action from people.

RUSH: Yeah, they did. They expected all this and more. Hell, yes. That’s why it was written the way it was. They fully expected people to eventually, after a passage of time, to descend to their worst interests. That’s why all of the Constitution limits what government can do to people. It limits the power of the government as best it can. They knew human nature brilliantly.

I think what really bothers you, I think it’s bigger than whether or not Strzok Smirk is gonna be charged criminally. What bothers you is that people like this get to try with impunity to destroy other people. This guy has spent a year and a half or maybe longer trying to destroy the duly elected president, and yet not a thing other than being fired is gonna happen to him as a result. And you want some kind of reciprocity.

You think there’s an imbalance here when a bunch of people that are not even elected can end up wielding more power than the president of the United States duly elected by the people, and he can go out and do whatever he wants, he can lie, he can make it up, he can create scenarios that never happened to try to destroy a president, overturn an election and there’s nobody that can do anything to him. There’s nobody in the executive branch other than people at the FBI who may be in on it with him, may have the same desires that he had! The odds are they did. Certainly Comey did.

I think it’s imbalance of power, and you’re just sick and tired of people who have a completely different worldview than you do seemingly getting away with unending efforts to destroy the people you like. You see them getting away with it. That’s what frustrates you. And it frustrates a whole lot of people. And there are people everywhere asking what can be done.

It’s a variation of the question I’ve had for 30 years: “What are the Republicans gonna stand up, Rush, and do something about it?” Wish I had an answer for you. Then you add the media political complex as a defense bar for these people, and it gets even doubly frustrating.

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RUSH: Okay. So we had a call, a frustrated caller about a half hour ago fretting that nothing’s gonna happen to Strzok, that he can go up there and lie to Congress, he can do what he did about trying to throw Trump out of office, he can run a fake, phony investigation, and nothing happens to him.

And I know. If people aren’t gonna be prosecuted when they break the law, then nothing’s gonna happen to them. And prosecuting Strzok here, I don’t know under whose purview that would fall. They fired him. You know, Sessions fired him, and he missed out on a certain portion of his pension due to the early firing [sic].

But let me tell you how it can be used. Now, this would be up to the Republicans. But there was all kinds of audio from that — or even video from the hearings yesterday that would make ideal political advertising fodder. For example, the texts of Strzok Smirk talking about how Trump voters, you could just smell them. You could just smell them when he went to a Walmart in Southern Virginia, when he was outside the comfort zone of his own neighborhood. And he wasn’t asked about that yesterday.

And he had this really flimsy (imitation), “Oh, no, no. I wasn’t actually — you really insult me, Congressman, thinking that I would smell people. That’s not at all what I meant. It was Harry Reid that said that. Harry Reid said you can smell a tourist in the visitors center when the air-conditioning isn’t working and he doesn’t like to go there, but I wasn’t talking about Harry Reid. I was merely talking about it was so obvious they were a different group of people than the people I know, but as far as them actually having a smell, that’s —“ Put it in a campaign ad.

You know, use all of this stuff to gin up turnout. And don’t make the mistake of thinking every Republican around the country has heard of this stuff. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the name Peter Strzok is widely known and that what he’s done is widely known. People are gonna have to be educated about this guy. And, by the way, there are plenty of still shots when the camera was focused on Strzok Smirk yesterday that you can produce some of the most effective still photos of this guy.

You can make him look evil. You can make him look arrogant, cocky, confident, untouchable. And you have a little bubble with what he’s supposedly thinking or saying during these facial expressions. It would make effective political advertising.

You know, you talk about maintaining enthusiasm in the Trump base. Well, this would be one way of doing it. If you can’t go out there and if there’s not a legal remedy that any of us can conceive — and, by the way, I’m gonna ask some people who would know if there is legal remedy for this, but I don’t know what kind of agreement he made before he testified, if any. There’s a lot we don’t know about it.

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RUSH: By the way, I have made a mistake. I’ve confused McCabe with Strzok Smirk. It was McCabe that lost part of his pension, not Strzok. To me, these guys are one and the same. They’re cookie cutters. They’re all the same. They’re all devoted to the same cause and they’ve all been telling the same lies. They’ve all been doing the same kind of cover-ups. Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, the whole collection of ’em.