RUSH:  “As Robert Mueller Writes His Report, a Potential Battle Brews over Obstruction of Justice.”  This is a CNN “wish piece,” meaning this is a piece CNN has published hoping that it is true.

The upshot of this is that Mueller has been monitoring and taking note of every public statement Donald Trump has made and is asking himself if Trump is trying to tamper with a future jury, tamper with witnesses, or obstruct justice in his press conferences.  This is how much nothing they’ve got.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Robert Mueller, the special counsel, CNN just hoping and praying… I told you yesterday what I think this report’s gonna be. I think Mueller’s working the report and we’ve got a pretty good indication here. He’s just asked for the grand jury to be kept open six months. So I don’t think the wind-down is imminent, but if I had to randomly guess what this is gonna be, I think since there isn’t any collusion between Trump and Russia, the report is going to stress that there was Russian meddling.

They can’t… They can’t not report that. Everybody and their uncle in Washington believes it’s true. I think it’s bogus! I think the idea that Russia had anything to do with the outcome of the 2016 election is an insult to everybody’s intelligence. There is simply no way. And even Rosenstein and Mueller and the document that they have made against Russian internet trolls have made it plain that not one vote was changed and the outcome of no election was affected.

That doesn’t matter. The media and the Democrats and everybody in this game have been reporting for two years or more that the Russians meddled in the election. So they can’t not report that. That is gonna form the foundation of the report. Russian meddling. Even though it amounted to zilch! But they’re gonna report it. There is no solution between Trump and Russia so what they’re gonna say is that Trump’s naivete, his lackadaisical attitude, his arrogance, his incompetence, the fact that he’s got no business being president and he had no business being nominated enabled the Russians to get away with meddling.

That’s how I think they’re gonna do it. And then I think Mueller is going to pivot to obstruction of justice and say that even though Trump was so dumb and — these will not be words that Mueller uses, but it will be how they’re interpreted — that even though Trump was so unprepared and so out of his league and so incompetent and naive that the Russians were able to meddle, Trump still got worried.

Referring to Mueller as a witch hunt and a hoax, and so they’re gonna then say, as CNN’s reporting here that Trump attempted to obstruct the investigation by firing Comey and by saying things in public that no responsible citizen of Washington would ever say. (impression) “There would not be serious criticism of the investigator among serious people. That would never happen.” And they will… The CNN story here says that Mueller has been making note of every word Trump has said in speeches, at rallies, at press conferences, and is categorizing them as potential attempts to obstruct justice.

So the report will no doubt cite certain things that Trump has said that the investigator will say were attempts to sway a possible jury, that were attempts to intimidate potential witnesses. I think this is what this report is gonna be. They can’t afford, after all this time, they can’t afford to issue a report that basically says we didn’t find anything. No independent counsel ever has, and certainly not this collection of snakes from Mueller to Andrew Weissmann.

I mean, they’re practically… In a recent column by Sidney Powell, the author of Licensed to Lie, has basically accused them of torturing Paul Manafort, of slowing killing him by keeping him in solitary confinement, not allowing him any solicitors, including from his lawyers. He hasn’t done anything to warrant solitary. But she makes the point that they’re essentially driving him crazy because they can. And Manafort didn’t do anything.

The indictments against Manafort have nothing to do with Russia collusion, Trump, the election, any of this. The latest… This was so specious I even mention it. The story a couple of days ago that Manafort shared polling data with a Russian oligarch. Did you see that story? You probably wondered why I, your host, didn’t mention. I’ll tell you why. It’s because it’s nothing! It’s zilch, zero, nada! Okay. So Manafort’s the president. He’s running the campaign, the chairman of the campaign, Trump campaign.

He got some polling data, shares it with a Russian oligarch.

This is collusion?

Give me a break!

This is meddling, sharing polling data that’s gonna be made public anyway?

I mean that’s the extent of what they’ve got. So I think this is where they’re going. CNN, of course, is holding out desperate hope in their story, “As Robert Mueller Writes His Report, a Potential Battle Brews over Obstruction of Justice — As … Robert Mueller wraps up his Russia probe, investigators have focused on conflicting public statements by … Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to influence witnesses and obstruct justice, according to [anonymous] people familiar with the investigation.”

So just when you thought Mueller could not stretch the definition of “crimes” any further, our old buddies at CNN are reporting his investigators are focused on public statements by Trump and his aides as potential obstruction of justice. CNN goes to say, “The line of questioning adds to indications that Mueller views false or misleading statements to the press or to the public as obstruction of justice.”

So the president not telling the press everything they want to know equals obstruction of justice. CNN says that “prosecutors have dropped hints that they view public statements as possibly key in influencing witnesses.” This is insane. This is abjectly insane. I fully expect all of this to collapse on these people, ’cause they don’t have anything, folks. They’re having to manufacture things like faux obstruction of justice.