RUSH: So 81 subpoenas, and this statement from Jerry Nadler: “We have to get the facts. We will see where the facts lead. Maybe that will lead to impeachment. Maybe it won’t.” Uh, this is taking on an aroma or an air…? (interruption) Where did this come from? Gigantic boxes of Kleenex just magically appeared right here. (interruption) It did. (interruption) So these were placed in here over the break when I didn’t notice they were here? (interruption) This is very, very… (interruption) No, no. It’s fine. The fact that two boxes can end up here with my back turned and I don’t even know it… What if there was a knife?

Anyway, Mueller and his investigation are open-ended. There’s no crime specified, which is a violation of Justice Department regulations. So Mueller had free rein to go find a crime. Mueller had free rein to go make up a crime — and he made up a bunch of them. He created a bunch of process crimes to nab a bunch of witnesses. In none of the indictments that Mueller has announced is any relationship to Donald Trump referenced. So now here comes Nadler doing the same thing.

Jerry Nadler says, “We have to get the facts. We’ll see where the facts lead. Maybe that will lead to impeachment; maybe it won’t.” Wait a minute. If there aren’t any facts, then why are you doing this? Just like with Mueller. He wasn’t given a crime, and so this special counsel investigation became a counterintelligence investigation, and counterintelligence investigations do not seek out crimes, which is why this whole thing has been a gigantic hoax. But when did it start that just because you don’t like somebody, you can begin mass subpoena requests to “get the facts”?

After all of this — after everything that’s gone on the past 2 or 2-1/2 years — Nadler admits he doesn’t have the facts? They are so ticked off that Mueller apparently hasn’t come up with anything that they’re now saying, “Well, Mueller’s scope was much narrower than ours.” In one sense, that’s true. But Mueller’s investigation would have a little bit more leeway than theirs will, except (sigh) 81 — and he’s just getting started. He’s promising to go after Ivanka down the road and others.

But this is crazy. We’ve gone through two years of investigation, and a campaign where everybody and their brother was out to find dirt on Donald Trump — and all they came up with was that Access Hollywood tape. Two years, folks, and there’s nothing. They haven’t found a thing on Donald Trump, and they’re gonna keep looking, precisely because they don’t have anything? This is not the way things happen in a representative republic or a democracy. This is not at all… You at least have to have some indication that wrongdoing has taken place before you start pursuing it. I think they’re gonna continue to make fools of themselves.

Eighty-one people?

Who can keep track of the characters here?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Nadler. This is from last night, CNN, Erin Burnett OutFront. Question: “So you have this list, 81 names on it thus far. These are people from every aspect of Trump’s life. What is your goal out there, Jerry?”

NADLER: Our goal is to hold the administration accountable for the obstruction of justice, the abuse of power, and the corruption. We have to find out what’s been going on and we have to lay out a case to the American people and reveal it, because we have not seen an administration in a long time prior to this and we see so many attacks on the rule of law, attacks on the Justice Department, attacks on the press, attacks on the judiciary, the attacks on the norms that we depend upon to maintain democratic government.

RUSH: And what the hell is he talking about? Well, I can tell you one thing. When he says “attacks on the Justice Department,” he considers it to be obstruction of justice every time Trump has referred to the Mueller investigation as a witch hunt. That equals obstruction of justice. That is the president attempting to stop Mueller. That’s the president attempting to taint Mueller. And these attacks on the press. Now, the thing that Nadler conveniently omits or forgets here is that Trump doesn’t attack anybody. Trump reacts and he responds.

But I’m still struck by this. “Our goal is to hold the administration accountable for the obstruction of justice, the abuse of power, the corruption. We have to find out what’s been going on.” Wait a minute. If you have to find out what’s been going, how do you know if there’s been obstruction of justice? How do you know whether there’s been abuse of power, how do you know about corruption, if you don’t know anything yet? “We have to find out what’s been on going on, and we have to lay out a case to the American people. We have to reveal it, because we’ve not seen an administration a long time in which there were so many attacks on the rule of law.”

What are those? What are the attacks on the rule of law? You know, the attack on the rule of law to me is the Mueller investigation, this two-tiered justice system that we have where the collusion and crimes of the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democrat National Committee are totally ignored, and things Trump did that are not crimes are investigated and examined, things Trump didn’t do are then called crimes.

Let’s see. “Attacks on the Justice Department.” That would be claiming Mueller’s investigation is a witch hunt. Attacks on the press? We’ve never had attacks on the press before? We gotta get rid of a guy, we gotta get rid of a president because he’s attacking the press? Because he’s attacking the judiciary? I’ll tell you what this indicates. It tells you that this guy, Jerrold Nadler, tends toward totalitarianism, that whatever his point of view is what is and any deviation from it is heresy or criminal or is seditious.

If you’re Donald Trump or any other Republican, you’re not allowed to criticize any of these agencies that promote and do the bidding of the Democrat Party. Where does that kind of thinking reside in the world? It resides in totalitarian states. It’s none of Jerry Nadler’s business how Trump decides to characterize the media, as though no Democrat has ever ripped into the media before?

Anyway, I just want to reiterate here that this investigation — by the way, I’ve seen allusions to the fact this investigation’s gonna go on way beyond 2020. Of course it is! Because this investigation is designed to get Donald Trump thrown out of office after he’s reelected. I don’t think that they fully expect to be able to beat Trump in 2020.

Now, let me give myself some breathing room here. I’m not saying that the Democrats are collectively running around thinking that they’ve lost. It’s quite the opposite. In many cases there are a lot of Democrats who think it’s a fait accompli that they’re gonna win because they think the country hates Trump like they do. But then they’re forced to see contradicting evidence, like presidential approval numbers and the fact that no matter what they do cannot hurt Trump in the areas they have sought to hurt him.

So there’s always this lingering doubt in there. Maybe I should modify what I’m saying. They are doing this in the event Trump wins reelection, although I do think that many of them expect it to happen and I think it’s one of the reasons why they’re still out of their minds! They’re bat excrement crazy over this! And, by the way, even David Axelrod, who was the chief consultant for Barack Hussein O, has called out Nadler.

Axelrod criticized Nadler and other House Democrats yesterday for their blanket demand for documents from more than 81 people associated with Trump. He warns that it could play into the characterization of a witch hunt. Axelrod tweeted, “Maybe I’m missing something, but the hazard of an omnibus document demand by House judiciary versus discreet, serial ones is that, however legitimate the areas of inquiry, the wide-ranging nature of it is too easily plays into the ‘witch hunt’ meme.”

Meanwhile, Nadler told George “Stephy” Stephanopoulos the Democrats have to convince — ready for this? — the Democrats have to convince enough Trump voters that impeachment ought to happen and that the Democrats are not just trying to steal the last election. Oh, yes, my friends, exactly what Nadler said.

So let me go through this again. Jerry Nadler, chairman, House judiciary, says he believe Trump obstructed justice yet impeachment’s a long way down the road, long way down the road. Because first Nadler has to convince enough Trump voters that impeachment ought to happen, that the Democrats are not just trying to steal the last election. Stephanopoulos says, “You think the president obstructed justice?” Nadler: “Yeah, I do. Very clear the president obstructed justice. Very clear. 1100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a witch hunt.” See, 1100 times calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt. That’s obstruction of justice.

What the hell did the Clintons do to Ken Starr? For crying out loud they turned Ken Starr into a sex-crazed pervert. That wasn’t obstruction of justice? James Carville was out there accusing Ken Starr of selling cigarettes on street corners to black Washington kids at night. That’s right. He’s out there selling cigarettes to your kids, selling to your babies. They were trashing Ken Starr all over the place. I guess that wasn’t obstruction.

But the money statement is this: “Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen.” Now, that’s an acknowledgment that impeachment is a political thing, not legal. “You have to persuade enough of the opposition party, Trump voters, that you’re not just trying to steal the last election, I mean, to reverse the results of the last election.” He corrected himself. We may not get there, we may not get there, but what we have to do is protect the rule of law.

So he’s fully aware that what they’re doing is in fact attempting to overturn the election results. That’s what the Mueller investigation’s about. That’s what all of the Washington establishment’s never-ending pique with Trump is, to try to reverse the election results of 2016. Nadler pretty much admits it here, but he says, “We’ve gotta make Trump voters realize that’s not what we’re doing.” Well, good luck with that. Good luck with that, Jerry, because you don’t know how politically instinctive Trump’s voters are, and they’re gonna see right through you, which admittedly is a lot easier to do than it used to be.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah. Here’s Jerry Nadler in his own words from Sunday morning’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. This is where he says that he’s gotta convince Trump voters that they’re “not trying to steal the — uh, uh, reverse the election results of 2016.”

NADLER: Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public, uh, that it ought to happen. You have to persuade enough of the oppos — opposition party voters or the Trump voters — uhhhh, that you’re not just trying to steal the elec–

STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s a very high bar.

NADLER: Yeah! It is a very high bar — that you’re not just trying to steal the last election, reverse the results of the last election. We may — may not get there.

RUSH: (impression) “Uhhhhh, just trying to steal the last… uh, reverse the results. Gotta convince ’em.” Jerry, you’ve lost that one already. Everybody knows that’s what you and the media and Mueller and everybody else on the Democrat side is doing, and there’s nothing you can do that’s gonna mask or camouflage your effort. Okay. To the phones. Julie, Saratoga Springs in Nuevo Orc. Great to have you. You are up first. Hi.

CALLER: Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh, very much for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet!

CALLER: I just wanted to say that the — I think the count’s now up to 81 or 181 — people that the Democrats are trying to get documents from should give them the same response that Rod Rosenstein gave when we asked for some very important documents from some of the other committees: Completely ignore them. Don’t give them a single piece of paper unless it’s toilet paper.

RUSH: I like that. Just stonewall ’em, just not give ’em anything. You end up going to jail maybe, but not give ’em anything.

CALLER: If they didn’t hang Hillary for destroying evidence that was subpoenaed, I don’t understand how they could go after private citizens for documents. I don’t believe they have the right to that.

RUSH: Wait a second. You don’t really mean what you just said. If they didn’t hang Hillary for destroying evidence that was subpoenaed, you don’t understand how they go after private citizens for documents? ‘Cause we have a two-tiered justice system!

CALLER: Well, I shouldn’t have said, “I don’t understand.” I can’t comprehend how this can be happening in the United States of America.

RUSH: Well, now, that — that — absolutely. How is this happening in the United States? (impression) “It’s happening because somebody had the insolence to seek the presidency. Somebody had the out-of-this-world audacity to seek the presidency who doesn’t come from the Washington establishment and the feeder networks of the Ivy League universities, and then won — and that is simply unacceptable and it’s not gonna happen ever again.

“We’re gonna destroy the guy that did this even if it takes destroying him after he’s out of office. We’re gonna make certain that nobody ever does this, and one of the ways we’re gonna do it is we’re gonna destroy every friend, every associate, anybody who has ever sold him something as insignificant as a screw for a construction project. We’re gonna destroy them so that nobody else ever tries this again, because we can’t deal with Bill Kristol being this upset.”

CALLER: Well, I thank God every day for President Trump and what he’s doing for America, and I pray for him. And they can come after all of us if they like but we’re all in a barrel of (garbled).

RUSH: Well, I tell you what, if they subpoena you — if they subpoena you for documents, Julie — I wholeheartedly endorse your desire to stiff ’em. She’s right. Rosenstein refused to comply with congressional requests for the documents that explained when that investigation actually began, and Trump won’t declassify them (sigh), supposedly because they embarrass our allies in the intelligence agencies in the U.K., MI5 and MI6.

And of course, Victoria Derbyshire of BBC 4. We can’t offend any of those people; so we gotta hold our cards close to the vest. We can’t reveal how MI5 and MI6 helped spy on the Trump campaign. I think he’s gonna declassify those documents at some point. He’s waiting for the right time. This is… The type is too small. Reenie, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Great to have you. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Hi. I’ve been listening to you since I lived in Washington, D.C., in the late eighties, and to me you are like the — How can I say? — the resurrection of my own father’s spirit, and I listen to you and I hear him talk to me through you, and I’m so grateful for that.

RUSH: Well —

CALLER: Thank you so much for keeping me —

RUSH: No, no, that —

CALLER: — positive in my life toward America and toward righteousness.

RUSH: Well, thank you —

CALLER: I’m really grateful.

RUSH: I really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you. That’s —

CALLER: And I wanted to concur with the person who just talked from Saratoga Springs, I think, there in New York?

RUSH: Yeah. There’s a racetrack there, yeah. Saratoga Springs.

CALLER: (chuckles) Anyway, I’m actually in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. (chuckles) But, anyway, I wanted to just say to you that I really feel that they should refuse to give any documents, and that every one of those 81 people should go and claim… How could I say? Plead the fifth. And everyone who goes before them, they appear should say that this is political persecution. It is a political witch hunt. They’re trying to bankrupt people who support the president, and it should be a very public and outcry, and the Republicans should support it. All the WalkAway people, all the people — positive people — who are for Trump should support it, and they should plead the fifth, all 81 people, on account of the fact that it’s political persecution.

RUSH: Wait. We don’t want ’em pleading the fifth because pleading the fifth is a tantamount admission of guilt. We want them pleading, “Screw you! We’re not turning over whatever it is you want on the grounds that you don’t have anything. This is not how it works. You don’t get to go fishing in my house, in my business, in my backyard to find things that you don’t already have some idea are going on, and the fact that you don’t like Donald Trump does not give you license to come destroy my life or anybody else’s here.”

So I would invoke the “Screw you!” privilege. But in doing that, these guys are gonna come right back at you. Nothing is going to deter them. If that kind of procedure is adopted, then you’re gonna have to commit to it and it’s gonna have to be for a long-term purpose of thwarting the efforts of Nadler and the rest of these renegades to try to find something that they admit they don’t have!

“We’re gotta go get the facts and we don’t have the facts.” Well, then on what basis are you doing this, if you don’t have the facts and you admit it? If you don’t have the facts and you do not know what it is you’re looking for, and if you’re gonna claim that obstruction of justice is calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt 1,100 times, you don’t have diddly-squat — and we’re not gonna help you go fishing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look at what Hillary Clinton did when she had her emails subpoenaed. There were 60,000 of ’em and she destroyed half of ’em — and they still haven’t investigated! In fact, they exonerated her for that. So if I’m these 81 people, I’ve got precedent. I’m gonna do what Hillary Clinton did. I’m gonna say, “They’re related to my daughter’s yoga and wedding reception and I’m getting rid of ’em. You don’t need to see ’em.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Jerrold Nadler and wanting 81 people to submit documents. And as I mentioned right before the conclusion of the previous hour — and I don’t know how many of you heard it — but Hillary Clinton, 60,000 emails from her private server were subpoenaed. And you know half of ’em disappeared. She deleted 30,000. She said, “Okay, I’ll handle this.” And she went through all 60,000, she said. And she said, “There’s only 30,000 here that you really need,” and she turned those over. The other 30,000 she said had to deal with her daughter Chelsea’s yoga lessons and wedding registry and reception and so forth. And so Hillary just got rid of those.

And then everybody said, “Well, where are they? Where are these remaining –” then Trump tells this joke. “Hey, Russia, maybe you can find ’em. Everybody in the media is looking for them. Tell the U.S. media.” Then they say, “Trump is colluding with Russia, begging Russia to hack Hillary.” So idiotic. Hillary had already been hacked! The DNC had already been hacked. Trump was just goosing ’em!

But, anyway, Hillary gets to choose which 30,000 she turns over and gets to destroy or hide another 30,000 just claiming that they’re personal and have no relationship to the subpoena. And Comey and his fellow conspirators at the FBI say, “Oh, that’s great. That’s fine.” So why don’t these 81 pull similar stunts? The precedent has been set. If we’re gonna have a two-tier justice system, people ought to be fighting to be in the tier that isn’t held accountable. It’s just the way the Democrats want to set it up.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Kelly in Dallas. You’re next, as we head back to the phones. How are you?

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to speak to you, sir.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I’m a big fan. Listen, I gotta respectfully disagree with you on pleading the Fifth Amendment. I would plead the Fifth Amendment. And I understand what you’re saying on the “screw you” defense, but the thing is, if you do that, you know, they have some pretty smart lawyers on the Democrat side, so what they might do is try to get something out of you that might sound like it’s a lie and start charging you with lying in front of Congress. With the Fifth Amendment, no matter who they are, they call — or even subpoena them, Fifth Amendment, there’s no way, this is not a civil trial, they can’t force them to answer. And so in a sense that they are basically saying “screw you” with the Fifth Amendment and they —

RUSH: Yeah, but wait. (crosstalk)

CALLER: — wouldn’t really construe anything about that.

RUSH: You sound like an expert in this field. You need to answer a question for me.

CALLER: What’s that, sir?

RUSH: I thought the Fifth Amendment can only be used when you’ve been charged?

CALLER: Not necessarily.

RUSH: Or when you’re being interrogated on a specific crime. Can you plead the fifth to a document request?

CALLER: Well, a document request is one thing, but Jerrold Nadler has already said they’re talking about obstruction of justice. So what you’re saying here is like I’m basically — if you’re trying to trap — a perjury trap, ig you’re trying to trick me into saying something that’s not true, so that could possibly — I’m not a lawyer, but you could potentially say, “Well, you’re trying to trap me into something. So therefore, I am not going to answer this question. You’re not gonna trap me or entrap me into perjury.”

RUSH: Well, now, that happens to be a good point, although it still doesn’t answer the question. But let me explain why his point is good and why — when I first saw that Mueller was going after Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi — look, folks. I don’t want to insult anybody here, but if you’re investigating collusion with Russia, I’m just here to tell you, it didn’t happen with those two guys. It just didn’t.

I ask myself, why is Mueller going after these two guys? They didn’t have anything to do with this. There wasn’t any of it anyway. And the answer is, why did Mueller go after Flynn? Why did Mueller go after Manafort and Gates? Why did Mueller go after those Russian troll farms that are never gonna show up in court and answer the charges, so he gets a freebie essential conviction on the Russian troll farms. Since they’re not gonna contest the charges, Mueller can run around and say, “Well, they must be guilty.”

‘Cause what Mueller wants is guilty pleas. He doesn’t care what they are. A guilty plea to process crime, a guilty plea to lying to investigators, a guilty plea for failing to take out the trash, guilty whatever. What Mueller wants is to be able to put together a report on Trump-Russia collusion and then be able to report as part of it that he obtained nine guilty pleas, period.

So the media then has license to report that in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation, Mueller obtained nine guilty pleas, period. The media can then run a disinformation campaign designed to make you think, and everybody else consuming news, that the guilty pleas have to do with Russian collusion. But they don’t. None of them do. They’re all process crimes. They’re all guilty of lying to investigators or lying to themselves or whatever the bogus, specious guilty pleas are.

In large part, the guilty pleas were to make Mueller go away. The guilty pleas were to stop Mueller from destroying their families and their kids and their economic futures. But that isn’t what it’s gonna say. “And Robert Mueller today issued his report in the investigation of Trump and colluding with Russia, and complete in this investigation were nine guilty pleas.”

So the average news consumer, “Wow. They got nine people that pled guilty to collusion with Russia!” is how it will be reported in the media. He doesn’t care who pleads guilty. So in your example here, they’re flooding the Trump zone with these requests for documents. And your idea is that they’re simply trying to set people up for process crimes where they can also, likewise, obtain guilty pleas. Well, maybe. But don’t forget what this actually is. This is, despite what Nadler says, this is part of a very long game of impeaching Donald Trump.

In fact, a great way to put it may be to steal terminology from Peter Strzok Smirk. This is the insurance policy against Trump winning reelection, because that’s when all this is gonna be put into motion. They don’t have time to impeach Trump now. The presidential campaign is going on. The Democrat candidates don’t want all these distracting things, nor do they want it revving up Trump’s supporters. I think this is a long game. And it’s all predicated on the Democrats holding the House in 2020 as well.