RUSH: Here’s a little bit of an example of this. John Kennedy, Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana, was on Meet the Depressed Sunday with the host, F. Chuck Todd. And Chuck Todd said, “Simply uttering this conflation on Ukraine and Russia, the inference is that you’re doing the president’s dirty work here.” Now, Kennedy is out saying, by the way, what the Politico and two other Drive-By publications reported in January 2017. They reported that Ukraine was in panic mode because Trump won the election, that they were working on behalf of Hillary in the 2016 campaign. This is the president of Ukraine prior to the current one, Zelensky.
And they were caught. They were trying to undermine Trump. They were all-in with Hillary. Remember that the Clintons were just an extension of Obama and it was to be the status quo just continuing. The current president would stay president and the hunky-dory relationship would remain. And they worked to undermine the Trump campaign. It’s not us saying so, it’s Politico and two other Drive-By Media organizations.
And the story in January, even before Trump was inaugurated was that Ukraine was now panicked and Trump was elected and Trump knew what they had done. So now they were faced with having to do a 180 to try to get on Trump’s good side. That’s specifically what The Politico story was about. John Kennedy simply cites that. John Kennedy says, “Look, I’m using your sources that Ukraine was trying to undermine Trump in 2016.”
The Drive-Bys are committed to Russia and only Russia doing that and Trump working with it. In fact, Schiff has given the members of his committee 24 hours to review the record and vote. And Schiff’s articles of impeachment may even include Trump-Russia collusion, even though it’s been dispelled and blown to smithereens, it may even include that. Because they’re not working on truth whatsoever.
Even after the Mueller report came out, they are sticking with the idea that Trump colluded with Russia, and they’re relying on the fact that there are enough ignoramuses in the American public who will buy it and still think that it happened despite the fact that it didn’t. They’re gonna implode due to the weight of their own immorality at some point. They’re going to implode because there’s no foundation of truth or even reality that’s propping them up. It is gonna happen.
They are going to be humiliatingly embarrassed at some point in this. I don’t know when, and I don’t know what the event or series of events that will bring that reality about are. But I know basic things about laws, and you can only propel propaganda for so long if there are adequate counters to it. And we have a massive alternative media providing counter operations to what these people are attempting to do.
They have nothing real that’s propping them up. They’ve got no real evidence. They never have had. Their allegations are lies and made up. And it’s all gonna come crumbling down on them at some point. That’s why they’re trying to hurry this as quickly as they can.
So, anyway, Kennedy is on Meet the Press, and he continues to cite Ukraine’s role along with Russia’s in the effort to undermine Trump. And this is what Chuck Todd can’t believe. He says, “You simply utter this conflation on Ukraine and Russia, the inference is you’re doing the president’s dirty work here. Do you accept that criticism?”
KENNEDY: I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. I think it’s been well documented in the Financial Times, in Politico, in The Economist, in the Washington Examiner, even on CBS. Russia was very aggressive, and they’re much more sophisticated. But the fact that Russia was so aggressive does not exclude the fact that President Poroshenko actively worked for Secretary Clinton.
RUSH: All right. Now, that’s factual, it’s been reported in the Drive-Bys. Not to their advantage, by the way. And remember when this was reported in January of 2017, people at Politico and the New York Times were feeling their oats. They were confident that it was only a matter of time before they got rid of Trump, because they were part of the Trump-Russia collusion affair. They were knowingly – in some cases unknowingly — spreading a pack of lies. Some in the Drive-Bys believed it because they’re idiots and gullible, and others knew what a scam it was and were participating in it anyway.
The entire news media decided to get rid of all credibility and integrity in this effort to get rid of Donald Trump. At this point they’re feeling pretty good. Trump’s gonna be inaugurated, but they think they’ve got him. It’s just a matter of time, just a matter of time. The plans are already in the works for Comey to go to the White House. In fact, that remains a crucial story here for one thing that I want to go back to on Wednesday and button up here in just a minute.
So here’s Chuck Todd’s reaction to Kennedy, saying, “I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled, and we know that Ukraine wanted Hillary to win,” and he cites the sources: Politico, The Economist, Washington Examiner, even CBS. Here’s Chuck Todd’s reaction.
TODD: My goodness. Wait a minute. Senator Kennedy, you now have the president of Ukraine saying he actively worked for the Democratic nominee for president. I mean, now, come on. I gotta put up — you realize the only other person selling this argument outside the United States is this man, Vladimir Putin. This is what he said on November 20th. “Thank God nobody is accusing us anymore of interfering in U.S. elections. Now they’re accusing Ukraine. Well, let them sort this out among themselves.” You just accused a former president of Ukraine. You’ve done exactly what the Russian operation is trying to get American politicians to do. Are you at all concerned that you’ve been duped?
KENNEDY: No. Because just read the articles.
RUSH: No. I haven’t been duped. The person that’s been duped here is Chuck Todd. Now, I say duped. I’m gonna give him the benefit of the doubt that Chuck ignorantly believes what he just said here. I don’t know anymore with some of these people, I don’t know how ignorant they are or how wily and in on all this they are. It’s a roll of the dice. But they are so ingrained that only Russia did it that is inconceivable — now, these are journalists who should be curious and open to anybody meddling in the U.S. elections.
Three Drive-By news organizations reported it. They don’t even want to consider it because it doesn’t fit the Trump-Russia collusion mode. So here they’re trying to make John Kennedy out to be some sort of idiot, some sort of useful idiot for Trump, when the useful idiots are the people in the media. There is no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, and there’s no evidence that whatever Russia did had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election.
And that remains the bottom line. And even in Mueller’s indictments it was made clear, nothing in these indictments suggests one vote was changed or the outcome of any election was affected. So, okay. The Russians meddled. And I’ll tell you what. I’m not even all-in on that, other than the Russians meddle constantly. The Russians undermine and attempt — the Soviets were attempting to infiltrate constantly for longer than you and I have been alive.
So the idea that Russia all of a sudden did something unusual, meddling in the election — now, that’s a premise that I myself do not automatically accept. You have to to be accepted in polite society, but none of it makes full-fledged sense to me. So now John Kennedy is an idiot, he’s an absolute idiot simply because he’s open to a possibility that the Drive-Bys have foreclosed.
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RUSH: So I just checked the email during the break. “Rush, you always say that you’re not all-in on this Russia meddling thing. Why?” Folks, I don’t know. One of the main reasons why is because the Drive-Bys believe it 150%, and I do not trust them. But I also use intelligence guided by common sense. Okay, what do we have? Why do we have “the Russians meddled”? Because the Democrats lost an election. Do you realize there was none of this before the election?
Now, this may be old news and old history, but you gotta remember people are listening to this program for the first time every day. So I beg your indulgence. If you go back to before the 2016 election, Barack Obama — on two separate occasions — made fun of the idea that a U.S. presidential election could be rigged, could be tampered with, could be hacked. “It’s not possible,” he said. Voting machines are not connected to the internet, number one.
Number 2, you wouldn’t know where to start. There are too many precincts. The Electoral College. The popular vote doesn’t count in the end. There’s no way it could happen. He said this two or three times, and the reason is, they “all knew Hillary was gonna win,” quote-unquote. They didn’t want any asterisks or dark clouds around her victory at all. They were pooh-poohing the idea that Russia could — or anybody could — meddle in an election, and they’re right. It simply isn’t possible.
And I don’t care about Facebook ads. I don’t care about Cambridge Analytica. I don’t care Google this, Google that. Google was all-in on Hillary winning, and she didn’t. Facebook was all-in on Hillary winning, and she didn’t. Donald Trump had all of these agencies arrayed against him, and he won anyway, and it was only after that that this Russia stuff began. And I’m immediately suspicious of it when I find out that Hillary Clinton was working with Russia throughout the campaign on the Steele dossier.
But because the media pushes this, supposedly you can’t possibly disagree with it and have any sense at all. “Russia meddled in the election.” What does that mean? The way they use it, it means the election is illegitimate. The Russians meddled. Trump didn’t win it fairly. That’s what the impression is — and I’m sorry, folks, I’m not buying it. It was a fair election. It was a legal election. It was just, and Donald Trump won, and they lost. Now they can’t let go of it.
I’m sick and tired of these people portraying this country as a weak sister that can’t defend itself, that is helpless against the efforts of a Third World country with a First World military, Russia. And then the ChiComs and then the North Koreans, whoever it is. I’m tired of the left portraying this country as ineffective, unjust, immoral, vulnerable and all that. We are the strongest, most powerful people and nation on earth. When we decide to project power to our capability, there’s nobody that can keep up with us.
There’s nobody that can match us, which is why nobody ever attacks us. They wouldn’t survive. And yet you listen to the media — and I’m fed up with it! I’m fed up with all this talk about Russia did this and Russia did that because all it is is cover for the fact that theire incompetent, inept, corrupt candidate couldn’t even draw flies to a freaking rally. Russia meddled in the election? Maybe they did, but what made them invincible?
The Democrats had their server hacked. What does that say about the Democrats? The Russians supposedly tried to hack the Republican server and couldn’t get in. I’m just… There’s so much media BS, I just have gotten to the point where I instinctively reject it all — including Schiff, Pelosi, and everything these people are trying. The Russians meddling in the election to me is a nonevent because of the way it’s being portrayed: “The Russians aided Trump’s victories!”
I’m sorry. It didn’t happen.
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RUSH: If there was any meddling in the election, it was Hillary Clinton with Russia and with the American and foreign intelligence communities trying to undermine Donald Trump, and they want us to believe it was Russia trying to undermine Hillary. It’s a crock.
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RUSH: Now, I went back, and I have here the stories that appeared in the Drive-By Media all documenting that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 presidential election. The Federalist put together the list. Now, the media today, as you heard Chuck Todd yesterday on Meet the Depressed, they’re now claiming this idea that Ukraine meddled is insane, it’s stupid. It’s a conspiracy theory. It’s fictitious.
Well, we’ve got The Politico article. January 11th, 2017. That was not the only time the media reported on Ukraine’s meddling in the 2016 election. There were articles in the New York Times. There were articles in the Financial Times. There were other Politico articles instead of this big one on January 11th. But the media, which means the Democrats, they now want us to forget that any of that happened.
Now, the Financial Times reported back in December 2016 that CrowdStrike claimed the Russians used Ukrainian technology to hack the DNC server. Now, stop and think of this for a second. This is the Financial Times reporting in December 2016, this is the month after the election — that CrowdStrike — CrowdStrike is the word that sets the Democrats off. If you use CrowdStrike in relation to Ukraine, then they really jump on you as an idiot, as a lamebrain, as a conspiracy kook theorist.
But in fact it was the Financial Times that reported back in December 2016 that CrowdStrike said after they forensically examined the Democrat National Committee server, CrowdStrike claimed that the Russians used Ukrainian technology to hack the server and that the technology was operated in Eastern Ukraine, which is one of the things the Drive-Bys are now calling a right-wing conspiracy.
Now, remember Trump’s phone call to Zelensky where he supposedly demanded that Zelensky investigate Biden or else? That didn’t happen. There still hasn’t been a Ukrainian investigation of Biden. But do you remember what else? Trump asked Zelensky to look into the CrowdStrike aspect of things. There are some people who think that the Democrat server — not the actual servers of the data — is being held in Ukraine. A server is a computer tower. It’s just a series of hard discs is all it is and can be as big or little as — you can use a Mac Mini as a server. You can use a tower desktop computer as a server. You can use any computer that has a hard drive as a server. Server is software.
So a server does not have to be a massive supercomputer like a Cray. A server could be as tiny as a Mac Mini or think of an Apple TV device. A server is what it does, not what it is. It’s just a hard drive that multiple people can access that has sync capability and it holds data off-site if desired.
So when people claim that the server, the DNC server is in Ukraine, they don’t mean that the actual hardware that was in DNC headquarters has been spirited out of there and is now under lock and key in Ukraine, although it could be. But what is meant, the data, the data was off-loaded and sent somewhere to keep it away from prying eyes.
Remember, the Democrats did not want the FBI to examine that server. The only evidence we have that the Democrat server was hacked is the Democrats saying so with CrowdStrike, the private sector firm they hired to investigate the server, not the FBI, confirming it.
Now, CrowdStrike was founded by a Ukrainian who hates Putin. The idea that CrowdStrike, now cited in a Financial Times story, December 2016, claiming that the Russians used Ukrainian technology to hack the DNC server, it would make perfect sense that CrowdStrike would indict the Russians ’cause the CrowdStrike founder hates them, literally hates Putin. CrowdStrike said the Russians used Ukrainian technology to hack the DNC server and that the technology was operated in Eastern Ukraine, meaning the hack happened in Ukraine.
So Trump’s asking Zelensky to look into this. The idea that the Democrat National Committee server was hacked is one of the necessary building blocks to this hocus-pocus that the Russians meddled in the election. The Russians meddled in the election by hacking the DNC server, and that’s how Podesta’s emails ended up all over WikiLeaks, and it’s so unfair. And none of that is right.
We don’t even know for sure the DNC server was hacked. They’ve not let anybody but CrowdStrike see it. They refused to let the FBI examine it. So Trump asking about CrowdStrike literally panicked the left. And that’s when we heard from Lieutenant Colonel Vindman — O say can you see — and all these other people paranoid, oh, my God. Trump’s getting too close.
CrowdStrike, the way they’re reacting to that, CrowdStrike could be at the center of the universe along with Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS, which Fiona Hill tried to make look like she’d never heard of them. (imitating Hill) “Yes, I’d heard of GPS Fusion.” Give me a break. It’s not GPS Fusion. It’s Fusion GPS. You know exactly who they are. You know exactly who it is.
The bottom line, this myth that the Russians were the sole people that meddled in the election, and that they succeeded, that’s the whole basis under which the past four years have happened. They’ve done more to inflict damage on the honor and integrity of U.S. elections than Vladimir Putin could have ever hoped to in his wildest dreams.
So we have these stories. We have the big Politico story. We have the Financial Times, August 2016, reported Ukraine attempted to intervene in the U.S. election. Here’s a pull quote. “The prospect of Mr. Trump, who has praised Ukraine’s arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country’s biggest ally has spurred not just Mr. Leshchenko but Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a US election.” There it is in the Financial Times.
Politico, January 11th, 2017: “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump, and his advisers.” The dossier, the Ukrainians helped Steele with the dossier.
Financial Times, December 22nd, 2016 reported: “Russia used Ukrainian technology to hack the DNC server in the 2016 election. Based on the reporting, it appears the technology used to hack the election was operated in Eastern Ukraine.” I’m reading from the Financial Times.
Politico February 23rd, 2017, one month after Trump’s inaugurated. Politico reported “a Ukrainian parliamentarian attempted to contact Manafort claiming to have politically damaging information about Manafort, as well as Trump.” And the New York Times December 12th, 2018, “Ukrainian courts ruled that releasing information to Manafort about the 2016 U.S. election was illegal interference.” The idea that Ukraine interfered has been documented one, two, three, four — six different Drive-By Media outlets. And here’s F. Chuck Todd trying to tell John Kennedy, senator from Louisiana, that he’s a cult idiot for believing it.
Now, there’s one more thing here. I just wanted to document this for you, folks, because CrowdStrike is at the center of this universe. Trump mentioning that word is what really lit the fire. It might have been Trump’s request to investigate the Bidens, but I will guarantee you that in the deep, dark corridors of the Democrat leadership, it is Trump trying to get to the bottom of CrowdStrike with the help of Ukraine that has these people scurrying like rats off the sinking ship. Do not doubt me on this.
Now, Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, remember the story — the Drive-By Media put it out – it was supposed to be a killer story for Trump, supposed to just crush Trump, supposed to just be devastating for Trump. The story was that in the traditional meeting after the election of the new president with the current president — so it will be Trump with Obama — that after Trump left the meeting, that Obama told people Trump knows nothing.
The Drive-Bys gleefully reported this as Obama passing judgment on Trump’s political acumen, on Trump’s political intelligence, on Trump’s policy understanding. They wanted you to believe that Obama was saying this guy is the biggest blithering idiot. He doesn’t know anything about this job. He doesn’t know anything about how this works. That is not what Obama was saying.
What Obama was saying, Trump knows nothing, dot, dot, dot, about our operation to sabotage his campaign. Obama was assuring — ’cause it was well in place by then. The Obama intelligence community, the Obama DOJ, the Obama FBI and FBI Director Comey, these people had been at it trying to undermine Trump since before the summer of 2016. They had to be wondering if Trump had found out about any of this.
My God, if I were running that operation, I’d really want to know if it had been kept clandestine, if it had been kept under wraps, if I hadn’t had any leaks about it. So here comes the guy who was the target of the operation to sabotage his campaign for a meeting with Obama, and Obama says, after it’s over, “Trump knows nothing.” Is that how you would describe a political novice?
Let’s say somebody is applying for a job here. And they come in and they talk to me. I am the Mister Big. I am the grand pooh-bah. They gotta pass muster with me. So this guy comes in, we interview him, and he doesn’t know a thing about radio, he doesn’t know a thing about politics. Am I gonna call Mr. Snerdley and say, “Such and such knows nothing.” That’s not how I would characterize it.
“This guy doesn’t have the slightest idea what we do here. This guy doesn’t know a thing about radio. This guy doesn’t know a thing about politics.” That’s how I would characterize it. But to say that such-and-such applicant knows nothing?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Chris somewhere in Virginia. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Been a listener since 1988.
RUSH: You’re a lifer. And I really appreciate your patience hanging on here too.
CALLER: No, no. You have every right, and you’re absolutely right to be suspicious of – I guess you could say the attribution, as we say in the business, of hacks. There’s a best practice that even an average hacker would use, and that is to set up the hack so that you look like you’re from Russia, you look like you’re from China, and there’s a very good reason for that, because the FBI is the criminal investigation division. And as soon as they find out that the source server of the attack, say it was running in LA and a Russian owned or a Chinese owned data center, they’ll hand it over to the NSA.
RUSH: Okay, wait, hold it just a minute. Nobody knows what you’re talking about here except you and me.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I want you to hold on. Can you hold on for another couple of minutes during the break?
CALLER: Sure. Yeah, no problem.
RUSH: And let me tell people what you’re calling about. What Chris calling from somewhere in Virginia is telling me is that my intuition to doubt Russian meddling and hacking of the DNC server, and thus the election in 2016, is right on the money. And he’s going to explain why my intuition, which is the first hour subject that I delved into, why that’s correct.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back now to Chris somewhere in Virginia. You are gonna explain why, and I assume you have some authority here. You sound like you’re an authority on the subject. Why my suspicion here that this blanket belief we should have that Russia hacked and Russia meddled is not necessarily the case.
CALLER: Yeah, I mean, as far as the credentials, I’m a chief technology officer, been a chief information officer, you know, Fortune 1000 company, and I’ve also played the role of chief information security officer over the 30 years of my career.
RUSH: Gotcha. Okay. So you are versed, you are well versed in this, know what you’re talking about.
CALLER: I’m an expert.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I’m definitely an expert in the space.
RUSH: I love people not afraid to say they’re experts. Good.
CALLER: Yeah. Expertise is somewhat relative, there’s no absolute, you know, but, yeah, there’s people who know more, but I mean the big items are attribution, as I said earlier, of figuring out where something came from. It’s very, very rare that you can know for sure. It’s most likely that internal — 70% of the time or so, the threat or the hack has been an insider.
That’s just general statistics, and it changes from year to year, but it’s been about the same for 10, 15 years. But the best practice for all hackers that know what they’re doing would be… In Los Angeles, there’s a Chinese owned data center, does business in the United States. You can set up a server there for $110 a month.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm.
CALLER: You can download the (unintelligible) —
RUSH: Well, remember the CIA, the NSA got hacked and they lost a bunch of tools, and one of the tools, what you just mentioned, that you can plant —
CALLER: Yeah —
RUSH: — false evidence on a hack that makes it look like you’re who you’re not.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, there’s all sorts of software, I mean, you can be a 14-year-old that knows how to be a good video gamer and be a hacker is the truth. And so, yeah, I’ve been through cases where… I was surprised last year. I went through… We were hacked, a few hundred thousand, you know, names or accounts, personal identifiable information went out. And it was originated out of this, you know, Chinese-owned data center, but of course anybody could set up a server there —
RUSH: That was the Orchids of Asia Day Spa or something like that.
CALLER: Yeah. It’s so easy, it’s so easy to do. And then the forensics were looked at, and I asked the forensic team if, you know, a bunch of experts, can you tell me definitively that this came from China? They said absolutely not. You can’t know for sure. It’s either somebody acting like they’re from China or China. But what they don’t know. And so, you know, the CIA… The big thing, though, that people need to understand is that there’s an incentive to not (unintelligible) to pretend to be outside the United States as a hacker because the criminal investigation stops when it gets flipped over to the NSA —
RUSH: Okay. Stop right there. Let me ask you a question, because you talked about my intuition. One of the primary reasons, Chris, that I have believed — or I should better say, I have not believed the story that the Russians hacked the DNC server is because they didn’t let the FBI look at it, and the FBI didn’t try.
The FBI didn’t demand to forensically examine the hacked server. Instead, they turn it over to CrowdStrike, and then whatever CrowdStrike said about it became gospel. But the lack of interest by the Obama FBI into the supposedly hacked DNC server is the biggest red flag in all of this to me.
CALLER: Yeah, well, I mean, actually, it’s standard practice if you’re attacked, as I understand, it’s what the FBI told us, was once the hack is sourced by foreign actors outside the — they cease their investigation. It’s handed over. It’s now a counterintelligence investigation, which I guess the FBI does. That’d be another —
RUSH: Well, that’s what the investigation of Trump was. The Mueller investigation precisely was a counterintelligence investigation, by definition. They didn’t have any crimes. So they do this counterintelligence investigation for a whole host of reasons that facilitates leaks from the intelligence community. You don’t have to leak criminal behavior. You can leak intelligence-related stuff that does not have…
You know, counterintelligence investigations do not produce crimes, by definition. That’s why they’re called counterintelligence. They’re not looking for crimes. They’re looking for intelligence that’s then turned over to professional intelligence analysts to tell everybody what it means. But it’s not a criminal investigation.
They used a counterintelligence investigation to make people think they were looking at a criminal investigation or observing one. No, no. You’re exactly right. I really appreciate the call. I’m glad that you held on.