Tuesday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh argued President Donald Trump’s ire was misappropriated at his Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the Department of Justice’s appointment of a special counsel to investigate possible collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.
Limbaugh argued that instead Trump should be upset with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Partial transcript as follows:
Mueller is independent. There’s nobody can stop Mueller from doing anything because it’s the deputy attorney general, what’s-his-face. Sessions had nothing to do with it. He recused! This is about Russia, supposedly. This is about Trump and Putin playing cards one night and deciding to steal the election from Hillary. Well, Sessions recused himself. It’s Rod Rosenstein that chose Mueller and chose no parameters. I went through this last week. We have a special counsel who should not even be in office.
You do not… The regulations — I read them to you, justice department regulations — say there has to be a crime. There has to be a known crime for a special counsel to investigate! There isn’t one here. They are looking for a crime — and they will find one, believe me. Because there’s not a person in that town that hasn’t done something. I’m hearing, folks, between you and me… Don’t repeat this to anybody. Don’t tell anybody at the media. But I’m hearing the scuttlebutt that Mueller’s already started “flipping” people.
When I was told that I said, “Flipping who? Over what?” I mean, as I say, when you start talking about the swamp, everybody there has something they’ve done that they wish nobody knew about, which means practically anybody there is flippable. By that, “snitch,” for those of you. Apparently, Mueller’s found a couple snitches. But I asked, “Snitches on what?” There’s no crime. We don’t know when the crime is, we know what alleged crime is but there’s no evidence of a crime. So what the hell is the guy investigating?
The appearance is he’s looking for a crime. That’s not what special counsels do. That’s not why they’re appointed. This whole thing is a complete bastardization of the entire process. In addition to that, there are no parameters. Rosenstein, not Sessions… It’s Rosenstein that Trump ought to be mad at. It’s Rosenstein that ought to be the subject of this abuse if Trump’s really upset about Mueller and his investigation.
Because it’s Rosenstein that did not put any limits on Mueller as far as where he can look and what he can look for. Under normal circumstances, there would be a crime. Let me illustrate it this way. According to the Justice Department regulations… Let’s say there is a crime. Pick a crime, and it’s been established that a crime was committed. They appoint a special counsel. He’s investigating it. If, in the investigation, he comes across another crime, he cannot go look at it.
He cannot include it in the original charge. In that instance, he has to go back to the attorney general or deputy attorney general who appointed him. In this case it’d be Rosenstein. He has to go back and get permission to follow up this newly discovered crime. That’s how normally focused and limited these things are. This whole thing is — well, it doesn’t do it justice to call it a joke. It’s worse than that. This is obviously a setup.
You know, if you want to deal with this up front and honest, I could make the case that Mueller wouldn’t be appointed, we wouldn’t have a special counsel if Trump had not fired Comey. If Trump hadn’t fired Comey, we wouldn’t be here. Comey’d still be there. He’d still be St. Comey. He’d still be doing what he’s doing, but we wouldn’t have a special counsel. But Trump fired him, which he’s totally entitled to do.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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