Wednesday during his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh speculated on the reasons why the FBI held on to Hunter Biden’s laptop without taking action.

According to Limbaugh, it had similarities to the Steele Dossier and what he theorized to be a “deep state” effort to have leverage over President Donald Trump.

Partial transcript as follows (courtesy RushLimbaugh.com):

[T]his Biden story is a microcosm of how it works for everybody that acquires any kind of power in the Washington establishment, the deep state, you name it.

This is exactly how it happens. This is how people end up getting very wealthy without having any employment that would generate this kind of wealth. They simply sell their influence, and the Chinese and the Ukrainians and the Russians are more than happy to corrupt these people. They’re more than happy to have these people on the blackmail payroll.

They’re more than happy to do that. FBI, the same thing. I’ve mentioned this two or three times, and a lot of people can’t get their arms around this. But the FBI has had this laptop, the Hunter Biden laptop for a long time and not done anything with it. People are asking, “Why?” Well, see, people have a misconception, sadly.

The misconception is that there are people in Washington at the highest levels of our government are extensions of us, and we’re citizens, and we expect that they’re gonna keep things clean. They’re gonna hold lawbreakers accountable. They’re gonna search for bad guys. They’re gonna find them, gonna root ’em out because that’s what they do.

That’s what law enforcement patriotism is. Law enforcement patriotism is simply defending and protecting the Constitution, finding people who have sworn an oath to it and who are violating it, and making them pay a price for it. In this case, they held on to the Biden laptop, didn’t do a thing with it. There’s an explanation.

More than likely it is that the FBI, these certain elements in the FBI and the intelligence community… Think James Clapper, John Brennan, Comey, people like this. Everybody in that town wants influence. Influence is the coin of the realm in Washington, D.C. Power. Influence. So here you have some guys in the intelligence community.

They don’t run for office. They don’t get elected. They don’t have the power of having won an election; therefore, having a mandate from the American people. They’re government service employees. So how do they exert influence? How do they exercise power in that town? It’s very simple. You get hold of the Hunter Biden laptop, and rather than investigate…

Well, I mean, you investigate it, but not to get them in trouble.

You investigate it to hold it over their heads, so that if Biden gets elected, guess what? These people in the, quote-unquote, “intel community…” This is what the objective was with Trump. That’s what the golden showers story was all about when Comey walks in the Oval Office and tells him that, “We have intel, sir, that you hired a bunch of prostitutes to urinate on a bed that had been slept in by Barack Obama.”

Immediately Trump thought he was being blackmailed. He thought he was being set up. He didn’t know by who, but he knew he hadn’t done that. He said, “What the hell is this? Why is my FBI director coming in here and telling me that this stuff’s out there? Why isn’t he defending me against this kind of stuff?” Comey says, “Well, sir, these are the kind of things out there all the time. You need to know about ’em.”

Why does he need to know about ’em? They’re made up. The golden showers story was made up. Christopher Steele made it up. Dossier. The Biden laptop is not made up. The Biden laptop is fact after fact after fact after fact. So now you have the possibility of people in the intelligence community — who, remember, they want to be the first to meet with the president every day.

It doesn’t matter who the president is. They want the access. They want to be able to tell him the hot spots around the country, around the world. Power. P-o-w-e-r. It’s what they want. If they’ve got the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden laptop, and it’s got evidence of all this criminal activity on it, do you realize how much power they have over the Bidens if Biden gets elected?

“But, Rush! But, Rush! Why wouldn’t they want to clean it out? Why wouldn’t they want to bring charges against Biden?” That’s not the way it works. There isn’t any power in bringing down Biden. I mean, it’s just gonna make other people mad. The real power is having something on Biden — and that, I fear, is what much of this is about: The lack of pursuit of the evidence rather than holding onto it for other usage.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor