Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh was livid following the FBI’s Friday morning raid on former Trump adviser Roger Stone.
He was so outraged, in fact, that told his nationwide political audience that the Republican operative’s arrest represents “the criminalization of political opponents.”
Call it a hunch
Stone, an experienced political operative who has known the president for nearly four decades, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday for allegedly lying to the House Intelligence Committee, obstructing their investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election, and witness tampering.
Reacting to all the political drama, Limbaugh told his listeners that the special counsel’s investigation has been a giant “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats with help from their “breathless” mainstream media allies. He even insinuated that news of the predawn FBI raid was intentionally leaked to bolster the special counsel’s credibility and hurt Trump.
“They want video as they storm into Stone’s house because, as a previous caller said, the video of all these agents — under cover of darkness,” Limbaugh said. “Why do you go in there at 6 o’clock? To make sure this disgustingly vile criminal can’t sneak out and escape… The pictures, the video is designed to prove the legitimacy of the investigation.”
Limbaugh may have a point. Praising his own “reporter’s instinct,” CNN producer David Shortell was on the scene with cameras rolling when a horde of FBI agents descended upon Stone’s Florida home at 6 a.m. to execute the political takedown.
“We were the only ones there,” Shortell explained. “And, lo and behold, the FBI agents did come and by the way arrest him.”
Thanks to CNN’s spontaneous coverage, “people will conclude, ‘My God, this guy must be bad,’” Limbaugh theorized. “‘They really must have the goods on this guy to go this length. They must be really afraid this guy’s gonna hop a plane to Venezuela if we don’t capture him while he’s asleep.’”
Meanwhile, Limbaugh lamented, “Stone’s in there sawing Zs. His dog and his wife are in there.”
No collusion
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has now charged six former Trump associates with various crimes resulting from the Russia investigation; however, like every other American indicted in the 18-month long inquiry, Stone is not charged with colluding with Russia to help Trump win the 2016 presidential race. In fact, some legal observers have noted that Stone’s arrest should even exonerate President Trump from allegations of election interference.
“If the Trump campaign was supposedly involved in hacking the Clinton campaign emails, why did they need Roger Stone to feed them information about them?” asked Ronn Blitzer, senior editor and legal analyst at Law & Crime. And Limbaugh reached a similar conclusion.
“If there were any Trump-Russia collusion, there wouldn’t be any curiosity about what WikiLeaks had because Trump and Russia would have been responsible for what WikiLeaks had, so they wouldn’t have any reason to ask. They would know,” the radio pundit reasoned. “Why there is not a national outrage over this entire investigation, I will not understand.”
Kangaroo court
“It has to be that most people don’t know it. It’s the only reason, that most people have no idea what has really happened here,” Limbaugh guessed. “So it’s beyond my ability here to categorize how audacious, how bad, how outrageous, how damaging, how harmful, how destructive this is to our country, to our system of justice.”
Limbaugh continued: “I mean, it is clearly the criminalization of political opponents. It is basically turning what people in politics do, criminal. It’s reducing it to crime if they are your opponents.”
Stone is currently free after a federal judge determined that he is not a flight risk. In a press conference following his release, Stone insisted that nobody from the Trump administration ordered him to provide the campaign with updates regarding WikiLeaks.
No comments: