After President Trump urged Congress on Thursday to summon Barack Obama as a witness, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh pointed to evidence from the former president himself that he orchestrated the Trump-Russia probe.
Limbaugh, noting listeners have cautioned him not to accuse Obama, insisting former presidents are "untouchable," recalled quotes from Obama in a 2008 New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza one week after the election that year titled "How Obama Won."
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"What I remembered about this story was Obama essentially admitting how hands-on he was or is, and let me give you a pull quote from this story. 'Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics,'" Limbaugh said.
He cited a quote from Obama himself.
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"I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," Obama said. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."
Limbaugh commented that Obama was "openly admitting that he's smarter than his advisers, that he doesn’t need them."
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"Do you think this is the kind of guy that’s gonna let dozens of underlings run around doing things like this coup without his knowledge, without his input, without his direction?" Limbaugh asked.
"Obamagate is all about politics and particularly the politics of personal destruction. Obama’s ego would not allow him to remain out of the loop with such an operation implemented."
Limbaugh also argued that people working for Obama would not initiate such actions without him knowing.
"The Comeys and the McCabes, the Clappers and the Brennans and all these people were doing what they were doing to please Obama," the talk host said.
"Some of them might have been using their own initiative, but it was all to impress Obama. Remember, all these people think the guy is a deity, he’s godlike, and he promotes people regarding him that way. So you have a bunch of sycophants here desperate to impress him, desperate to be in the inner circle. They know that he thinks he’s smarter than all of ’em, so what they want to do is try to show him how smart they are."
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Limbaugh said the idea that "they would go rogue and start a massive coup operation like this on their own is unthinkable."
"Doesn’t make any sense. They would tell him, because they would want to brag about their efforts. They would tell him, because they would want to brag about their intelligence in being able to put together and implement an operation like this. They would want Obama to be impressed."
He noted the Democrats plotted to get rid of Trump before he was elected and then before he was inaugurated.
They never planned for him to win, he said.
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"Then when that failed, here comes the January 5th meeting in the Oval Office with Obama, one last-ditch effort to try to damage Trump within the realm of public opinion before he’s inaugurated by plotting how they can get the Steele dossier into the news, into the public domain. That meeting happened on January 5th in the Obama Oval Office."