Calling it "Vindication Day," talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh pointed out Friday that newly released transcripts show key Democrats in the Barack Obama administration were saying one thing in public statements and the opposite under oath.
He noted it's not illegal to lie on television, "but these people ought to be finished. There ought to be nobody left in media who would hire them."
His comments came after the Department of Justice dropped its case against Trump associate Michael Flynn and Congress released testimony from the House Intelligence Committee investigation into claims of Russia collusion.
He pointed to the testimony of Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
"This is so beyond the pale, and there needs to be some serious accountability here," Limbaugh said.
Clapper testified under oath in 2017, "I never saw any direct, empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or somebody in it was plotting or conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election."
And former CIA Director John Brennan, Limbaugh said, said the same in a televised hearing. Asked if he found "direct evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Putin and Moscow" while he was CIA director, he replied, "I never was an FBI agent or prosecutor, so I don't do evidence."
"These people were all testifying under oath that they hadn’t seen a shred of evidence that Trump or anybody in his campaign was plotting or conspiring or colluding with the Russians to meddle with the election."
But he played a montage of statement by the two on television after they admitted there was no evidence.
For example, Clapper said in July 2019, "I really do wonder whether the Russians have something on him."
In March 2018, Brennan said, "The Russians may have something on him personally.
In December 2017, Clapper said: "What a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he is doing with the president."
In October 2019, Brennan said: "He knows that Russia interfered on his behalf. He really is hoping that his pal Vladimir is going to come through once again."
In July 1029, Clapper said: "The Russians meddled — and successfully so — in the election of 2016. That cast doubt on the legitimacy of that election."
In July 2018, Brennan said, "I equate it to the betrayal of one’s nation — aiding and abetting, giving comfort to an enemy."
In April, 2019, Clapper said, "What we have here is a case of collusion."
In October, 2019, Brennan said, "The champagne corks were going to be popping in Moscow."
In February 2019, Clapper agreed that Trump is "a Russian asset."
"Folks," said Limbaugh, "We lost the House of Representatives because of this. We lost two years, two and a half years of an agenda being implemented. Who knows what other damage resulted to this country because of this, and half of the country — statistically half of the country — was believing every word of this. We had news organizations winning Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting on this.
"You might call it Vindication Day. Virtually everything about the Russia investigation that you in this audience have been told by me, and pretty much everybody else informed in so-called conservative media, has been right on the money for three years, right on the money."
Limbaugh recalled that for three years he told his audience there was no collusion between Trump and Russia "and that there was no evidence, that it was entirely made up."
"Folks, this is the biggest political scandal certainly in my lifetime," he said. "It was the complete array of the Washington establishment against one man, Donald Trump. And it was purposed to destroy him, his family, his career, his businesses and to get him out of office and to reverse the election results of 2016. And they never had a shred of evidence for any of it. It did not happen. The Russians had nothing to do with our election, they had nothing to do with the outcome, above and beyond what they normally tried to do, like the Chinese are always trying to sabotage. We’ve got enemies."
But the nation now knows the election was legitimate and fair, and "there was no collusion between Trump or anybody else in his campaign and the Russians."
The collusion that did happen, he said, "took place between the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democrat National Committee and Russia in the paying for and the creation of the Steele dossier, which serves as the bogus basis for everything."