As anyone even vaguely familiar with Rush Limbaugh and the Clintons is aware, he has a thing about them, as do they about him, and it goes back decades. And when Limbaugh goes on a tear about Hill and/or Bill, it is a takedown to behold.

Such was the case for Limbaugh's listeners today after a weekend of monolithic media condemnation of GOP nominee Donald Trump in the wake of the New York Times' hit piece on Trump's illegally leaked tax returns which showed that he took a business loss of nearly $1 billion in 1995 and could have legally avoided paying federal income taxes for the next 18 years as a result.



Buried in the story was not-so-minor fact that what Trump did was completely legal. Limbaugh could barely contain his anger about all of this right out of the gate, as can be heard here --

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This is an act of illegality! Donald Trump has followed the law! Nobody in this is even alleging he broke the law! He certainly hasn't been accused of it by the IRS or anybody else. We're talking about 1995. Donald Trump has followed the law. The media broke the law! The New York Times breaks the law. Do you realize how much lawlessness is dominating the events every day in our country from illegal immigration, to the Clintons' illegal pay-and-play for their foundation, to the Clintons' illegal accepting payoffs and front money in advance of her being elected president and while she was secretary of state.



Do you realize all the law-breaking, the real illegality that we are dealing with every day, the breakdown of the rule of law, and that's not the story. Donald Trump has followed the law, the media has broken the law, and the illegal publishing of Trump's tax return, I think again, illustrates, validates if you will, the reasons why an outsider absolutely must be elected president. The media may have worked with the IRS to break the law. We already know the IRS breaks the law! We know the IRS broke the law in denying tax-exempt status to a number of conservative fundraiser organizations. We know that Mrs. Clinton is routinely violating the law as secretary of state with her email server and the lying that the FBI director documented that she had engaged, not in her interview, but that she's lied to congressional committees, she has lied to the American people.

Limbaugh revisited this later in his show, again making a persuasive case --

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So we have, just to establish, the illegal publishing of Trump's tax return to me demonstrates why an outsider absolutely must be elected president. What if it's your tax return? You might be (sarcastically), So what, Rush? Trump, he's running for president, you gotta expect it, most people release their tax returns. Yeah, he's chosen not to, there's no law says he has to. Democrats seeking any evidence they can, seeking any advantage they can 'cause they don't trust Hillary to win this on her own, obviously. So they willingly engage in illegality to do it. And now they're being praised and high-fived, of course, by other media outlets and organizations for doing so. But it's just a quintessential example of the corruption, the corruption at the highest levels of our government and the media complex that we have to put up with and deal with every day.



Trump followed the laws. The media broke the laws. The media may have worked with the IRS to break the law. The IRS and the media appear to have conspired to help a Democrat who herself is the most corrupt person to ever run for president. She's not the best. She's not the most qualified. She is - the - most - corrupt - person to ever run. But you know, and I know, that President Obama and the Department of Justice will do nothing to hold anybody responsible or accountable.



There's a scandal here, everybody thinks there's a scandal. The scandal has nothing to do with Donald Trump. (Again in mock-sarcastic voice of skeptic). What do you mean, Rush? They reported a loss of $916 million. Yeah, nothing illegal about it. Hillary used the same tactic. The New York Times used the same provision in the tax law. That's correct -- the New York Times and Hillary Clinton have both used the same provision, losses in one year carry over and count against whatever gains or income you show in succeeding years.



The scandal here has nothing to do with Trump, but that's not how it's going to be seen, obviously. It's going to be seen because it is being reported as a Trump scandal. He won't release his tax returns and now we find out he declared this $916 million loss, oh my God, this has gotta be a scandal! Just because you can't think in those numbers, just because people can't relate to losing $916 million, does not mean that there is a scandal. The scandal involves the IRS. The scandal involves the New York Times and the rest of the media. The scandal involves perhaps Hillary Clinton.

Followed soon after by this devastating analogy --

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OK, so Trump's business lost some money. We concede -- Trump's business lost some money. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state lost four people in Benghazi, including the ambassador. Hillary Clinton loses people. Trump lost some money -- his own, by the way, not yours. Hillary Clinton also lost some 30,000 incriminating emails. Imagine if there was a carryover, a carryover write-off for dead ambassadors and colleagues, for broken laws and destroyed evidence. The Clinton family wouldn't pay taxes for the next five generations if you could carry that stuff over. But the real grating thing to me here is that losing lives, Benghazi, losing and destroying evidence, the email scandal and who knows what other corruption exists with the Clinton Crime Family Foundation -- these end up being resume-enhancers for Democrats. Whatever it takes to beat us -- that is the unifying principle that keeps the left together, beating us.

Along with the abiding liberal devotion to "crony justice" and "crony journalism," Limbaugh later added.



