Radio host Rush Limbaugh said reporting on Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to the FBI is more akin to scribbles in a dream journal.

The eponymous host of “The Rush Limbaugh Show” told listeners Friday not to fret over a media feeding frenzy regarding President Trump’s former White House National Security Adviser admitting he lied to the FBI during an investigation. Mr. Limbaugh said the guilty plea, by process of elimination, tells Americans what Mr. Flynn did not do — “collude” with Russians during the 2016 presidential election.

“If this were part of the basis for a collusion case arising out of Russia’s election meddling, then Flynn would not be pleading guilty to a process crime today,” the conservative said. “He would be pleading to an espionage conspiracy. At the end of the day, this remains a process crime. He lied to FBI agents. And if there were collusion, if Flynn were promising to spill the beans on collusion, then he would not just be pleading guilty to a process crime.”

Mr. Limbaugh claimed that punditry outrage over Mr. Flynn contacting Russia during the presidential transition is absurd, given that “it is exactly the sort of thing the incoming national security adviser is supposed to do.”

“[Pundits] are reporting their hopes,” the host continued. “They are reporting their dreams. Here is Flynn’s statement. Here is Flynn’s allocution — and that, again, is when the perp walks into court and is accepting a guilty plea in a deal, then the perp has to stand up and tell the judge what he did and why he’s pleading guilty. It’s part of ascertaining that the perp knows what he’s doing. It’s part of making sure the perp has gotten fair treatment in the system.”

Mr. Flynn said while appearing in a federal court in Washington: “After over 33 years of military service to our country — including nearly five years in combat away from my family — and then my decision to continue to serve the United States, it has been extraordinarily painful to endure these many months of false accusations of treason and other outrageous acts.”

The radio host asserted that a denial of treasonous behavior on Mr. Flynn’s part indicates that Mr. Trump’s presidency, aside from a slew of negative news cycles, is legally in the clear.

Mr. Flynn faces up to five years in prison for lying to FBI investigators about his interactions with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. He offered his resignation to the Trump administration in February for similarly misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his Russian contacts.

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.