Rush Limbaugh angrily dismissed ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's assertion an informant in the Trump campaign was spying on Russians to protect the candidate — asking why there were not spies in Hillary Clinton's camp.

In his daily radio show Wednesday, Limbaugh condemned the surveillance as "a criminal deep-state plan."

"Why didn't they have spies in Hillary's campaign?" Limbaugh argued. "Why weren't they trying to prevent Russian involvement in her campaign? Because they were the ones orchestrating the Russian involvement. They were the ones trying to create it. They tried to manufacture Russian involvement.

"They didn't warn Trump because they wanted there to be some collusion — and when there wasn't any, they tried to make some. Running spies on [Trump foreign policy advisers George] Papadopoulos, Carter Page."

"This is a criminal deep-state plan . . . Spygate, whatever you want to call it," he said. "It is more insidious than anybody knows.

"They knew there wasn't any Russian collusion," he added. "They were trying to manufacture it. Not only did they not protect [President Donald] Trump, they 'colluded with' Russians to smear and incriminate him."