Speaking of what's going on in court. Rush the genius spoke out again. I do wonder why mr allen thinks this should be banned from the airways.
Rush: Your Freedoms, Not Just Mine, Are At Stake
Attached is a transcript of comments made by Rush Limbaugh during his radio program today about Wednesday's oral argument before the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal involving the state's seizure of his confidential medical records.
Rush Limbaugh: Now, ladies and gentlemen, please indulge me, if you will, a brief personal moment.
Yesterday, oral argument occurred at the Fourth District Court of Appeal here in -- well, over there in West Palm Beach, across the intercoastal waterway. The subject was, as usual, being misreported by the media.
I've looked at some of the stories today, and they're really bland when you consider what's at stake here. And they're bland, frankly, because I do not cut a sympathetic figure with the media.
They're not concerned about what happens to me because I'm who I am. They don't report that this is about much more than just me.
This is about whether law enforcement can ignore a Florida statute and storm into doctors' offices with search warrants, using any after-the-fact excuse to justify it, and take someone's entire medical file and then go through that file, not knowing what they're going to find, hoping and praying they find evidence that might lead them to an investigation of a potential crime.
That's exactly what happened here. It's not being accurately reported.
We argued this, Roy Black argued this yesterday, but the truth of this matter is that this goes beyond just me, and that's why this is at the appellate court, it's why it's going to be some weeks before they decide this.
There's a Florida statute which is very clear -- the Florida legislature wrote it for the express purpose -- it's very clear that a subpoena must be used, and the purpose of the subpoena is to notify the patient.
Then there's a hearing where the law enforcement authorities tell a court what they're looking for, and narrow the search so that they don't get to see the whole medical file.
There are things in people's medical files that are irrelevant to whatever it is would be searched. But this prosecutor ignored the statute, a statute, by the way, he had been admonished for ignoring two years ago by this same appellate court and stormed into the offices of four of my doctors with search warrants, with the sole purpose of intimidating the doctors and their staff.
They took all of the medical files, and kept them under seal (until the trial Court allowed them to look at them for 24 hours), took them back to their office and then admitted in briefs to the appellate court that they had no idea what they would find; that they didn't know what, if anything to charge, despite all of these leaks that you've heard about: my being part of a drug ring and drug trafficking, and engaging in money laundering.
The media eagerly reported all of those leaks but the media does not have any curiosity about what happened to all of that.
How do you get from drug trafficking and money laundering to something like doctor shopping? Why do you need medical records to find out if somebody's involved in a drug ring or money laundering?
None of that's going to be in medical records, but the media is not curious about this, and they've not really endeavored to understand the scope of the case. Because they can't get beyond the fact that it is me and they won't mind seeing me convicted of something.
That's what's interesting to them about this.
You know, probable cause, which is what the state said they had to seize the records, can be manufactured out of thin air, and a judge, as has been demonstrated in my case, says, okay, yep, you've got probable cause -- but they didn't have probable cause, because if they did, they wouldn't have written in their brief they had no idea what to charge me with till they could see all the medical records.
Well, I mention all this because the prosecutor that actually argued the case yesterday said something in defense of their actions that I just cannot let stand.
Yesterday Jim Martz, the prosecutor on the case representing the Palm Beach state attorney, said that the reason they used a search warrant was that they were afraid that I or my doctors would alter or remove the records if they had used a subpoena.
Now, two things about this. First, doctor shopping means I am misrepresenting a medical condition to doctors. That means the doctors are victims, so this whole notion that I would collude with my doctors to have them remove records (a crime punishable by a 15-year conviction on a felony for tampering) is absolutely offensive and outrageous. And senseless.
How can I be deceiving and colluding with the doctors at the same time? There's no behavior or evidence whatsoever to suggest any such activity. And this is an after-the-fact excuse that they offered in order to justify their violation of the Florida statute requiring a subpoena when it comes to medical records.
They went into court yesterday, actually said, "Well, we didn't know if Limbaugh or the doctors would alter the records or take them out."
It is outrageous to me that in a judicial system that presumes innocence, the Palm Beach state attorney prosecutor yesterday presumed lawbreaking to justify their own skirting of the law.
The doctors involved here are some of the finest men that I know.
To include them in this and to imply before a court of appeal that the doctors involved here, who have no history whatsoever of even unethical behavior, would engage in this is something I just can't let stand and hope the media picks up on it.
And I just -- it's one thing, when this is happening to me. But these doctors are being drug through the mud here by virtue of their association with me, and I regret it and I apologize to them for it because this is just outrageous.
What state attorney's office is doing to justify what they did, after the fact, by impugning the reputations of these doctors and implying they would have broken the law is embarrassing and beneath them.
The records were held by my doctors and their staff. At no time in this whole case that's gone on for a year now, at no time did the state ever claim that the records were unreliable, the doctors were unreliable, or that the doctors would destroy records.
At no time did they claim this beforehand, they didn't claim it when they asked the judge for the search warrant, they didn't express this at all.
Only when they were questioned about it after the fact because they skirted the subpoena did they come up with this answer.
These doctors and their staff are just like yours are, they're highly professional men and women, they have outstanding reputations locally, and they are people of intense, immense integrity.
One of them did my ear surgery and implanted my cochlear implant out in Los Angeles. One of the finest men, period, you'd ever meet.
Now, all of this was done after the fact to justify their use of a search warrant when the law calls for a subpoena.
The real purpose of this warrant, the search warrant, rather than a subpoena, was to intimidate these doctors, to intimidate their staff, and, of course, to try to intimidate me.
They want to drive a wedge between me and my doctors. They want the doctors angry at me because this is happening to them because they treated me. So they run in there with investigators and cops and a search warrant and say this is what happens to you when you associate with Rush Limbaugh.
It hasn't worked. But that was their intent.
Imagine this had happened to you.
Imagine that storm troopers go in with a search warrant and demand that all the staff and your doctors, turn over all of your medical records -- imagine this happened to you, imagine after all this happens how difficult it would be for you to go see your doctors or your nurses and their staff after the police have descended upon them and seized your files.
That's the situation they've hoped to create here. So I -- I mention this to you because the media failed to pick up on this, and I -- I don't want you to be fooled by the libels and the lies that are coming from the state attorney prosecutor yesterday before the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
I'm not even commenting here on the nature of the law, the nature of the argument yesterday. I'm just pointing out here that an excuse was offered by the state attorney prosecutor, why they skirted the statute requiring the subpoena, and in the process they impugned the reputation of these doctors by claiming that they had to go this route because the doctors might have destroyed or altered the records.
In a society that presumes innocence, for this man to go before the court of appeal and presume guilty on the part of these doctors, is offensive to me, and I wanted to take time here to explain this in a way satisfactory to me as well as to you.
Thank you for indulging me in this time. We'll take a quick break and be right back after this. Stay with us.
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