There’s a basic rule that I think should be applied to any fantastical story that the media or Democrats drop against President Donald Trump.

Wait 48 hours–because by the end of that time, the story will have fallen apart.

We saw that on Tuesday with the alleged bombshell testimony that Democrats claimed they had from Cassidy Hutchinson. Now immediately, one had to question what she was saying because to imagine that Trump somehow, from the back seat in his tricked-out limo named The Beast managed to scale another set of seats in between him and the driver, got around the agents in the car to physically grab the wheel. That scenario seemed to be investing Trump with the powers of a superhero. When the Jan. 6 Committee then claimed Trump and the agents were in a Surburban — not the limo known as The Beast — that raised another problem, since that seemed to conflict with what Hutchinson said the agent said about it happening in The Beast. That’s one problem with repeating a story about an incident that you didn’t see yourself. Then of course came the media reports that the agents were claiming the story was not true, and that they were willing to testify to that effect. The story didn’t even make it a day without imploding.

Given all that we have seen with the lies against Trump over the years, you learn — or at least you should learn — that you should not jump on whatever the current false story is.

But despite that, you still had people completely biting on this, particularly Never Trump people.

There were the usual suspects.

Decades from now people will be asking each other, "Where were you when Cassidy Hutchinson testified?"

— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) June 28, 2022

How long was that, George? A few hours before it blew up? We may remember her for a little bit, but not in the way you think.

There has never in my lifetime been a Congressional hearing more damning to a President. Never.

This makes Watergate’s darkest moments look like a bridge club meeting.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 28, 2022

Might want to re-evaluate that one, Rick.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) even shared an article on Hutchinson’s testimony by Never Trumper David French, with the hot take title, “The Case for Prosecuting Donald Trump Just Got Much Stronger.”

The Case for Prosecuting Donald Trump Just Got Much Stronger https://t.co/qFm2fiJZsM

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) June 29, 2022

“A smoking gun?” What, for the billionth time? Not so much.

Nothing like Never Trump folks trying to reinforce each other. No, the case for kicking the Jan. 6 Committee to the curb just got much stronger because of how they hosed their credibility with this story, and showed how little the Committee is vetting things–if they think it can hurt Trump. People were not shy about letting Cheney know that in response to her tweet.

When the story began to blow up, French still tried to salvage Hutchinson’s testimony as being worth something.

As a legal matter, if you're focusing on the (contested) allegation of lunging and choking, you're focusing on the wrong thing. There was different evidence that matters far more, and it's directly relevant to a potential prosecution: https://t.co/JaLR8jwlru

— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 28, 2022

The problem of course is that when you say things that aren’t the case, it tends to cloud the rest of your testimony.

The hatred for Trump has so broken folks like French, that they no longer apply common sense — the lure of getting Trump overwhelms all.

This story also snared Fox’s Bret Baier and NRO’s Andrew McCarthy. Baier called the testimony “very compelling” and “really really powerful.” He claimed that she was “under oath and Trump who disputed her claims was “on Truth Social.” McCarthy tweeted an article that the testimony was “devastating” –long after it had been undercut. He got a healthy ratio of people responding to him on that.

But Erick Erickson gets it right.

The media treating the testimony as gospel out of the gate without any skepticism is really a bad thing for them.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) June 29, 2022

That’s the bottom line. It shouldn’t be about the narrative or getting Trump, but about the truth. The Committee killed their credibility, and the media that didn’t adequately question it also did themselves in.