A lot of strange stuff came out of the rather bizarre hearing yesterday that featured a befuddled Robert Mueller being asked questions about a document with which obviously didn’t have a passing acquaintance. Left with a dog’s breakfast of failure, that portion of the leftwing media which has any interest in its reputation averted its eyes and pressed on to different pressing topics. Like the temperature.

It’s 108 degrees in Paris
It’s 108 degrees in Paris
It’s 108 degrees in Paris
It’s 108 degrees in Paris
It’s 108 degrees in Paris

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 25, 2019

But those who were deeply invested in the fraudulent investigation instigated by the Clinton campaign, nursed by the Obama administration, and carried into execution by James Comey and Robert Mueller had little choice but to ignore the “first rule of holes” and dig in deeper else their entire professional existence since October 2016 would be revealed to be a shameful lie. One of those, unsurprisingly, was Jonathan Chait. His contribution is Mueller Testifies Russia Had Blackmail on Trump.

The most interesting and newsworthy portion of Robert Mueller’s six hours of testimony before the House yesterday came in the final two exchanges of the day, long after the narrative was set and the national media had grown bored. In those ten minutes, Mueller confirmed that Russia had blackmail leverage over Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

This is a pretty definite statement. Not “might.” Not “what if.” But “had.” Funny that we should only hear of that now considering we’ve had access to top secret information on the probe courtesy of non-stop leaks from the CIA, FBI, DOJ, disgruntled White House staffers, and, last but by no means least, the Special Counsel’s office for over two years and we have a report by the Special Counsel or whoever was playing Edgar Bergen to Mueller’s Charlie McCarthy. The only problem is that it’s a lie.

These are the exchanges that Chait puts on the rack and stretches until they support his masturbatory fantasy:

KRISHNAMOORTHI: As you noted in volume two of your report, Donald Trump repeated five times in one press conference, Mr. Mueller, in 2016, “I have nothing to do with Russia.” Of course Michael Cohen said Donald Trump was not being truthful, because at this time Trump was attempting to build Trump Tower Moscow. Your report does not address whether Donald Trump was compromised in any way because of any potential false statements that he made about Trump Tower Moscow, correct?

MUELLER: I think that’s right — I think that’s right.

Huh? Mueller is agreeing with Krishnamoothi’s question…he thinks.

Next up is Adam “My DNA is not partially from an insect” Schiff:

SCHIFF: The need to act in an ethical manner is not just a moral one, but when people act unethically it also exposes them to compromise, particularly in dealing with foreign powers, is that true?

MUELLER: True.

SCHIFF: Because when someone acts unethically in connection with a foreign partner, that foreign partner can expose their wrongdoing and extort them.

MUELLER: True.

SCHIFF: And that conduct — that unethical conduct can be of a financial nature if you have a financial motive or elicit business dealing, am I right?

MUELLER: Yes.

SCHIFF: It could also just involve deception. If you are lying about something that can be exposed, then you can be blackmailed.

MUELLER: Also true.

What educated people with an IQ well to the right side of the intelligence Bell Curve might see as Mueller agreeing with a series of statements by Schiff, Chait sees as a brilliant effort that extracted a hidden truth.

SCHIFF: Well, let’s look at Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, someone that the Trump organization was in contact with to make that deal happen. Your report indicates that Michael Cohen had a long conversation on the phone with someone from Dmitry Peskov’s office. Presumably, the Russians could have tape-recorded that conversation, could they not?

MUELLER: Yes.

SCHIFF: And so we have candidate Trump who’s saying, “I have no dealings with the Russians,” but if the Russians had a tape recording, they could expose that, could they not?

MUELLER: Yes.

And Chait sums up this Caesar salad of bullsh** with:

The media narrative has treated Russian leverage over Trump as a paranoid scenario debunked by the Mueller report. But Mueller was not looking primarily to resolve whether Russia had leverage over Trump. And yet he managed to turn up proof anyway.
…
But Mueller did have the facts. The proof was sitting there in the report all along, and yesterday — in blunt, simple, and chilling terms — he actually confirmed what this all meant.

Contrary to what Chait was furiously keyboarding with his left hand, all you have here is Mueller answering in monosyllables to hypothetical questions tossed out by one of the most batsh** crazy members of either party. Personally, I don’t think Trump is susceptible to blackmail because I’ve yet to see evidence that it is possible for him to be embarrassed. That aside, what we do know is that a) there was no Trump real estate deal in Russia, we know with great certainty that any phone conversation between any US person and someone in the Russian foreign ministry would have been vacuumed out of the ether by the NSA and would have been revealed via a leak long before now.

No. Mueller didn’t say the Russians had compromised Trump. No. Mueller didn’t imply the Russians had compromised Trump. If something this extraordinary had happened, more credible people would be reporting it. It simply didn’t happen and the evidence Chait presents demonstrates conclusively that Chait is lying. Why is he lying? Well, he’s built a career on it, why give up on a proven strategy at this stage of the game?

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