July 22, 2019

"Hello, Police? I'd like to report a murder"

The victim? Siraj Hashmi of the Washington Examiner.

Cause of death? Stupidity. Oh, and being utterly shamed on cable news by the Washington Bureau Chief of Mother Jones after trying to push a completely debunked conspiracy theory.

Did I mention that David Corn actually WROTE THE BOOK about the very topic that Hashmi was trying to lie about? Russian Roulette. It is literally the story about Putin's war on America and how it led to the election of Donald Trump.

HOST: Paul, you have -- you are the ear here rather i should say, you know, David kind of gave us a preview of what questions he thinks are important. Of course, have you volume 1 of the Mueller report and volume 2, which deals specifically with obstruction. Where would you be more focused with your questioning if you are a congresswoman or man?

BUTLER: I would think about the ten allegations of obstruction that Mueller found. I would ask Mueller if Trump weren't president of the United States, would you have charged him with crimes? And the answer must be, yes. So, when you ask people what they know about the Mueller report, what most people say is "no collusion". It's incumbent on Mueller to speak the truth. To not let the President and the Attorney General get away with their great deception of the American people, the fact is, that the Mueller has been played by Trump and Barr. I think he's got a historical obligation and obligation to correct the record record.

HOST: You are in DC most days a few blocks from Capitol Hill. What itself the Republican strategy is going to be going to this? We have some reporters and Democrats plan to do. Try not the filibuster as much and get to targeted questions. What is the strategy overall?

HASHMI: The Republicans want to point and highlight the abuses within the Department of Justice and the FBI that led to the Mueller investigation. So looking at the FISA Court and the information that was brought forward to basically spy on the Trump campaign through Carter Page, George Papadopoulos. They really want to bring forward the IG report will be the final say on all of this. It won't be the Mueller report.

HOST: We saw that preview of what his 88 appearances on Capitol Hill, Paul, Robert Mueller when he's gone on there. He's not going to have any of that? He will turn off the microphone?

HASHMI: There is obviously political risk for Democrats to bring Robert Mueller up for testimony because he will be questioned by Republicans about this. That's just going to add some more fodder for the news cycle that it wasn't really about the Trump campaign colluding with the Russian government. It was about the abuses within the Department of Justice and the FBI to open up this investigation.

CORN: That's clearly not the case here. You won't see no Republican interested in obstruction. No Republican interested in the Russian attack on the election. The FISA, this gets into the weeds, but this whole notion of focusing on a FISA application that came out on October 21st, a few weeks before the election as having anything to do with the origins of the Russian investigation is a canard that is being you know put forward by FOX News and friends of the President to distract from the real issue of a Russian attack.

HASHMI: We're saying we don't know the impetus of this investigation.

CORN: We do know. We do know. What do you mean we don't know. Actually even if you read Devon Nunez' own memo, he says the investigation started at the end of July because of what happened with George Papadopoulos hearing about Russians having information on Hillary Clinton. We do know. There is no question to this.

Here's a valuable lesson that this Washington Examiner writer just found out. If you are going to go on live tv and start spewing discredited conspiracy theories, make sure you aren't on a panel with the man who literally wrote the book on it.

Time of death: 3:24pm EST.

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