Apparently, the State Department's Inspector General briefed members of the House of Representatives late Wednesday on a packet of information about which nobody seems to understand a goddamn thing. It had been reported that the briefing was called because the IG had "urgent" information, and further reporting had it that the information was about State Department career employees' having been knuckled for cooperating with congressional investigators. However, as near as I can tell from the remarks of people who've read the material, it might as well have been written in cuneiform. Here's Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, being completely baffled.

Apparently, the material is a compendium of propaganda and conspiracy theorizing directed at the former ambassador to Ukraine that the president*'s band of stooges has been peddling around the world. But nobody seems to know its origins, and nobody seems to have the faintest idea how to vet the information. It's a samizdat Hannity show, passed around hand-to-hand, from the administration* to world leaders. Until we know more, I'm just going to assume that the State IG just wanted the thing out of his office as fast as possible.

Schiff is in the president’s sights now. Caroline Brehman Getty Images

Meanwhile, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago and his many minions already have seized upon a report in The New York Times in which it is revealed that House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff knew early about the whistleblower's complaint, largely because the whistleblower was worried that his concerns about the Ukraine phone call were being slow-played in the bureaucracy. This is being transmogrified into the whole thing being a bag-job and, in the president*'s lurid imaginings, into Schiff himself having written the complaint. This is all bullshit, to use a word that seems to be all the rage. It is bullshit now and it will forever be bullshit no matter how many wingnut meat puppets repeat the bullshit across however many platforms. Keep that in mind.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook Page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io