See this post by The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake on the possible implications of the much-discussed “insurance policy” text — which some believe is evidence of a conspiracy to head off or end a Trump presidency. Certainly, Jackson qualifies for membership in this group — platinum membership, in fact. “Well, I think they’re going to say, what is their intent, right? Because that’s exactly what former FBI director [James B.] Comey said when he was letting Hillary Clinton off the hook,” Jackson said. “And his intent — regardless of whether it was an assassination attempt or whatever — it was definitely something.”

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Now: The good thing about multi-member panel shows like “Outnumbered” and “The Five” is the self-cleaning-oven dynamic. Fox News invariably hosts people who say wacko stuff, and the more folks there are to say “whoa,” the better.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” interrupted Faulkner when Jackson mentioned “assassination.”

Mr. “Lucky Guy” responded with a lovely defense of idle and harmful gossip. “I’m just saying: We don’t know what it was,” Jackson said. “When you say, we’ve got to make sure that this guy doesn’t get in at all costs, what does that mean? So I’m saying there’s a spectrum of what does it mean. But one thing that we know for sure, is that he was plotting in an election against a candidate, and there’s FBI fingerprints all over this.”

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Bolding added to highlight the fact that Jackson plucked the most extreme possible scenario off of this spectrum.

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Faulkner wasn’t going to let this nonsense drift unchallenged into cafeterias and living rooms across the country, saying: “Because I know how things get clipped on social media, I just want to make sure that we press in on the fact that no one has floated any sort of an idea that —”

“Oh, it’s been floated. When I talk about this, I’m talking about social media stuff. I’m not talking about media sources,” responded Jackson.

Another panelist chimed in: “Nothing credible.”

“Well, I mean, yeah,” said Jackson.

Depicting federal law enforcement agencies as a rogue and oppositional organization to Trump has become the thing during the opinion hours of Fox News. Tucker Carlson gladly abandons old positions to depict the Mueller probe as a compromised hack job; Jeanine Pirro earlier this month said, “There is a cleansing that is needed in our FBI and Department of Justice”; Sean Hannity calls for Mueller’s firing; and so on.

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