On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN host Cooper moderated a debate between two liberals, one of whom took a stridently critical position of Hillary Clinton for her flimsy excuses for mishandling classified email when she was Secretary of State. As CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin came to the defense of the Democratic presidential candidate, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley was sharply critical of Clinton as he accused her of "trying to portray" herself as "something of a village idiot" in claiming that she misunderstood the marking of classified email, and calling her explanation "perfectly absurd," and asserting that it "borders on insulting." Turley: "It's bizarre to read her accounts saying that she had no idea what that was. I would put it as virtually impossible that anyone who had a clearance would not know what that type of letter and a parenthetical means. And, you know, it's trying to portray yourself as something of a village idiot -- which no one believes Clinton to be. So it's perhaps the most absurd aspect of this record."

Both Turley and host Cooper recalled being given access to classified information and the thorough explanation of the classification system, with both seeming doubtful that Clinton could be as ill-informed as she claimed. Turley found it "bizarre to read her accounts" of what happened. As he disputed Toobin on the issue of some of the emails not being given classified status until after she sent them, Turley argued that she was still obligated to treat email with care even if they were not marked.

Cooper began the segment by recounting his own experience with being given clearance to view classified material as he turned to the liberal George Washington University professor and posed:

First of all, on this whole issue of the "C" that Secretary Clinton claims that she didn't know what a "C" was. I mean, I had a security clearance for a short time many years ago. You get briefed very extensively on the whole classification system. Does it make any sense to you that the Secretary of State would not know what a "C" was?

Turley found her explanation "perfectly absurd" as he began:

No, it's perfectly absurd. I've had a clearance since Reagan, including a TSSCI, which is a high-level clearance, and it is unimaginable. It's like a baseball pitcher saying he has no idea what ERA means. I mean, these are ubiquitous symbols that are applied to paragraphs to show -- sometimes it's an "S," sometimes it's a "TS," sometimes it's a "C" -- to show the level of classification.

He then continued:

And it's bizarre to read her accounts saying that she had no idea what that was. I would put it as virtually impossible that anyone who had a clearance would not know what that type of letter and a parenthetical means. And, you know, it's trying to portray yourself as something of a village idiot -- which no one believes Clinton to be. So it's perhaps the most absurd aspect of this record.

After Toobin jumped in to dismiss the "C" label as being the lowest level of classification, Turley pushed back:

It's a marking of classification, and anybody who's had a clearance is familiar with those markings. Now, to suggest that, well, "it's the lowest marking that's been abused," doesn't take away from the fact that these are classification markings, and they found 110 emails that were classified, truly classified, and so I think that Clinton can certainly say that she doesn't recall seeing it -- she said that a great deal -- but to say that she really has no idea what that type of marking would be is just incredibly implausible and borders on insulting.

Moments later, Turley alluded to the novel Animal Farm as he complained that the Justice Department has a double standard in not prosecuting some for mishandling classified information:

I have great respect for my friend Jeff, but we disagree on this. You know, the Justice Department seems to have a rather disturbing record of applying a kind of Animal Farm type of standard to these cases where all people are equal, but some are more equal than others. And those others tend to be, you know, people that are not quite as important as General Petraeus or Hillary Clinton or Sandy Burger.

In response to Toobin trying to argue that nearly all of the classified email Clinton handled was not marked as email at the time it was sent, the George Washington University professor hit back at the liberal CNN analyst's excuse-making:

Hillary Clinton signed a standard document that we all signed that it does not matter if something is marked as classified. To say that would create an absurd standard. No one is standing there and stamping statements that the President made in the air. You have to assume that stuff coming out of certain areas are classified, and it's not -- it's simply not a defense to say it was not stamped classified. She signed an agreement that said she understood that's not the standard.

A bit later Turley hinted that FBI director James Comey could have pushed for prosecution as he concluded:

You don't need a confession for these types of prosecutions. And they certainly are not required in other cases. Saying, "I don't recall," 39 times is certainly a good tactic, but it doesn't usually get you out of a grand jury proceeding. So you're not supposed to look for someone to admit, "Yeah, I knew when I created that private server I was going to release classified information. She was told -- her staff was told that this was not approved, something that contradicts her statement. It was never submitted to State. And people raised this very issue of putting national security interests at stake.

Below is a complete transcript of the segment from the Friday, September 2, Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN: