Do it, Sam. Tear up the subpoena on live TV. Burn the shreds and piss on them to put it out. Paint your face blue and dance around the ashes. Be a real pagan, you magnificent crackpot bastard, you.

Sam Nunberg was one of the original Igors who worked in the lab before the monster was ready to roll out. Somebody—Hi, Corey!—found some old Facebook posts and Nunberg was gone long before things really got rolling. But, late Monday afternoon, after Robert Mueller had dropped paper on virtually the entire staff of Camp Runamuck, including Sam, he dialed up Katy Tur on MSNBC and went more than a little bananas. About a half hour later, he popped up on CNN. Basically, Nunberg argued that a subpoena from a federal grand jury is just too damn much trouble and that he’s much too busy to comply and that Mueller should understand that and not put him in jail.

Why does Bob Mueller need to see my emails when I send Roger [Stone] and Steve [Bannon] clips and we talk about how much we hate people?

Because, dude, if you don’t, Mueller is within his rights to arrange for an extended study of institutional cafeteria maintenance. There's no Fifth Amendment right not to be pestered for paperwork. (Have the dog eat your subpoena. It’s more believable.) I guess you could speculate that Nunberg's just out there running shiny-object interference for the real crooks, but he didn't sound like it. He sounded like a guy with no more rope to hang onto. I suspect he's not alone.

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Sam Nunberg: "Carter Page was colluding with the Russians." pic.twitter.com/Z83TxOjrfn — Axios (@axios) March 5, 2018

(And, I suspect, as Preet Bharara tweeted out in the aftermath of the interview, that Mueller already has all the emails that Nunberg is trying to keep to himself anyway.)

There’s something genuinely hilarious in the fact that the entire Republican Party handed itself over to this bunch of mooks, and that the logical end of the conservative “movement” turned out to be a vulgar talking yam. But that’s for later, happier days. However, let us return to Sam Nunberg’s televised “episode.” There was one piquant passage that occurred when Tur asked him if Sam thought that Mueller had the goods on the president*.

I think they may. I think he may have done something during the election. But I don’t know that for sure.

In the immortal words of the blog’s favourite living Canadian, these people are coming apart at every nail. On one side, the government, as Mr. Young sings, on the other, the mob.

True enough.

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

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