The Republican Party has a serious James Comey problem. On the face of it, the former FBI director’s compelling testimony to the Senate—the opening statement of which was released Wednesday—of an attempted obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, is one that merits further investigation. But the branches of government tasked with the constitutional duty of holding Trump responsible for such acts, the House of Representatives and the Senate, are controlled by Republican legislators who live in terror of the damage any Trump scandal would do to their party and political careers.

The Republican National Committee has prepared a set of talking points to answer Comey’s testimony on Thursday, but they’re notably incoherent. “President Trump feels completely and totally vindicated by former FBI Director James Comey’s opening testimony and is eager to move forward,” reads the first of the “Top Takeaways,” but a few lines later we’re told: “Director Comey has a long history of blatant contradictions and misstatements.” So is Comey a reliable enough character witness to vindicate Trump, or someone who can’t be trusted? No wonder one Republican told Politico’s Alex Isenstadt that the talking points come from people “living in an alternative reality.”

If the Comey testimony is presenting a problem for the RNC, Republican politicians and sympathetic pundits are coming up with their own separate apologia for Trump: They acknowledge that Trump’s behavior might look fishy, but argue his actions were those of a novice politician who obstructed justice out of sheer stupidity. Ignorant of the basic understanding of the rule of law and the independence of law enforcement, Trump blundered into shady behavior with no malicious intent.

“The Comey memo paints a picture of a political neophyte frustrated with and unaware of the way Washington works,” Matthew Continetti, editor of the Washington Free Beacon, wrote on Twitter. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offered a variation of this argument: “Trump’s weird behavior re: Comey seems to reflect a man accustomed to being a boss, unprepared to be a president.” Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, in an interview with Fox News, also played up Trump’s lack of understanding of Washington. “America did not select a Washington guy or a politician,” Lankford said. “They hired a New York business guy.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, one of Trump’s strongest champions last year, made this case with characteristic bravado. “What people don’t understand is that they elected an outsider president,” Christie told MSNBC. “They elected someone who had never been inside of government and quite frankly didn’t spend a lot of time interacting with government except at the local level. And so the idea of the way that the tradition of these agencies, it’s not something that he’s ever been steeped in. So I think over the course of time, what you’re seeing is a president who is now very publicly learning about the way people react to what he considers to be normal New York City conversation.”