Jesus H. Christ on work-release, this is what they thought they could put out there? What's next? Digging up John Stennis and having him "review" the actual transcript?

(Just so we're on the same greasy page, something that is "not a verbatim transcript" is not a transcript. Thank you.)

I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation...I think you1 re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible. The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.

John Oliver coined the term "Stupid Watergate," and it was a fine and funny trope until Wednesday morning. This is Stupid Watergate in excelsis.

Watergate, meet Stupid Watergate. Bettmann Getty Images

On April 29, 1974, President Richard Nixon released edited transcripts of many of the conversations that his covert recording system had captured. Much of what was redacted was Nixon's tawdry use of obscenity. What followed was a national outbreak of political projectile vomiting. Copies of the transcripts in book form shot to the top of best-sellers lists. The phrase "Expletive Deleted" became an immortal punchline.

And, because we're going to be hearing a lot of "no quid pro quo" from the Trump peanut gallery in the next few months, it's important to remember that the famous "Smoking Gun" tape was not included in the transcripts that Nixon released, and that what he did release made people more ready to believe him capable of anything.

I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything.



And under the bus goes Rudy Giuliani and the Attorney General of the United States. They are shocked to find the president* already had climbed under there himself.



Jesus, these really are the mole people.

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