The investigation into Russian ratfcking in the 2016 presidential election is already falling apart, which is a good thing, because it was already halfway to a worthless bag-job. From the NYT:

Absent from the witness list was Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump's first national security adviser, who resigned after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Though Mr. Nunes emphasized it was only an early list, he referred to Mr. Flynn as "a tangent," portraying him as more of a victim of the intelligence leaks Mr. Nunes is seeking to investigate than a target of the inquiry. "From everything that I can see, his conversations with the Russian ambassador, he was doing this country a favor, and he should be thanked for it," Mr. Nunes said.

Say what? If you thank him, make sure to do it in Turkish. From the Times:

Mr. Nunes may need to tread cautiously to avoid the perception of crossing the line from impartial moderator to advocate. He has said the issue of whether Trump Tower was under surveillance during the campaign was well within the scope of the inquiry, and has denied that he added it after the president demanded that Congress investigate.

Nunes, who is rising in prominence on the list of the administration's congressional toadies, worked on the transition team for El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago, so it's hard to imagine why anyone would question his good faith as an independent investigator. Beyond that, however, if this whole thing stays in the Congress, there never will be a credible investigation.

Out in the country, most of the people the administration depends on already believe that Barack Obama wiretapped their hero. Kellyanne Conway on Monday opined that Obama may have done it through the microwaves in Trump Tower. Of course, that's just crazy, but I'm not the audience for it. Trump first established his personal credibility with his voters by pushing birtherism. The rest of the country—and especially the Democratic Party—made a capital mistake in thinking that his credibility (and the political utility of birtherism) died simply because it had no connection to reality.

A great deal depends on how long they persist in that fundamental error.

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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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