Well, now that we’ve all heard all about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bombshell report acknowledging that Russia favored Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, (as if that was really ever questioned by people outside the Republican party) Today, MSNBC’s Katy Tur pretty well had her way with a GOP member of the panel’s House of Representatives, the ones assigned to do the exact same thing as the Senate, but to the surprise of exactly no one, found things to be muddier.
As you surely know, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee closed its Russia investigation after concluding in March that it had not seen evidence to conclusively determine that Putin conspired to help Trump — a difference Tur pointed out to Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), a member of the committee. (Watch that word “conclusively” by the way, because Stewart will not be the last to talk about what it means to be “conclusive.” Example: You wake up in the morning, open the door to let the dog out, and you notice that absolutely everything is wet, everywhere, puddles in the street, grass wet, garden muddy, water on roofs. It is conceivable that a Republican could say they do not have “conclusive” proof that it rained, because they never saw it, and maybe someone had a huge sprinkler that went wild.)
Wanna hear the blow by blow? We at Politizoom aim to please: Stewart, upon being asked about how the Senate could come up with a different answer:
“I respect the Senate’s work, and I would just respectfully disagree, at least with one part,” the congressman said. “When it comes to was Russia trying to hurt Hillary Clinton or trying to help Donald Trump, that’s nearly impossible to know. You actually have to crawl inside Vladimir Putin’s head to really answer that question.”
Well, darn it. Seeing as how we’re unlikely to find a neurosurgeon small enough to crawl inside Putin’s head to read the “Trump-Pence” banner, I guess we’ll never really know.
Tur, having covered Trump and thus being used to these types of answers was having none of it and fired back:
“Congressman, with all due respect, the Senate Intel Committee interviewed a lot more people, we believe, than you did, And their conclusion — along with the intelligence community’s conclusion — was that, yes, they may have been trying to denigrate Hillary Clinton, hurt Hillary Clinton. But that was to help Donald Trump.”
Katy Tur even did the extra-credit, she named names, people that the Senate interviewed but the House did not feel the need to hear from, people like: Paul Manafort, you know, the campaign manager right up until his RUSSIA connections got in the news? And Mike Flynn, the guy who went around the country yelling “lock her up,” and was the person who accompanied Jared Kushner to a meeting at Trump Tower about how one sets up a Russian backchannel at the Russian embassy, oh and Papadopoulos who helped set up the infamous Trump Tower meeting and started off the whole thing, them and 11 others.
At which point she dropped the mic, pointed at the sky, looked back at her guest and yelled “Scoreboard!”
Okay, that didn’t happen, but it should have.
The really sad part is that Stewart suddenly realized he was not on Fox News and he had been asked a real question and attempted to be a politician by interrupting Tur, continually saying he “sees her point.” She did not let him, interrupt her – nor should any reporter – and continued her response.
We may not see much from Cong. Stewart on MSNBC for quite some time. A mark, it will leave.
