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Not long ago, the Republicans defending the president* committed themselves to a line of defense that depended vitally on the FISA warrant issued against the Trump campaign having been prompted by the now-famous—and largely substantiated—“Steele dossier.”

They then broke a lot of rock trying to convince people a) that the dossier was a fake, and that b) it was a Democratic plant in the first place. That particular barricade detonated over the past few weeks.

First, we learned that the warrant was prompted by the fact that a Trump aide named George Papadopolous drank himself sockless in a London wine bar and ran his mouth to an Australian diplomat. (Pro tip: drinking with Aussies is not for amateurs.)

Then, the two principals in the firm that engaged Steele’s services wrote a savage op-ed denouncing the Republican efforts to investigate the investigators as a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a sham of two mockeries of a sham.

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