You've gotta give Clintonworld credit. They don't just lie. They take lying to a whole new level.
Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta and former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz both privately denied to congressional Russia investigators that they had any knowledge about an arrangement to pay for opposition research on President Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The interviews happened before this week's disclosure that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid for the research. Senate investigators may seek to further question the two top Democrats and dig deeper on the origins of the so-called Trump dossier, one of the sources briefed on the matter said.
Sitting next to Podesta during the interview: his attorney Marc Elias, who worked for the law firm that hired Fusion GPS to continue research on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC, multiple sources said. Elias was only there in his capacity as Podesta's attorney and not as a witness.
Of course Elias had also misled reporters on the issue, but that's not perjury. Podesta claimed that he knew nothing even while the guy who handled it was sitting next to him.
Could the heads of the DNC and Hillary's campaign really not have known about the big piece of "opposition research" that they had on Trump. A dossier that Harry Reid and McCain knew about. If so, that would mean they're absolutely horrible at their jobs. Now granted, Hillary's election performance doesn't reflect well on Podesta or DWS, but I don't know what kind of wunderkind you would have had to be to pull that broken wagon into the depot and win the race. The campaign was mismanaged, but their candidate was unelectable by any means other than a one candidate election.
And that is arguably what the dossier was supposed to achieve.
Pass the goodies on to the FBI. Use it as the basis for eavesdropping. And then hope you get something you can use to take Trump out.
Otherwise why keep lying about it? Opposition research isn't criminal. And even if they got the material from the Russians, it makes for potentially bad judgement, but nothing worth actually lying about.
But instead they went to great lengths to lie about it and to insulate themselves from it. The dossier had to be generated overseas and then passed on to the FBI by a Brit. The Fusion GPS client who paid for it remained nameless until Congress came calling. And Elias misled reporters about it. And Podesta and DWS misled Congress. That's not what you do for opposition research. But it is what you do for a crime.