Simmer Down, Gippers. We Survived Mueller. You'll Survive John Durham.

Oh, that thing you've been waiting years for is kind of a flop? Thoughts 'n' prayers.

“This is the nightmare scenario. Essentially, the year and a half of arguably the number one issue for the Republican base is virtually meaningless if this doesn't happen before the election," a GOP congressional aide whined to Axios about news that US Attorney John Durham won't be finished with his inquest into the origins of the Russia investigation by November.

And, honestly, honey, we feel ya. We put a lot of faith in Robert Mueller to actually turn over all the rocks and find out what the hell happened in 2016 — and after, since nothing in the intervening four years has disabused us of the notion that Trump is scared of pissing off Vladimir Putin — only to find out that the Special Counsel wouldn't even try to look at the president's finances. Having amassed a mountain of evidence of obstruction of justice, the guy we'd built up as a fearless paragon just handed it to Congress and said, "I trust you guys will know what to do with this."

We'll probably never find out who Trump is in debt to up to his beady eyeballs. And dollars to doughnuts it ain't Deutsche Bank using house money to lend a reprobate like Trump $420 million.

 It is what it is. And so it will be with our fellow partisans on the Right, who believe that if they only keep digging they'll find evidence that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton illegally spied on the Trump campaign and tried to frame poor, innocent Putin for election interference. It's a dastardly plot!

Meanwhile over at Fox Business, Maria Bartiromo is doing her darnedest to keep the dream alive.

BARTIROMO: Mr. President, we now know from these documents that John Ratcliffe unveiled that it was Hillary Clinton's idea to tie you to Russia in some way. It was successful. The whole country was talking about it for two and a half years. But what comes next, Mr. President? We can have all of these documents, we can see exactly what happened but unless John Durham comes out with a report or indictments, unless Bill Barr comes out with a -- a -- some kind of a ruling here, do you think this is resonating on the American people?

TRUMP: Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we're going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we'll just have to go, because I won't forget it. But these people should be indicted, this was the greatest political crime in the history of our country and that includes Obama and it includes Biden. He recommended prosecute and they didn't prosecute. I was -- I couldn't believe it, but they didn't do it, because they said we have much bigger fish to fry.

Hmmmm, we remember the Horowitz report slightly differently . But good to know that Donald Trump spends all his time leaning on the attorney general to LOCK HER UP his political rivals for ... trying to LOCK HER UP their political rivals, a thing which very much did not happen.

Anyway, according to "a friend of Barr's," the attorney general is real broke up about Trump leaning on him to launch politically motivated prosecutions in the absence of evidence that IRL laws were broken. AP reports :

Barr has privately expressed frustration over the president's public pronouncements on the Durham investigation. Though Barr is broadly in agreement with Trump on the need to investigate the origins of the Russia probe, he's often bemoaned Trump's lack of understanding about the intricacies of the legal system and the steps that need to be taken to complete an investigation.

A friend of Barr's said there has been obvious "tension" between the president and the attorney general, and while Barr himself believes deeply in the importance of the Durham investigation and in the president's authority to exercise control over federal agencies, he will not tolerate interference in specific investigations.

The friend said the Justice Department officials were eager for Durham's work to be completed while Trump is still in office for fear the investigation would be shuttered in a possible Biden administration.

UH HUH. Was this "friend" named Biff Carr? Burt Farr? Cliff Bar?

Look at this asshole trying to do damage control with his own side while simultaneously reassuring the public that he is a faithful servant of the law, just calling balls and strikes, impervious to political pressure. Hey, remember right before Barr blew up the Roger Stone investigation, when all those stories appeared about the attorney general being this close to resigning because it's hard to ratfuck on the DL when your boss keeps tweeting RATFUCK HARDER!

Third verse, same as the first.

Over at the White House, they've hit the panic button. Dump it all out there and see if Devin Nunes and the Epoch Times can Clinton Cash it up into something for the rubes.

"Bill Barr should follow the instructions of the president to declassify and release all the documents the FBI are sitting on. There's no good reason for him to withhold this information," the omnipresent senior White House official told Axios.

Compromise an ongoing criminal (or so they tell us) investigation by releasing all the evidence publicly in hopes of weaponizing it to win and election? Cool, cool.

TWENTY-FIVE MORE DAYS.

[ Axios / AP ]

Follow Liz Dye on Twitter RIGHT HERE! 

Please click here to support your Wonkette. And if you're ordering your quarantine goods on Amazon, this is the link to do it.