Thread by @ElieNYC

It is increasingly obvious that the Trump admin played this entirely wrong and if they just had *any* respect for the rule of law they would have gotten away with it.

Consider a world where they let the whistleblower complaint proceed, unimpeded, to Congress:

* Congress has the complaint, but can't really talk about it. They make noises about "explosive" new allegations, ramping up expectations, but can't release the full thing.

* Giuliani doesn't go on television acting a fool.

* Trump admin drags its feet on declassifying it, pissing off Congress and taking some heat, but not that much since we're all inured to Trump crimes.

* Congress attempts to investigate, mainly behind closed doors, but all the Trump stooges close ranks.

* Weeks pass.

* Eventually the complaint gets leaked. This increases the pressure on Trump to comply wit Congressional subpoenas. But there's no way to really corroborate the whistleblower if all the Trump stooges Omertà as usual.

* The other calls stored on the secret server never get leaked

* Ukrainian @JoshMalina says "Everything was great, please don't hurt me, I'm a comic that is now fighting Russia."

* Dems demand the release of the call. Trump makes the actually decent argument that calls with foreign leaders should not be released. The call never comes out.

@JoshMalina * Eventually we're left with an anonymous whistleblower's word against Trump's and his lying stooges. We all know that Trump is lying, again, but what can we do?

@JoshMalina Basically, if Trump and Barr don't panic like guilty two-bit criminals and try to bury the whistleblower complaint, they get away with it, again. This is a classic "Where were you Saturday night" and these idiots responded "I don't know ANYTHING about the murder up on Riverside!"

@JoshMalina Thank God for dumb. /FIN