Note to Self [What You Say | What I Think]

Yes, you really did just hear that gaffe. Here is the question: Did a Democratic Member of Congress just gaffe up really, really badly in one direction, or the other?

Translation: Did he botch, or tip, it?

For the record:

SCHIFF: Well, that’s exactly right. And it is significant because we know from the guilty plea and the statement of the Papadopoulos defense that the Russians told them, hey, we have stolen Clinton or DNC e-mails. We know from the FISA application and what the Justice Department allowed us to share that they previewed the dissemination, that they could basically unanimously publish these emails. That’s in April, before the Clinton campaign even knows the Russians have those e-mails.

So, a few weeks later when the president’s son takes this is meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians with this lawyer sent out from Moscow for the purpose, with the promise of incriminating information about Hillary Clinton as part of the Russian government’s effort to help Donald Trump, what’s Don Jr.’s response? If it’s what I think it is, I would love it.

What does he think it is? Does he think it is e-mails because Papadopoulos was told the Russians have it and the Russians are prepared to disseminate it? It’s certainly one very plausible explanation of what he was expecting. It would also explain why he was so deeply disappointed that what they produced at this meeting wasn’t what was expected.

(The Rachel Maddow Show, 1 March 2018)

That’s not how it’s phrased in the email; the question is predicated on the quote; there is a detail I’m missing, or else Schiff gaffed up, or else the Congressman from California Twenty-Eight gaffed up in another way, and in any case it all comes back to the point that I must necessarily be missing something.