Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent much of Thursday in a closed-door hearing about accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It all amounted to a laughable circus led by noted moron James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee.

After Comer threatened Hillary and former President Bill Clinton with jail time if they didn’t testify, the couple agreed to appear before the committee. Of course, the GOP insisted on doing this behind closed doors because that’s the best way for the partisan lawmakers to control the narrative.

Ahead of the hearing, Hillary Clinton shared her opening statement, where she rightly called the committee out for so, so many things.

The Oversight Committee’s Epstein investigation is a sham. While the Clintons were subpoenaed and are required to sit for long closed-door sessions, many of the Department of Justice and FBI officials involved in the Epstein investigations and prosecution were allowed to simply submit written statements.

In her statement, Clinton excoriated the committee for refusing to hold public hearings or allow the media to attend, and for refusing to call people who figure prominently in the files, such as one Donald J. Trump.

Finally, she pointed out that if the Trump administration was earnestly committed to its supposed goal of stopping sex trafficking and addressing Epstein’s myriad crimes, it would get to the bottom of why the Department of Justice and FBI are withholding material that implicates Trump.

Oh, and then there’s the whole thing where she said she never met Epstein, never flew on his plane, and, presumably, never drew him a fun little naked-lady sketch as a birthday tribute, unlike how one Donald J. Trump seems to have done.

Once the hearing started, things almost immediately got very stupid. Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado snapped a photo of Hillary Clinton and sent it to right-wing YouTuber Benny Johnson, who posted it online, saying, “This is the first time Hillary has had to answer real questions about Epstein. Clinton does not look happy.”

Well, would you be happy being forced to testify about a person you say you’ve never met—all while Trump, a former close friend of Epstein, doesn’t have to answer for a thing?

Sure, the committee rules explicitly forbid taking pictures, and sure, Boebert was typically smug and sarcastic about it, because rules don’t apply to Republicans, but it was quite the move for a committee that refused to let Clinton testify in public.

Closed-door means closed-door, not forcing Hillary Clinton to testify in private while you dribble out shit to your favorite right-wing influencer.

Boebert’s antics led to the hearing being halted for a bit. It also led to Johnson whining that it’s totally cool that he posted the photo because Clinton was “trying to get out of answering questions about Epstein.”

And how exactly could Johnson tell that from just a photo? It sure sounds like Boebert or another GOP goblin leaked more than just a picture.

In a mid-afternoon statement, Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California demanded that a full, unedited transcript be released within 24 hours—which is unlikely. For one, it’s a heavy lift for such a long testimony, and for another, Republicans on the committee will want as much time as possible to mischaracterize or just straight-up lie about Hillary’s testimony.

Garcia also told the press that Clinton had not invoked the Fifth Amendment, setting her apart from, say, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator. And of course, since the GOP will never call Trump to testify, he doesn’t even need to bother with deciding whether he would take the Fifth.

When things finally wrapped up well after 5 PM ET, Clinton spoke to the press, and it was clear that the hearing got both stupid and weird.

“It then got at the end quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate,” she said. “One of the most vile, bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet.”

Sure, why not.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, never one to miss an opportunity to be creepy and inappropriate, demanded that Clinton answer a question about whether she had any feelings about photographs showing Bill Clinton getting a back rub from a young woman or any other of his associations with Epstein. Hillary told Mace she wasn’t there to talk about her feelings.

Mace did, however, tell the press afterward that Clinton “took every question from every single member.”

Of course she did. Clinton sat for 11 hours of testimony over the farce that was the Benghazi Committee in 2015. She could do 6.5 hours of questioning on Epstein while standing on her head.

But you know who apparently didn’t seem to have any questions about Epstein? James Comer. Clinton confronted him during the hearing and pointed out that he hadn’t asked her a direct question about Epstein all day. Kind of a wuss move from the committee chair who threatened jail time if the Clintons wouldn’t appear.

Hillary is done, but Bill Clinton testifies on Friday, and let’s be honest: You can expect his questioning to be even stupider, weirder, and longer. Republicans are going to continue to protect Trump and other favored right-wingers, and they’re going to continue to try to make the Clintons the real villains. But in their dark little cramped hearts, Trump’s toadies all know that they’ve got nothing.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos