It was bad enough that Fox News host Jeanine Pirro asked such a question but even worse that her two guests responded by suggesting that special counsel Robert Mueller, a decorated Marine Corps captain and former FBI director, is at least as big a threat to the U.S. as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Pirro took Fox News’ Operation Collusion Cover-up to new lows last night as she guest hosted the Hannity show. Speaking with two fellow members of the Collusion Cover-Up Club, she “asked,” Dan Bongino, Fox’s newly-minted legal expert without a law degree, “Is Mueller a greater threat than Putin to this country?”

It says something about Pirro (whose ties to Trump include her alleged-mobster then-husband being kept on retainer) that not even these two dedicated Trumpers wanted to go all the way there.

But the responses were almost as disturbing. Bongino said about Mueller, “Oh, he’s a serious threat.” Bongino called the Russia investigation a “sham” – while all three conveniently ignored the 32 indictments and/or guilty pleas it’s produced so far.

“Mueller greater threat than Putin, Charlie?” Pirro "asked" her other guest, Charlie Kirk.

“Well, look, it’s tough to say,” Kirk replied. “Mueller’s doing so much damage to this country.” Then Kirk attacked congressional Republicans for “continuing to renew his funding” and not “going after him.”

It’s one thing to defend Trump’s large cloud of worrisome ties to Russia but – probably because they know they can’t defend Dear Leader – these three are smearing a man who has spent a lifetime serving his country – in order to cover up and distract from Trump’s suspicious behavior.

Watch Fox’s Operation Collusion Cover-up above, from the August 10, 2018 Hannity.

Crossposted at News Hounds.

The normally reticent John Harwood of CNBC weighed in.