A recently-released Justice Department inspector general review of the 2016 Trump-Russia probe did not convince a judge that Michael Flynn’s wild-eye allegations of prosecutorial misconduct were legitimate enough to push off his sentencing.

Among the already surreal cast of characters unleashed on all our brains by the Ukraine scandal, there’s one particularly weird individual.

I used to meet with him in Kyiv.

The very important year is almost here. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the election-prediction outlet Sabato’s Crystal Ball, joins Josh Marshall to talk through how the American electorate is feeling, and how the electoral map has changed since 2016.

Watch here.

It’s not the only or main reason for doing it. But it is instructive how even a short and uncertain pause in the House transmitting its articles of impeachment to the Senate and thus even slightly delaying a Senate “trial” has unhinged the President perhaps even more than being impeached itself.

Good morning and happy Friday December 20. The New York Times is reporting that John Durham, the Bill Barr-appointed prosecutor carrying out President Trump’s pet Russia investigation origins probe, is now targeting former CIA Director John Brennan. Here’s more on that and other stories we’re following.