If you thought we’d seen last of former acting DNC chair Donna Brazile when she supervised the election of her replacement last month you would be mistaken. She joined Trevor Noah on The Daily Show this week and even in that friendliest of liberal environments she was asked yet again about the fact that she leaked debate questions to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary. This wouldn’t be a noteworthy event were it not for her giving an entirely new answer to the question. (Free Beacon)

“Well, first of all, I didn’t have my hands in the cookie jar. I’m an operative, I’m a strategist, and part of what my role was, in addition to being a ‘political pundit,’ was to help advance the cause of justice and equality,” she said.

“So think about, we have six debates. I started to fight for more debates. I started to fight to ensure that Bernie and Hillary had an opportunity to talk about these issues, talk about the Flint water crisis, talk about criminal justice reform, and that was my role,” she continued.

Brazile then said that what people know about the emails is the “Russian version” of the story.

This certainly is a change of pace. (You can watch the entire thing here at Comedy Central if you wish.) As you will recall, every time she was faced with this question in the past she dodged it entirely, becoming indignant and telling any and all inquisitors that she would “not be persecuted.” In a complete reversal, she’s now owning up to the deed entirely but blaming any “confusion” on the Russians. (Of course.)

So let me see if I’ve got this straight. She was sending out the questions which she said she received “from time to time,” to Hillary Clinton, but she was also sending them to Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley? And the only reason we don’t know about it is that those pesky Russians must have… what? Deleted all of her emails showing the questions going to everyone except Hillary? As the old saying goes, “Pull the other one. It’s got bells on it.”

Brazile also told Noah that she was just trying to make sure that those questions got out there for the public to consider. Keep in mind that the specific questions in both primary debates where she either provided or attempted to provide questions to the Clinton campaign were on subjects which everyone was already talking about. The idea, for example, that the debate moderators who were hosting an event held in Flint, Michigan would need the learned supervision of Donna Brazile in order to remember to ask about the water crisis is far funnier than anything else you are likely to find on The Daily Show these days.

She was also quite insistent during the interview on stressing that she was equally supportive of all the Democratic candidates. Part of that claim (at least in Donna’s version of events) included saying that she had been “pushing for more debates.” Seriously? Everyone knew that the paucity of debates being held at obscure times which were obviously designed to minimize the ratings was intended to help Hillary Clinton. This was a goal which both Brazil and then chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz shared in common.

None of this passes the smell test. But it’s interesting that when Trevor Noah asked, seemingly out of the blue, whether or not his guest would be willing to go into greater detail if she were writing and publishing a book, she responded with an enthusiastic yes. Was this entire fantastic tale simply the opening gambit in seeking a book deal offer? We should know soon enough. The shelflife for deal such as that can be remarkably short so a publisher would want to move quickly.