Here, too, was another Trumpworld theme: the president’s need to be proven right. Hence his refusal to give up on bad hands that had been played before. Trump, temperamentally unable to let almost anything go—mental loops hardened in place, obsessional and fixated—was yet convinced that Hunter Biden was Joe Biden’s mortal weakness; Trump could hardly believe this prospective Hunter Biden scandal hadn’t played. Hunter Biden was Trump’s answer to the great Russia hoax. It was really the Clintons, Obamas, and Bidens tied up in foreign corruption—not him! And he could prove it. Hunter Biden was the smoking gun.

But here was, he hotly felt, the media establishment circling the wagons, unwilling to see Democratic scandal where Democratic scandal so obviously was, with even social media blacking out Hunter Biden news. Come on! There on video was Hunter Biden blowing crack and getting a foot job! Giuliani had given the hard-drive scoop to the New York Post, which headlined it for days—but it was an October dud. Hardly any other pickup. If anything, it was seen as yet another sign of Trump desperation.

Eric Herschmann, another insider-outsider, now popped up to save the day. A former partner of one of Trump’s former lawyers, Marc Kasowitz—who himself had briefly been a White House presence before being routed by other White House factions—Herschmann had joined an energy company in Texas and cashed out with, depending on who was telling the tale, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or hundreds and hundreds of millions and a collection of high-end autos that often made much-commented-upon appearances in the West Wing parking lot. He was one of the billionaire types (or almost-billionaire types, or would-be-billionaire types) whom Kushner courted and trusted. Plus, he was willing to work for free. He had become an official come-as-he-wanted Trump whisperer.

Now he came with Tony Bobulinski.

Bobulinski was a former Hunter Biden business associate of unclear status—at best, a business partner scorned. Bobulinski, where all other efforts had failed, had a tale that—really, truly, this time—would link the Bidens to international corruption, various Trumpers now believed.

Herschmann and Stefan Passantino, a lawyer who used to be with the White House Counsel’s Office, trying to promote Bobulinski into the campaign’s October surprise, were sure they had the Wall Street Journal taking this story. Trump even let it slip that there was a big story coming in the Journal. But the story they got was a story in the New York Times about how the Journal wasn’t going to run the story. The best they could do was Breitbart, the online right-wing outlet once run by Steve Bannon. (Curiously, Bannon, now a Trumpist podcaster, had joined with Giuliani to promote the Hunter Biden hard-drive story.)

Passantino phoned Jason Miller the morning of the second debate, with the Trump team on its way to Nashville. An off-the-books plot to get Bobulinski to Nashville, to make him an official guest at the debate, was instantly hatched. It recalled Steve Bannon’s recruitment of a lineup of Bill Clinton accusers—Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey—to attend the last Trump-Clinton debate after the “grab-’em-by-the-pussy” Access Hollywood tape came out.