The Daily Mail is reporting in an exclusive report Tuesday that members of Rep. Adam Schiff’s staff corresponded with a pair of Russian radio pranksters who claimed to have naked photos of Donald Trump and other blackmail-worthy materials. Whether Schiff’s team was actually duped by the pair is up for discussion.

Alana Goodman reports:

On an audio recording of the prank call posted online, Adam Schiff can be heard discussing the committee’s Russia investigation and increasingly bizarre allegations about Trump with a man who claimed to be Andriy Parubiy, the chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament.

The call, made a year ago, was actually from two Russian comedians nicknamed ‘Vovan’ and ‘Lexus’ who have become notorious for their phony calls to high-ranking American officials and celebrities, including UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Elton John.

…

Schiff’s office said the congressman suspected the call was ‘bogus’ from the beginning and reported it to authorities afterward.

But in a recording of the eight minute conversation, Schiff appeared to take the call seriously – or at least played along convincingly – and emails from the Democrat’s staff to the fake politician afterwards said he had found it ‘productive’.

Vovan and Lexus told DailyMail.com it took them only a half-hour to get Schiff on the phone after calling his office pretending to be Parubiy. The call took place last April.

Here’s a recording of the call (with some unfortunate background music):

So, was the Schiff camp really on to the pranksters from the start? Lexus said an aide to Schiff followed up via email after the call and asked for the materials to be sent to the Ukrainian embassy so that one of Schiff’s staffers could pick them up.

What did Jennifer Rubin just say about Schiff’s “exacting eye for detail”?