Media Matters founder David Brock knows how much trouble the recent report by the New York Times about Hillary Clinton's private email account spells for the 2016 hopeful. Brock was so desperate, he agreed to appear on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Wednesday to mount a combative defense of Clinton, aggressively challenging the hosts' assertions in his attempt to protect his preferred candidate.

Brock said the media was being unfair to Clinton and charged the Times' Michael S. Schmidt with "sloppily" writing his article about then-Secretary of State Clinton's potentially illegal use of a private email account, demanding that the Times issue a retraction. (Brock's demanded retraction seems highly unlikely, as Schmidt has just published another story on how Clinton "thwarted records requests" by refusing to hand over private emails related to the Benghazi scandal.)

Blaming what he portrayed as a drummed up scandal on the "dying" Benghazi story, Brock argued that Schmidt and the Times had wrongfully accused Clinton of breaking the Federal Records Act without providing adequate proof, citing a legal opinion that said she hadn’t broken the law. But, as noted later, Brock was failing to acknowledge that Schmidt had qualified his accusations in his piece Monday, saying that Clinton had "possibly" acted illegally.

Brock's main argument fell perfectly in line with the Clinton camp's defense: she had acted in the spirit of the law and simply done what her predecessors had done. Host Joe Scarborough pushed back, suggesting Brock was deliberately ignoring that a new law had been passed in 2009 that changed the legality of using private emails.

Scarborough: David, we’re talking about a 2009 law; the White House was referring to a 2009 law that was put in place when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. It wasn’t 2013, it wasn’t 2014, and it certainly wasn’t applicable when Colin Powell or even Condoleezza Rice was Secretary of State.

Scarborough read the 2009 policy outlining that federal agencies “must” preserve all emails from officials using outside accounts within the appropriate agency, which he pointed out it had not been done. When Brock tried to argue that point, Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski countered Brock incredulously. But Brock remained adamant that Clinton had not broken the law:

Brock: There is no violation of law here, Joe, that I can see whatsoever.

Throughout the discussion Brock became increasingly antagonistic in his responses, repeatedly asking "Is that your legal opinion?" despite not having a legal background himself. At one point, an incensed Brzezinski had had enough:

Brock: Is that your legal opinion? I don’t understand. There’s not legal authority backing up what you’re saying.

Brzezinski: Oh my God. I’m not sure what planet I’m on right now. Are you reading the same thing we are?

Video, partial transcript via WFB.