Vindicated

                Paul is a law clerk living in Washington D.C.  For the last two years, he’s been working on a special counsel led by Robert Mueller to investigate whether or not President Trump and his campaign colluded with Russians to steal the 2016 election. Since he’s going to be the one to actually write the report, he’s sitting with Mueller and his chief investigator Andy Weissman.  Paul has been intimately involved in the case so he knows what has gone on but he hopes that the two main people in the probe will have some information that he doesn’t have.  Mueller and Weissman seem nervous and frustrated; almost like they don’t want to be there.  Weissman says, “Well first we need to ensure what we were tasked to do.”

                Paul says, “Find collusion between Trump and the Russians”

                “Originally yes, but on August 2, the scope memo extended it to Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Manafort collusion with Russians.”

                “Okay”

                “Make sure that you put language in there that we were told to do it.”

                “I will but why is it so important?”

                Weissman said, “Well, the only place that information exists is the dossier and most people know it’s discredited now.  Hell, I was briefed on it before this probe started so be subtle but make sure you specify we were told.  That’ll save us if we come under attack about the dossier.”

                “Alright”

                “So let’s go to through what we investigated one by one.” Mueller said

                Paull said, “Okay, let’s start with George Papadopoulos meeting with Mifsud.  I’ll talk about how MIfsud was connected to Russian intelligence people and then told Papadopoulos that he had dirt on Hillary.  I’ll include that we found Mifsud spent much of his time in London.  He was also well connected with British and Italian intelligence.  Then conclude that despite the shady conversation, we found no evidence that George Papadopoulos sent any of the information he got from Mifsud to the Trump campaign.”

                “Take out the stuff about the Western intelligence asset.  It’s not really relevant.”

                “Right, what about when we interviewed Papadopoulos and he said that he thought Mifsud was exaggerating his ties to try to seem like he was more important than he was and he didn’t really know these people that well, he was just name dropping?”

                “No, don’t include that, it’s going to be a long report anyway. “

                “Shouldn’t we say why our thesis was wrong?”

                “No, in fact, just sum it up in one sentence.”

                “But if we spend a lot of time making the accusations we are investigating and then put in a sentence that it wasn’t true, it might be missed without substance.”

                “Not really, in fact, put it in the footnotes.”

                Paul was confused.  Writing a hit piece and then saying “But none of it was true” seemed a little underhanded and wrong but it wasn’t his call.  He’s like, “Okay, now the Trump Tower Meeting.  I’ll talk about how they wanted to talk about Magnitsky and the sanction be lifted.”

                Mueller said, “Yea, make sure you footnote and talk about how Veselnitskaya and Akmetshin were Russians and list all their connections to the GRU and Russian officials.”

                “Should I also mention that Veselnetskaya was a translator for Hillary Clinton and that she works for Fusion GPS?”

                “No, don’t say that, we’re trying to downplay the influence of the dossier.”

                “But, it was a major part and we already covered ourselves by saying we were told to investigate the dossier information.”

                “Yea, we can’t give too much ammunition to the entrapment and collusion hoax conspiracy theorists.”

                “But the final conclusion of our report is that there was no collusion.”

                “True but no need to drill it home.”

                Even though Paul was seeing the pattern, he wanted to be on the record, “What about Akmetshin admitting in sworn testimony that he knew the Clintons well and he was close with them?”

                “Don’t include that”

                “On my conclusion?”

                “Make it a footnote.  Say that there is no evidence that the Trump meeting was connected with the GRU hack and dump operation.  This way we specify it’s about that but leaves room for interpretation that they could have colluded otherwise.”

                “But we have no evidence he colluded otherwise at all let alone with the meeting.”

                “I know but Trump doesn’t deserve it in no uncertain terms.  He was very mean to us with his comments.  We need to reward the people that had our backs the last two years.”

                “Even though they were wrong?”

                “Yes, even though they were wrong.  You don’t want them to be buried.  The President gets what he wants.  No collusion so we have to help his detractors too.  Can’t only play one side.”

                Paul internalizes that it seems like they’re still playing the anti-Trump side but they have to make that conclusion because there’s no way they can’t.  It’s a begrudged admission that there was no collusion.  He says, “What about Obstruction?  Should I write we didn’t find that either?”

                “No, I’m going to say that we found no evidence either way and let our new AG stick his neck out on that one.”

                “But we found no obstruction.”

                “I know that but let’s keep the report about collusion”

                “Roger, so now we have the Cohen story with the Trump Tower in Russia.”

                “One more thing, try to avoid using Christopher Steele’s name”

                “The one who gave the information to Fusion GPS to write the Dossier where we get the impetus on what to investigate?”

                “Yea, I know we have to mention him but do it in passing and downplay it.  Make it seem like he had a very minor role.”

                Paul was beginning to think that this report is bordering on fiction.  He decided to just stick to his original question.  “Cohen talked to Russia to try to build the tower in Moscow.  Since he didn’t have a back channel he had to go through the public phone number.  Nobody got back to him and there is no evidence that the President aided or told Cohen to lie to congress.”

                “That’s enough on that subject.”

                Paul nodded his head.  He was happy that he wasn’t told to remove information this time.  He continued, “Now the thing that started the whole thing.  Wikileaks, they received e-mails but there’s no evidence that they knew it was from GRU or any Russians at all.  In fact, interviews with Assange has shown that Assange said it wasn’t from the Russians.”

                “Don’t include the Assange interview.  Just stick to that they didn’t know they were talking to Russians.  Makes Assange look incompetent.”

                “Except that it may not have been Russians”

                “Again, don’t include that.”

                “Next, we have Sessions recusal.  The claim is that he had substantive contacts with Russian nationalists at the Republican convention and his meeting with Russian Ambassador Kislayek was a conflict of interest. Our evidence suggests that the meetings were non-substantive, brief and public so highly unlikely he was part of collusion”

                “Yea that works.”

                “Speaking of the RNC we should also include that we did not establish any dilution or conversation to help Russia by not arming Ukraine.  This is against the accusation made that Trump would not help Ukraine against Russia.  History showed that he did in fact arm Ukraine.”

                “Don’t include that he armed Ukraine just say that we found no evidence that the RNC diluted or talked about it.”

                The conversation proceeded like this and at the end Paul asked, “I have one question that’s been bothering me.  This will be off the record”

                “What is it?”

                “What was the conspiracy?  Specifically?  ‘Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians is vague.  What, specifically did we want to prove or disprove?  Okay, steal the election…then what?”

                “That’s above your paygrade kid.”

                “Okay, sorry sir.”

                Paul and other clerks wrote up the report.  It was over 400 pages by the time it was approved and released.  When it was, Paul went to a bar to drink as he felt really dirty.  A friend met up with him and Paul started the conversation, “I just feel like I was part of a huge cover up.”

                “You were” said the friend

                Paul glared at his friend and said, “You know, I asked you here for moral support.”

                “Well, I’m not going to blow smoke.  When you got involved you didn’t know it was a cover up operation.  It just seems like Mueller was trying to reverse engineer a crime.”

                “That’s actually a good way to describe it.” Paul said with dire seriousness in his voice. 

                “Well the media is has been hammering how the surveillance started.  They’re trying to take the pressure off the dossier and pretend it was Papadopoulos, even though they didn’t interview him till seven months after they opened the investigation.”

                “Well, we worded the Downer stuff to be around the July 31 date but yea.”

                “Why is everyone so hyper about how it started?”

                “Well the special counsel is over so I got to find a new job away.  McCabe wants people not to focus on the people who signed the FISA”

                “Right because it’s not a big deal for why you opened an investigation.  You can do that because of a tip but when you swear that information is true when it isn’t, like they did with the FISA, that’s the problem.”

                “Yea, but don’t tell people I told you.”

                “I won’t, besides this is DC, everyone is liberal so they won’t want to hear it.”

                “Yea, especially now; their entire premise that the Russians hacked the DNC, gave it to Wikileaks, who then gave it to Trump.  Every part of that is false. Wikileaks didn’t know they were talking to Russians and there’s no evidence that they gave anything to the Trump campaign let alone the stolen e-mails.  It’s completely and entirely false so they’re pissed because they’re too prideful to admit that they were lied to or lied to the American people. “

                “Basically, they have to choose between being gullible or liars.”

                “Yup”

                It didn’t take long for Paul to find another legal job.  His reputation wasn’t hurt by being a clerk on the Mueller probe.  Mueller and establishment Republicans like Senator Grassley had defended Mueller so even if people knew he was associated with them, it wouldn’t hurt his future.  The one thing that’s for sure is that Trump is completely vindicated and did absolutely nothing wrong.