Spygate debate in Australia

Dan is going to Australia. The decision wasn't too hard as his cousin was studying abroad in Sydney so he was merely visiting him and taking advantage of having, perhaps for the only time, a free place to stay in Australia. Dan isn't going to limit his time in only Sydney as he plans on travelling to Melbourne and Cairnes. Dan goes to JFK airport in New York and gets on a Quantas flight that takes 5 hours and 20 minutes to get to Los Angeles. As he transfers to his gate, he sees that his next flight is already boarding so he immediately gets on the 14 hours 22 minute flight to Sydney. Dan is an experienced traveler but this is long even for him. He arrives at 9AM Sydney time so he is going to have to hit the ground running and resist the urge to take a nap or else he'll spend most of his vacation jet lagged only to come back. He lands in Sydney and is happy when he clears customs that his cousin is waiting for him. Dan stops by his cousin's dorm and drops off his stuff and then immediately they head to the harbor not caring about the light rain. Dan is blown away by the Sydney Opera House. Most famous buildings don't live up to the hype when you see them in person but the Opera House is not one of them. He walks around the building snapping pictures frequently in what he will later call his favorite building he's ever seen.

After seeing the harbor, they grab lunch and Dan tried Kangaroo. He had it before but that was years ago. It's not a bad meat, a little gamy but he would prefer beef or pork any day. At night, they go to a bar. A couple Australians come up to them and ask if they can sit. Dan says yes. The Aussies don't mince words, they ask, "So, you're Americans. Do you like your President"

Dan's cousin puts his hands up following the unspoken rule to never speak about politics when travelling abroad. Dan, however, does not follow this rule. He chimes in, "Yup, love him."

"Even after he called White Supremacists 'fine people'"

"That never happened"

"What do you mean?"

"You're talking about Charlottesville. The issue was whether they should change the name of a park and take down a monument to Robert E. Lee who was the Confederate general during the Civil War. He said that people on both sides of the debate were fine people."

"Well, you don't know which two people he meant, the question was asked about Neo-Nazi's"

"I'm not interpreting anything. He explicitly said, 'I'm not talking about the Neo-Nazi's and white supremacists because they should be condemned totally' I know we Americans don't speak the Queen's English but how else do you interpret that?

"We Aussies aren't very big fans of the queen either mate. You guys have mass shooting a lot over there."

"It's underrepresented but most of the world does. Didn't you just have a shooting in New Zealand"

"New Zealand isn't Australia, they're doing the right thing though, banning semi-automatic guns."

"I guess you don't remember 1996"

"I was born that year so no"

Dan forgot that this was a college bar so people there were born in the mid-90s. He shook his head realizing that he was probably the oldest person in the bar and he was only 33. Dan said, "Well let me teach you about your own history on the year of your birth. In 1996, Australia had a gun buy back program in which they destroyed 1,000,000 guns. Crime was falling before then but it fell sharper in America."

"Alright so it worked."

"Oh no, it didn't. The theory is less guns less crimes right?"

"Yea"

"Aussies were so afraid that they were being de-armed that the black market gun market increased dramatically because Aussies knew what liberals don't; that confiscating guns only takes guns away from law abiding citizens not criminals. Those 1,000,000 guns were replaced by 1,026,000 guns. When you say that there's a larger drop in America, it' s because we increased our gun ownership in a larger discrepancy than you did. Both countries, however, had more guns."

"So more guns, less crime"

"Yup, because you don't know who has a gun to protect themselves. Deterrents work."

The night proceeded with drinks and more lighthearted conversations until Dan went back to his cousin's dorm for much needed sleep.

A couple days later, they were on a plane to Melbourne. The short one hour and nine minute flight brought Dan further from home than he's ever been in his life. He was now over 10,000 miles away from home. They walked around the river and had dinner. They spent the night in their Air BNB and then rented a car to drive on the Great Ocean Road. They would end up sleeping in the car because they wanted to finish the whole thing as they underestimated how scenic it really was. The next day, they went back to Melbourne and drank at a restaurant that had Tiki torches spray fire into the sky sporadically. It was pretty cool. Dan walked to Rod Laver Arena even though he knew the Australian Open was months ago. It was under heavy construction but after watching it so many times on TV, it was surreal to be standing in front of it. Pulling the all nighters in New York to watch the event that seemed so far away was now directly in front of him.

A girl walked up to them and they began talking. Melbourne is a very metropolitan city and there are a lot of tourists so having an American accent doesn't distinguish you too much. The girl was also American. She said, "This your first time in Melbourne?"

"Yes," Dan replied, "My cousin is studying in Sydney so I came to visit"

"Cool, I come here like once a year to stay with family. I love it here"

"I'm Dan"

"I'm Katerina"

They shook hands. Katerina was very pretty. She was 5'9" long brown hair, thin in the stomach but well endowed in the breasts and butt region. Her fair complexion made Dan think that she was Greek. He said, "You look Greek"

"I am but that's not too risky a bet in Melbourne. We have the largest amount of Greeks outside of Athens."

"We? I thought you were American"

"I am, I just want to move here especially with Trump in charge over in America. You're not a Trump supporter are you?"

"I am"

"But he obstructed justice"

"And, a couple months ago you would've told me he colluded with the Russians. You people keep changing your story hoping that the people forget why it was debunked the first time."

"Okay, so debunk it for me."

"Which one? Obstruction or collusion?"

"Start with Obstruction"

"James Comey, former FBI director, under oath said 'The President went on to say that if there were some satellite associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn't done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren't investigating him' those are Comey's closed door memos. So two things, One, how can you say he's obstructing when he asks the FBI to investigate? And two, how do you obstruct an investigation that you don't know is going on? Comey told the President that he wasn't under investigation."

"Comey was a snake. That's why he got fired."

"Fine, Andrew MeCabe, High ranking member of the Department of Justice said, "There were no efforts to obstruct the investigation' in front of congress on Capitol Hill."

Katerina typed some buttons on her phone and pulled up the quote and her shoulders sank. She looked up at him and said, "Now I'm afraid to ask but collusion?"

Dan smiled, "Do you know about the dossier?"

"Yes"

"What did it claim?"

"Trump colluded with the Russians"

"Specifically, what specific claims did it make?"

"I don't know"

"Four main allegation 1) 2013 Moscow Hotel Room, Trump watched a prostitute perform a "golden shower" show on a bed while Russian spy cameras recorded the whole thing"

"Yea, I heard about that. Obama slept in that bed too."

"Did you see the tape?"

"No, not that I remember"

"Because it doesn't exist. It never happened. Lies. Never verified"

"Well maybe Mueller has it"

"You really think the media wouldn't release it if they had it? Everything has leaked. We have text messages between FBI investigators and lawyers. We have Cohen's notes in meetings with Trump which should be protected by client-attorney privileges. You think they could keep that a secret?"

"Guess not"

"Secondly, head of Rosneft, state-owned oil company, offered low level Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page billions of dollars in return for ending U.S. sanctions against Russia. Despite that's what the FISA warrant we know about is based on, Carter Page has never been arrested, they can't even prove that Page met with Rosneft let alone took money. Flynn, Papadopoulos, and Manafort all charged with process crimes and nothing on Page and he's the guy that had the most invasive spying tactic the United States will allow on him. Still nothing!"

"Yea, I haven't really heard much about Carter Page. I don't even know who he is"

"That's because the media would rather ignore the story than admit they were wrong. Third, August 2016, Trump fixer Michael Cohen met Russian officials in Prague to arrange secret payments to Russian hackers who attacked the Clinton Campaign."

"Well Cohen's working with Mueller now."

"And yet still, he says he's never been to Prague. They checked his passport, one news organization, forgot which one, sent people to Prague to ask around at hotels and restaurants if anyone had seen Cohen. They showed his picture around nobody saw him. After months, they gave up. I mean these allegations are so ridiculous, not only does the collusion not happen but the trips and meeting don't even happen. Cohen did say under oath several times he's never been to Prague. This seemed to be the one they thought they could prove so more time was devoted to it and still not one shred of it is true. The man had never been to Prague much less met Russians to arrange secret payments there. This is just asinine."

"I think you made your point."

"Last one, Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairmen, managed the well developed conspiracy of cooperation between the campaign and the Russian leadership including an 'intelligence exchange' that had been running between them for at least eight years. After Manafort left campaign, Cohen picked up where he left off."

"Ah ha, that one happened because Manafort was charged and sentenced to seven years in prison by Mueller"

"For what?"

"Tax evasion I think"

"Any charges relating to collusion or what I just told you? By the way, Manafort was involved with Ukrainians not Russians."

"Ummm, I don't really remember"

"Check your little phone"

Katerina did so and sighed, "No, none of this has anything to do with Trump. But Trump hired him and Manafort sounds pretty sleazy"

"That I can agree. Probably why he wasn't on the campaign very long but he didn't collude with Russians on behalf of Trump"

"It would appear not"

"So, what do you think about your dossier now."

"I think I'm on vacation and this is too serious a discussion for a bar."

"Too bad, you brought it up. Many people signed documents saying they verified the information in the dossier and they lied. Hopefully every signatory goes to jail."

"Maybe they were tricked"

"Trey Gowdy, Congressman from South Carolina asked Comey "Do you know whether the bureau endeavored to either contradict factual assertions made in what has later been described as the Steele Dossier? Comey responded, 'My understanding....'First off, any time someone asks a yes/no question to a guy and he doesn't say "'yes' or 'no' he's probably ignoring the question or about to lie'"

"Okay"

"So, Comey's answer to the 'yes' or 'no' question, "My understanding is that that effort - that an effort was under way to try to replicate either rule in or rule out, as much of that collection of reports that's commonly now called 'the Steele Dossier' as possible. And that work was ongoing when I was fired"

"Ok, so they were working on it"

"They had a FISA warrant and renewed it three times before he was fired. For the first one you have to swear the information you have has been verified not just in the US but in New Zealand, Australia, England and Canada too. Everyone that signed off on the FISA lied because Comey admitted that it wasn't verified when he was fired after the FISA had been issued and renewed three times! Jonathan Moffa also circuitously said no"

"Who's that?"

"Deputy Assistant Director in Counterintelligence Division for the FBI"

"Alright, so, ummm, fuck, I mean Trump is still a bully who cares if he probably didn't collude with the Russians?"

"Nobody deserves the awesome power of the United States Law Enforcement community to attack you with no evidence of a crime."

"So you're saying you feel bad for Trump?"

"Shockingly yes, the government is so corrupt they managed to make a sympathetic character out of Donald Trump, of all people."

Katerina laughed. "Okay fine whatever"

"I mean seriously, this is like that movie Dracula Untold where they make Dracula look like a good guy. Who was so bad that Dracula seems good? Well you're Greek, you should like this."

Katerina smiled, "I didn't see the movie but based on that hint, I'd say the Turks"

"Bingo, Trump is Dracula, might not be the most politically correct guy but compared to other government officials, who are like the Turks in this example, he's a good guy."

Dan finished his drink and the next day while his cousin was in class, he did the Cogee to Bondi walk stopping for an hour to swim at every beach. It was the first time Dan had ever beach hopped. Normally once the towel gets dropped, he stays all day. Not this time. Of all the times to do it, the Cogee to Bondi walk is one of the best times. While waiting for the bus at Bondi, he went on his phone and saw an elderly gentleman with a link to a video. The caption said, "the most disturbing video I've seen in a while" he clicked on it. What he saw was an elderly man in Seattle about to give a two minute speech to the city council. He notices that they're all looking down at their phones. When he asks them to look at him when he's speaking, the moderator yells at him that he's wasting time and refuses to restart the time. Dan couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He also decided that this is why he doesn't like when people say, 'just write your congressman' government officials don't listen to their constituents. That was the problem with government.

Dan finished his trip in Australia and flew back to New York. It never ceases to amaze him that people come out so strongly against Trump but when they discuss, they seem to not know what they're talking about. He always blamed the media but to be honest, he didn't watch mainstream media because he knew it was wrong but it hurt in debates when people asked, "Why is it fake news?" He wasn't willing to waste his time though. He read independent documents like the actual FISA warrants and sworn testimony transcripts. It took more work but he felt he could analyze it as much as the next guy. Australia was a phenomenal place and he told everyone he could that they needed to visit. It is definitely worth the long flights.