Theo the Trump Employee Episode 30 Help From the Enemy

                Theo is finishing up his day at his place of employment.  An address people know well…1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; an address that changes all the rules.  It was an eventful weekend at the White House where a large number of black people were invited to the White House to meet the president.  As the line extended down Pennsylvania Avenue for as long as the eye could see, any objective observer would have to pause to believe that President Trump was racist.  Theo has been working in the Trump White House long enough to know that the mainstream media will either ignore the event or lie and say that the president paid them all to be there.  While finishing up, he gets a text message from his friend Tatiana whom he hasn’t seen in a while.  The text reads, “Hey, I was wondering if you’re free for dinner.”

                Theo smiles; Tatiana had been a high school girlfriend of his. At 35, this was a lifetime ago but they were still amicable.  Unlike Theo, Tatiana was married.  Not only was she married but she had a son.  Theo knew this so knew it would be a plutonic dinner that her husband would be well aware of.  He responds back, “I’d love to.”

                “Great, I get off work at 6:30, let’s meet then”

                “Alright, I’m going to be at the bars at Vanderbilt.  Meet me around there.”

                “That works”

                Theo looks at his watch and realizes it’s 5:00.  He’s got an hour and a half before Tatiana shows up.; perfect amount of time to engage with drunken co-eds.  It doesn’t take long for Theo to hear people talking about the second Whistleblower popping up.  Theo turns to them and asks, “What exactly could he or she be blowing the whistle on?  We have the transcript.  Anyone interested can read the conversation”

                “That’s not a transcript”

                “And you know this how?”

                “Well, it doesn’t have anything that the media said was in it.”

                “And you don’t think that an explanation of that could be that the media lied to you?”

                “Oh, so you’re a conspiracy theorist?”

                “No, it’s just logical.  Riddle me this since you’re such an expert on this.  Why did neither Whistleblower doubt the authenticity of the transcript?”

                “Well, the first one didn’t have firsthand knowledge, this one does”

                “The whole world has firsthand knowledge because we all have the transcript.”

                “Well, why would the media lie?”

                “To cover up how Hillary, Obama, the DOJ colluded with Australia, Ukraine and the UK to take down Trump.”

                “Ah, so you are a conspiracy theorist”

                Theo reaches into his jacket and pulls out four articles.  One from Politico entitled, “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfires” written in January 2017. Another from CNN “British Intelligence passed Trump associates communication with Russians on to US counterparts” Another from Hill “Australian diplomat Whose Tip prompted FBI’s Russia probe has tie to Clintons” and a Daily Caller piece, “Steele identified Russian Dossier Sources, Notes Reveal” and shows them to the man and comments, “No, I just don’t let people get away with Fake News changing their story.  I’ll ask you the same question you asked me, ‘why would the media lie?’”

                The group frowned at Theo.  The student takes a more hesitant tone, “Well, Chuck Todd called it a Fox News Conspiracy”

                “Yea, I saw that hissy fit.  He was talking to Ron Johnson who is a representative from Wisconsin.  Do I need to show you the article about Ukraine from Politico for you to realize that it’s not a Fox News conspiracy or do you remember a couple minutes ago?”

                “I haven’t really followed this so I’m not really sure about it”

                Theo smiled, “That’s why I’m here to educate you.  Chuck Todd is the real conspiracy theorist”

                “Didn’t they just call someone to back them up?”

                “His name is Kurt Volker.  He is an envoy to Ukraine for us”

                “Right, so he backed up that Trump was offering a deal with Ukraine”

                “Nope, actually the opposite.  Remember, the allegation is that Trump said he’d withhold military aid from Ukraine if they didn’t investigate Biden”

                “Right, that was it.”

                “So when Volker says, “I didn’t share the hold with my Ukrainian counterparts until after it was made public in late August…What do you think?”

                “So he did mention it.  I don’t know how that helps Trump”

                Theo sighed, “When was the phone call?”

                “A couple weeks ago”

                It was early October so Theo gave him a condescending look, “No, the call was in late July.  The scandal was a couple weeks ago; there’s a difference.”

                The student pulled out his cell phone and looked into it.  His shoulders slumped as he realized Theo was right.  Theo waited for him to figure it out on his own, “So wait, if this Volker guy didn’t mention the aid being withheld till August and the call was in July….I’m confused”

                “You mean you’re confused how you extort someone when the threat is made a month after you request the favor?”

                “Yea”

                “Good question.  Here’s the answer.  You’re being lied to that it was extortion.  If I ask you something and forget to threaten you, did I really threaten you?”

                “No, but maybe Trump meant to extort him but just didn’t say it.”

                “How is that a problem?  Can you read minds?  Do you think President Zelensky can read minds?  It doesn’t matter what you thought about doing, it matter what you actually said and actually did.”

                “Well, I don’t know about these other outlets.  I read the Post”

                “The Washington Post gave Schiff four pinocchios for two of his statements on this case”

                Again, the boy went to his phone and glared at Theo.  “Yea, when Schiff said the committee hadn’t spoken to the Whistleblower, now we know that’s not true.  Also Schiff lied when he said we might not have even known there was a whistleblower had It not been for the ICIG.  The whistleblower went right to the committee and didn’t even consult the ICIG.”

                “Which, by the way, is illegal for a whistleblower to do that and illegal for Schiff not to share it with the entire House.”

                “Really?”

                “Yes, but because Obama and Hillary Clinton own the DOJ, Democrats are above the law.”

                “Come on!”

                “After everything you just heard, how can you deny that?  Look at the lies that have been told with no ramifications.”

                “I guess you have a point.”

                A 5’8” short brown haired slender girl walked into the bar and approached Theo.  She tapped him on the shoulder and Theo gave her a hug.  “Hey Tatiana”

                “Hi” she turned to the co-eds and rolled her eyes, “Have you been harassing college students again?  I’m sorry for him.  He loves arguing for sport.”

                There was a nervous laugh among the students and Tatiana turned to Theo, “Should we go to dinner?  Try to counter all the drinks you’ve had while waiting for me?”

                Theo and Tatiana go to a restaurant and sit down.  They make small talk and Theo starts, “So Ukraine has been coming up a lot lately”

                Tatiana had worked in Ukraine while Paul Manafort, Hillary Clinton and others were paying for information and influence.  Tatiana’s parents were from Western Ukraine, so she hated Russians.  What brought her to Ukraine was to help the Ukrainian friendly president against the Russian-friendly president.  What transpired was a blurring of the lines and she ended up making a lot of money since she spoke both Ukrainian and Russian.  Kiev and east of Kiev didn’t speak any Ukrainian and only Russian was spoken.  Tatiana had betrayed her family and dated Russians after college and became fluent. In Ukraine, however, she was looked at as an American since that’s where she was born.  With so many other Americans making Ukrainian corruption an entrepreneurial endeavor, they spoke freely around her thinking she couldn’t understand.  This made her knew secrets that she sold and made enough money to set her for life.  Now, she was a nurse in Washington D.C. as she enjoyed the job but didn’t need money anymore.  Tatiana took a deep breath, “And I thought I’d get through this dinner without talking about my past”

                “Can you ever get through a rendezvous with me without talking about your past?”

                “You work for President Trump”

                “I’m well aware of that.  I’m also never on official business.  I never speak to the president.  You act like I’m in the cabinet.”

                “Alexandra Chalupa was just a DNC member and look at how much trouble she caused.”

                “Yea, that bitch threatened you didn’t she?”

                “Not really.  Everyone underestimated me. That’s how I got to know what I know.”

                “You were a great spy.”

                “Unintentionally”

                “You probably would’ve been a shitty spy if you intended on being one”

                “That’s probably true.”

                “So, what’s relevant?”

                “Nothing, everything is like three years old but now things are leaking so I can tell you.”

                “Go on”

                “Do you remember Artem Sytnik?”

                “No”

                “You remember Alexandra Chalupa but no Sytnik?”

                “Yes”

                “Okay well Sytnik was the guy who gave the black ledger to Chalupa”

                “That was what they charged Manafort with but it was a hoax”

                “It’s not a hoax that Manafort was being paid by Ukrainians”

                “Right, but that’s not illegal.  The hoax is the black ledger that detailed the cash payments to Manafort that never happened.”

                “Okay, just so you know that Manafort was absolutely being paid by Ukrainians.”

                “I know, I know, You don’t like him because he supported the Russian sympathizer and you were with the Ukrainian friendly candidate”

                “Anyway, so you know how Biden was talking about the ‘solid’ prosecutor general that replaced Shokin?”

                “Yes, when Biden threatened to withhold a billion dollars in aid unless they fired Shokin.  They gave in and fired Shokin”

                “A man named Lutsenko was his replacement”

                “That rings a bell”

                “Now, there’s an audio of him saying, on tape, “I don’t know how but the Americans got the audio recording of Mr. Sytnik’s conversation: He is resting with his family and friends discussing how he would like to help Hillary.”

                “Wait, there’s a recording of the guy who gave the black ledger to the DNC to hurt Manafort because he was working for Trump admitting that Ukraine interfered in our election to sabotage President Trump to help Hillary?”

                “Yes, that is what I’m saying”

                “How do I not know about this?  I work for the fucking White House”

                “Calm down.  Swallow your pride.  This is why you wanted to talk to me right?  I’m the expert on Ukraine.  Don’t think you can help your career either.  Trust me, the president knows this.”

                “Wait?  How do you know this?  I mean, I know you know about what happened in Ukraine but you seem sure the president knows.  The prosecutor general isn’t sure how we got our hands on this.”  The FBI, CIA, and DOJ is in cahoots with Obama and Hillary to cover all this up so they’re not going to help.  How did we get this?”

                Tatiana smiled, “Maybe your Barr and Durham are doing their job.”

                Theo gave a perplexed accusatory look at his old girlfriend who just smiled back, “Maybe” Theo replied not very convincingly.

                “Anyway, it was very nice seeing you.  We should do this again soon”

                Theo was not good at holding back.  He was very blunt and knew that Tatiana could see right through him.  He decided to ask what Tatiana knew he was wondering, “Did you have anything to do with this?”

                Tatiana grinned and hugged Theo, “Good night Theo, it was great seeing you”

                Theo left the restaurant and went back to a bar.  Usually it was to troll liberal college students but now he was confused.  Was Tatiana back into selling information to interested parties?  If she was, why didn’t she try to get information about the White House from him?  Did she not need it because she had better sources?  Why did Tatiana invite him to dinner in the first place?  He decided he was just being paranoid.  He replayed the conversation and saw it as nothing more than meeting up with an old friend.  Luckily, he could go back to his weekday routine as someone was complaining about Bill Barr.  Theo smiled and cried out, “You know that Barr’s job is to investigate the origins of the collusion hoax.  So why not go with the people that passed information to the Obama White House?  It’s okay for them to help Obama but not Trump?”

                It was a woman showing outrage and she snapped back, “There is a lot of backlash from Barr’s request for foreign help from the UK, Australia and Italy.”

                “Right, all the countries that colluded to help Hillary.   The real backlash is Trump because their efforts failed.”

                “There’s no evidence for that”

                Theo pulled out his four articles and showed them to the woman.  He then added, “As for Italy, the whole collusion investigation started because a Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud reached out to George Papadopoulos, who was a low level Trump campaign employee.  Mifsud told Papadopoulos he had dirt on Hillary, Papadopoulos didn’t want to hear it, the Hillary and Obama run FBI and CIA made a big deal out of this and voila, the collusion started.”

                “Well Papadopoulos was looking for dirt on Hillary”

                “No, he wasn’t.  A guy approached him at a bar and offered it to him.  Then the FBI and CIA pretended Mifsud was a Russian spy.  Meanwhile, he’s photographed with a lot of western intelligence articles and La Reppublicca, or the main Italian newspaper, has done a lot of articles about him as being a western intelligence asset. That’s where Italy comes in because Malta is very close to Italy.”

                “Mark Werner says that this will hurt our relationships with other countries”

                “I heard.  He also said this could put the 5 eyes in jeopardy”

                “What is the 5 eyes?”

                “What the FBI and CIA should’ve done with the Steele dossier.  You send it to intelligence channels of England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to vet it and make sure it’s credible and reliable.”

                “Oh, so it’s like an international intelligence organization”

                “Among English speaking countries; yes”

                “Alright, that makes sense.  It would be bad if that relationship was tarnished”

                “Agreed but Werner was a lawyer for Christopher Steele, who was British.  Werner helped link Steele with Russian sources to find dirt on Trump.  He helped smear a political opponent using foreign governments so he started it.  He’s kind of lost the right to complain about it now.  He was part of the problem.”

                “What are we 5?  He started it?”

                “Yes, it was valid at 5 and valid now.  If someone punches me and I punch back; it’s completely legitimate to point out that I was punched first.”

                “Like you said how they should’ve gone through the five eyes with the Steele information, the way this is normally done is prosecutors go through FBI legates to deal with foreigners.  Do you know who they are?”

                “FBI agents in consulates abroad, yes I know what legates are”

                “So, Barr isn’t doing things by the book either.”

                “The allegation is that the legates and the FBI illegally and fraudulently opened an investigation into President Trump.  You don’t ask the people you’re investigating to investigate themselves.  The legates were in on it.  Why would Barr ask them to look into it?   I’m saying the FBI is trying to cover up their malfeasance and your suggestion is to just ask the FBI to look into it?”

                “Well, that’s just a theory”

                “No, it’s not.  It’s a tautological fact.  I just showed you the articles from left and right media sources.  There’s no question that foreigners aided in investigating Trump.  I would say they entrapped and set him up but at a minimum, it can’t be denied that foreigners did aid in the investigation.  It was all based on the Steele dossier.  Steele was British!”

                “Alright, you’re getting a little belligerent.  I’m going to leave”

                Theo chuckled.  “Bye”

                Theo figured it was time to go anyway.  He closed his tab and got on the train to go home.  Theo still had his White House employee card clipped to his waist.  Someone on the train noticed it and queried, “Do you work for the White House?”

                Theo looked down and saw it and was perplexed how nobody at either bar seemed to notice this.  He answered, “Yes I do.”

                “I understand that there’s probably a bunch of different divisions and you’re all not involved in the stuff we hear on the news, but why won’t the White House comply with the subpoenas?”

                “We will if the House votes on impeachment”

                “The House is supposed to be an oversight body of the Executive Branch.  You have to comply.”

                “No we don’t.  It’s called executive privilege.  President Obama did it all the time.  I wish President Trump would do it more but he refuses.  He’s the most transparent president.  The Democrats have been threatening for three years to impeach.  They promised if they won the house in 2018, which they did, they’d impeach.  The president is just asking them to put their money where their mouth is.”

                “Does Trump want to get impeached?”

                “Tough call.  I will say he’s not worried.  Impeaching Clinton helped the Democrats because the country turned against him.  Clinton actually did what he was accused of.  President Trump is going to get impeached for a hoax.  Everyone knows it’s a hoax because he released the transcript so they can read the call themselves.”

“Well, Val Demings said there’s no precedent for the house to vote on it.  She also says the constitution doesn’t say they need to vote so why would Trump demand it?”

“What does she mean ‘precedent’?  It’s only happened twice.  Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.  Let’s ignore the 1800s and go to the more recent one.  When Clinton was impeached, the House did have a full house vote.”

“What about Nixon?”

“He wasn’t impeached, he resigned.  If you want to talk about what happened before he resigned, however, there was a full house vote before he resigned too.  So, yes there is precedent because both when it almost happened and when it actually happened, there was a full house vote.”

“I’m not sure why she told Chris Wallace that there wasn’t then.”

“Because Democrats are morons or liars.  There’s no third option.  It’s one or the other.  Even the constitution argument I disagree with.  Theo pulled out his pocket constitution, “Article I Section II ‘House of Representatives shall have the sole purpose of impeachments.’  Fine, it doesn’t mention a vote but it doesn’t say ‘speaker of the house’ or ‘house intelligence committee’ it says the House of Representatives, which can reasonably be assumed to mean the entire house.  How do you know what the entire house wants?  You vote.”

“The constitution talks about voting in other sections.  It says he’s removed from office with a two thirds vote so if it doesn’t specifically mention it, she may have a point.”

“It’s debatable but how else does she want to impeach him?  Was she clear on that?”

The man looked up seeming to contemplate this, “No, I don’t think she did”

“Now everything you know about how impeachments work both in the constitution and when it happened before, what do you think is most logical?”

“Well, Democrats have a majority in the house.  I’m a Democrat by the way so you called me a moron or a liar.  Why not vote?”

“I agree”

“No reaction to my being a Democrat?”

“No, you know what I feel.  To be honest, I’m not really concerned about your hurt feelings as you shouldn’t be about mine.  We don’t know each other.  We, however, did have a debate and came to an agreement so it is possible for both sides of the aisle to agree on something even if one side insults the other.”

The man laughed, “Well played.  You’re saying the Democrats in congress should work with Trump even with his tweets and attacks.”

“I am and thank you, I thought it was well played too.” 

They shook hands and rode in silence.  The man got off first and not too long after Theo arrived at his stop.  He walked home from the station and looked forward to tomorrow for another adventure at work.