Real Characters Episode 32 Unite or Fall

                Nancy Pelosi is not in a good mood.  After the 2018 midterm elections, various Democrats swore they would try to impeach President Donald Trump once they took over the house, which they had.  At first, Pelosi thought that this was just to curry favor with liberal voters but as soon as the Democrats were sworn in and they had a majority, impeachment proceedings began.  At first, Pelosi tried to convince her party that it was a mistake as when Bill Clinton was impeached, it caused a backlash against the Republicans.  Impeaching Donald Trump could have the same effect the other way.  As the months progressed, it became clear that her fellow Democrats in the house weren’t going to let it go.  At first she tried impeachment hearings behind the scenes to appease them but not alienate voters.  When that failed a couple times, she let Adam Schiff convince her to do it his way by having a public impeachment with strategic leaks to the media but all testimony would be secret.  As it turned out, Schiff was unable to keep it secret and the Republican house members he purposely excluded showed they wouldn’t take it lying down so crashed the meetings.  Now, Schiff convinced her they had no choice but to have a public hearing but since he’s the chairmen, he can suppress Republican questions and opinions and still present a one-sided argument to the viewers.  Despite his best efforts, he was wrong as the public hearings were a disgrace and made them look really bad.  She turns on the news hoping that the always friends mainstream media will spin it so they actually look good and convince the American people that their interpretation of what they saw on their television was false. What she found was Eric Swalwell being interviewed by Martha McCullum. 

Martha is trying to ask Eric if the situations were switched, would he investigate Eric Trump if he did everything Hunter Biden did.  Eric was savvy enough to use this to attack the Trumps for being corrupt business owners and bringing up real estate deals that existed before Donald Trump became president.  Martha, however, is hearing none of it and steers him back to her question and after a couple times trying to dodge it, Eric admits that he would investigate Eric Trump if he did what Hunter Biden did.  Nancy utters under her breath, “Do you know the Trumps are the only presidential family to lose money in office?”

As Pelosi is lamenting at the situation she dug herself in to, meanwhile, elsewhere in the Capitol, is Senator Mitch McConnell.  One of his aides is in his office and states, “Don’t worry sir, it’ll burn out eventually.”

“I actually think it’s a good thing if they impeach him?”

“And Why’s that”

“Well, the voters will retaliate at the election booths in 2020.  Those who may not have voted will now.”

The aid realizes where he’s going and fires back, “Since the trial takes 6-8 weeks, then many of the front running Democrats; Warren, Sanders, Booker etc. will have to choose between campaigning or sitting in on impeachment hearings.”

                “Yea, I agree, then after delaying their campaign to sit in on Senate Intelligence Hearings that they know is a fake, the house Democrats are going to ask for their support?  This will fracture the party.”

                “Let’s put it out there that we’ll entertain it so that the impeachment Democrats get riled up and hope they make that mistake.”

                “It will also put the house Democrats, some of them in red or only slightly blue districts, in a position to vote.  If they vote to impeach the president, they may just lose their spot in 2020 and the Republicans take back the house.”

                Back at the Capitol, Adam Schiff calls Nancy Pelosi.   Nancy hesitantly answers the phone and Schiff remarks, “I know things haven’t gone according to our plan, but a Ukrainian is going to give a public statement today.”

                “Well, the Ukrainian president has said on several occasions that there was no quid pro quo and he didn’t feel pressured.  He even told everyone that he didn’t know the aid was being held up.”

                “I think he’s going to be a whistleblower and back us up.  Why else would he be coming forward?   Even if he isn’t on our side, one of the quid pro quos we put out to the media was that we would give them the aid if they made a public statement that they’re going to investigate Burisma and Hunter Biden.  If he does that, then it will confirm that.”

                “I’m not so sure.  We changed our story.  First it was the military aid, then it was the public announcement and then we switched to a meeting at the White House.  The last two never happened and they got the aid anyway.  As far as I know, there is no investigation into Hunter Biden or Burisma so it was never believable”

                “Yet! If he comes out and says they’re investigating, then it confirms one of our narratives”

                “But it happened after we already gave the aid.”

                “To the Americans paying attention, they’ll realize that but the casual observe won’t”

                “Let’s speak after the foreign official makes his speech.”

                “That goes without saying.  We need to stay united on this.”

                “Adam, trusting you on this has really backfired.”

                “That’s why I’m making it right.”

                The Ukrainian foreign minister goes in front of the cameras ready to give his speech.  The house is listening in as the Democrats are hoping he says something they can use and the Republicans are a little less anxious as every Ukrainian has backed up their story and they don’t see why this should be any different.  Barack Obama held up aid to them.  Joe Biden threatened not to give them a billion dollars unless they fired their prosecutor general.  He was on tape bragging about it in January 2018.  Ukraine knows that Donald Trump has been a better ally than Barack Obama so doesn’t understand the incentive for them to stab him in the back.  Then again, many people the president has helped have given into pressure to betray him.   As he speaks, just like every whistleblower that has come forth, there is nothing new that he adds.  He merely confirms what Ukrainian President Zelensky has already told them several times in that they had no idea that the aid was being withheld. 

               

Politicians aren’t the only ones listening in as the New York Times brass is also keyed in.  When they get the message, they think how to spin it.  Given that they couldn’t spin what the Ukrainian president said, and this is just corroboration of it, they do what they always do when they can’t spin a story and just ignore it completely.  Their owner, Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire who makes a lot of his money by stealing a percentage of remittances back to Mexico, which is why his paper is so pro-illegal immigration, has been pressuring them to help the Democrats.  The New York Times has always been the propaganda arm of the Democrat party but lately it’s been increasingly difficult to show them in a positive light.  The higher ups huddle up to think about it and a woman offers, “What if we just discredit the loudest voices exposing the Democrats as liars.”

A man fires back, “All we’ve done for three years is attack Trump.”

“Not Trump.  Someone that people don’t know.  Someone that they are less defensive about.”

“Do you have anyone in mind? Devin Nunes?”

“No, like I said, not a politician.  People can see through that.  There is a journalist who used to work for ‘the Hill.’  He was one of the first people to expose the Russian collusion narrative as a hoax.  His information and evidence have been thoroughly researched and rock solid.  He did such a good job convincing people that he built enough trust to leave the Hill and now operates his own news outlet simply called, ‘John Solomon reports.’  What if we discredit him?  Since he’s made a name and probably increased his income from this, he’s easier to attack.”

“Nobody cares about Russian collusion anymore.  We’re on the Ukraine phone call and impeachment.”

“That’s the point.  Solomon has exposed those two as the exact same thing.  He wrote an article telling all his readers that Russiagate and Impeachment-gate are the same thing.”

The man contemplates this for a little bit and another woman opines, “Don’t you believe that ‘no press is bad press’?  If we write a hit piece on him, then more people are aware of him.”

“He’s already done enough damage to the Democrats; we really need to take that risk.”

An editor level mulls this over and asserts, “Do you have any dirt on him?”

“Not really, but we can frame it where it seems like he’s not credible.”

The dissenting woman tries again, “I really think this is going to rile up the right.  When we attack someone, then they think they’re on to something.”

The editor-level responds, “They’re riled up anyway.  I’m not sure we can rile them up anymore.  How do you want this article to be written?”

“Like you said, the main thing we need is to discredit the assertion that Russian collusion and the phone call are the same thing.”

“Devin Nunes already made that link in his opening statement at the public hearing.”

“And John Solomon is probably the most trusted corroborator of that story.”

“I apologize for interrupting, please continue.”

“The story that was the link was that after Joe Biden got Prosecutor General Shokin fired, the new one, Lutsenko, received a memo from Obama’s government of a list of people not to prosecute.  Solomon calls it ‘the do-not-prosecute list.”

“Not very creative.”

“We can say that he says that but that story has come under doubt.”

The original man blurted out, “Didn’t we already run a story that he was lying about that?”

“Exactly, we’re the ones that called it into doubt.  Nobody backed us up on it but now we can reference ourselves as the doubt.  We already got ahead of this story by attacking the story and now we can make a vague claim like ‘story is in doubt’ without revealing how and by whom it was in doubt.”

The editor level replies, “Did anyone back us up?”
                “No, because it was a lie and Solomon exposed us for it.”

“How did he do that?”

“He got the information from Lutsenko.  We explained that Lutsenko’s translator messed up in translating what he said and it was just a misunderstanding because of interpreter error.  It was the only thing semi-believable that we had.  We tried to put pressure on Lutsenko to backtrack on the story but now that Democrats aren’t in charge, they lost their power to pressure him like they had before.  We thought that Solomon would just take the critique in stride as he knows how the game is played.  There’s no way to discredit an interpreter telling you the wrong translation.  Also by doing this, we thought that Solomon would find some journalistic solidarity and recognize that we didn’t attack him.  After all, he can’t be blamed because he reported on false information.  We attacked the information but not the messenger hoping this act of good faith would appease Solomon not to double down.”

“I’m guessing that’s not what happened.”

“Nope, Solomon called Lutenko again with a different interpreter and Lutsenko confirmed that he was given the do not prosecute list and Solomon reported that exposing us in our lie.”

                “Then this a revenge plot for his ungratefulness that you tried to do this without hurting him and he threw it back in your face.”

                The woman shrugged her shoulders and rejoined, “Yea, but what’s wrong with that?”

                “Nothing, however, I’m still unsure how this links the Russian collusion story with the Ukrainian phone call story.”

                “The former Charge D’Affair or second highest ranking US Official in the embassy, George Kent is testifying about the phone call on the Democrats behalf.  The person that gave the do not prosecute list is former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.”

                “I’m with you so far.”

                “George Kent was the one that pressured Ukraine to give the black ledger to the Democrats so they could attack Paul Manafort and, by extension, Donald Trump.  They got Manafort fired for this and it was one of the few semi-believable things about the Russian collusion.”

                “I thought Manafort was dirty just not for anything related to Trump.”

                “He was but the infamous black ledger that the Ukrainian embassy gave to the DNC was a fraudulent document.”

                “Without spinning it, what is the truth?  Is John Solomon right?”

                “Yes”

                “Alright then that needs to be in the article.  Make the headline talk about how Solomon’s story is called into doubt but somewhere in the story mention that Yovanovitch did in fact put pressure on certain people.  Make it seem like the ‘lie’ that Solomon told was it wasn’t called a ‘do not prosecute list’ she just merely put pressure not to look into or investigate a series of people.”

                The original man declared, “Isn’t that the same thing?”

                “Yes, but that’s the point.  You rebrand it to make it seem like they’re different things.”

                The woman articulates, “I like that idea because it gives us cover for if and when Solomon comes back at us.  Besides, nobody really reads passed the headline and even if they do, it’s the headline that they remember so their bias will try to make everything in the article support the headline and will read things that aren’t actually there.”

                The editor level pronounces, “Just who was on this list anyway?”

                “Members of an anti-corruption group called AnTAC, which if funded by Hungarian Billionaire and Democrat and liberal mega-donor George Soros, two officials that attacked Trump and Manafort, and journalists named Vitali Shabunin, Sergey Luschenko and a senior law officer named Artem Sytnyk, among others.”

                “Let’s talk about substance.  Besides Solomon’s phone call with Lutsenko, is there any other hard evidence?”

                “Yes, George Kent wrote a letter to Lutsenko proving that it happened.  The Republicans are in possession of the letter about the Manafort and the Trump hit campaign that Kent drafted.  The letter was authenticated by the State department and the coup de grace is that under sworn testimony, Kent admitted that he signed the letter.”

                “Solomon really did his homework.  George Kent being involved in both may not be that strong a link to the two.  Kent was an official at the US embassy in Ukraine, not Russia.  Sure, he got the black ledger and gave it to the Democrats but we could just say that he was given bad information by the Ukrainians.”

                “I thought of that but one of the people I mentioned on the list, Sergey Luschenko, was Nellie Ohr’s and Fusion GPS’ source.  They’re the ones that exposed the black ledger and they wrote the Steele dossier and spearheaded the attack against Manafort.”

                “If you link Fusion GPS to that list then you’re right, that’s a strong link and we need to not highlight that at all.  Stick to the original plan: vaguely talk about the doubt and make a damning headline that’s not supported by the body.”

                “Will do.”

                The article is written and Devin Nunes reads it and smiles.  It never ceases to amaze him that the Democrats constantly try to project their crimes on Trump.  He thinks back on his opening statement at the hearing and laughs.  With this piece, he knows he did the right thing by not holding back and calling the public hearing a televised performance for the Democrats and those testifying are being cast in the low-budget sequel to the Russian collusion hoax either willingly or unwillingly.   He could play the game that the New York Times originally played on Solomon.  By opening the doubt that those testifying were not completely complicit, they may be able to be turned to reveal the pressure and malfeasance that the Democrats put on them damning them even more.  Nunes had to leave the door open that they could claim they didn’t know that they were being used to resurrect a failed Russian collusion hoax.  Unfortunately, the show ‘Homeland’ already had a name for these people and it was ‘useful idiot.’  Like everything else, it was projection because they made the Republicans the useful idiots with a Democrat president that took on the intelligence community.   In a sense, they made Trump a Democrat and those opposed Republicans knowing that the real bad guys were the intelligence community and projection is the only way the Republicans look bad and the Democrats look good. 

                As the Democrats in the house constantly meet to get their story straight, there is a common problem and her name is Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC).  She is very vocal that she wants to investigate other things but finally she reluctantly agrees to make a statement in support of her fellow Democrats.  The thing that finally convinced her was when they told her that the only important thing is stopping President Trump from getting re-elected in 2020.  AOC issues a press conference and utters what she was told but does it in a way that she can feel good about.  She mentions that the Ukraine impeachment is a good thing if it united the caucus but then talks about what she wishes they were looking into.  As she keeps talking, her head is conflicted because she feels like she’s being used as a puppet.  As if someone has their hand up her and is forcing her to say what they want with her voice.  She is nobody’s dummy so she blurts out to her fans what convinced her to say this and tells the world that this is only about stopping a catastrophe from happening in 2020 and that catastrophe is the re-election of Donald Trump.

                Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff watch the speech and both of them put their head down.  There is just no helping this 30-year-old idiot.  She has no filter.  She doesn’t know what to tell people and what not to.  It’s a little redundant to say a politician is power hungry but the problem is not only is AOC power hungry, she’s not strategic and she’s too dumb to know what’s confidential and what’s not.  The leaders of the Democrat party don’t want to be the ones to tell her what not to say and what to say because it should be obvious.  They don’t have time to hold her hand.  Pelosi and Schiff seriously contemplate not telling AOC things anymore but her and the rest of her squad fight back when they feel slighted.  They’ve already attacked the Democrat messiah Barack Obama so appeasing them is important.  The only way the Democrats are successful is if they’re united in a mob like force.  Pelosi calls Schiff and he accepts the call but talks first, “I know, I know that was bad.”

                “What are we going to do with her?  You keep telling me you have this under control and you don’t”

                “I never said I could control AOC.  The hearing isn’t over.  We just need to tell her as little as possible.  She needs to know just enough that she doesn’t publicly attack us but the real damning stuff we keep her in the dark about.  What did she really say?  We don’t want Trump to be re-elected?  That’s obvious. We’re the opposing party and we have been very vocal about not liking Donald Trump.”

                “She implied that the only reason we have these impeachment attempts is because we fear the re-election.  People can’t know that.”

                “Like I said, it was bad but it’s not catastrophic.  At least, we didn’t tell her what we’re really doing.”

                “Yea, we need to make sure that nobody ever tells her that this is really a soft coup.”

                “Yea, that would be much worse.”

                “Unfortunately, the conservative media does report on that.”

                “They have a much lesser following than our media.  Let them stay in the fringe as people aren’t going to believe them anyway.”

                “They might considering they keep pointing out that if we were serious, we wouldn’t need to scour the laws and try to get him on archaic accusations like the Logan Act that hadn’t been prosecuted since the 1700s, the 25^th Amendment, which was intended if the President is physically incapacitated like in a Coma or something and emoluments clause that AOC kept talking about when Donald Trump is the only president to lose money when in office so arguing that he did it for financial gain is ridiculous; especially since he waived the salary.”

                “That’s why I didn’t go with anything like that.  Instead, I used Trump’s law against him by calling my minions ‘whistleblowers’ since Trump signed a whistleblower protection act.”

                “But all your ‘whistleblowers’ are based on hearsay.  You haven’t convinced one Republican to vote even in the inquiry.  Yet, two Democrats voted against it so there’s actually bipartisan support against impeachment than for.  How can you say you know what you’re doing?”

                “We’ve gone too far to turn back now.  We need to see it through.  I know I messed up but our only option is to let me fix it.  I’m all ears if you got any way to help but if not, you just need to support me.”

                Pelosi sighs and hangs up the phone.  She shakes he head and thinks that if she only stayed strong in resisting impeachment, this would‘ve never happened.  Given that she’s a representative in California, she got so much pressure from her constituents as well as fellow Democrats.  She thought that if she publicly claimed it wasn’t a good idea, people would assume that she only changed her mind because she got good evidence as to why to change her mind.  That message, however, was lost.  After all, she was the candidate for San Francisco, perhaps the most liberal city in the country.  She was safe no matter what she did.  Then again, that’s what AOC’s predecessor thought as he’d been voted in by liberal Astoria, New York for over two decades.  Then some young 20-something whippersnapper bar tender beat him in a primary.