Real Characters Episode 40 Covering up Skolkovo

                It is 2009 and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is meeting with one of her largest donors Viktor Vekselberg.  Vekselberg starts, “I have a plan to set up a technology hub in Russia.  It would be similar to your Silicon Valley in California.”

                “Like a place where cutting edge highly technologically based companies are in the same area sharing intellectual property to aid them in growing and advancing?”

                “Precisely”

                “I think it’s a great idea.  I’ll make some phone calls to try to garner support for this and get other companies to sign on.”

                “Excellent, with America’s backing, this will go a long way to get Russia back on the map.”

                With that, Hillary Clinton met with various Russian leaders including President Medvedev.  In all, 27 companies would be opened in the Skolkova area and, coincidentally, 18 of them were big donors to the Clinton foundation.  While this was being organized, Russian officials reached out to Hillary Clinton’s husband, former-President Bill Clinton and asked him to give a speech.  This is nothing out of the ordinary for Bill as he has a reputation of being a great orator and is very adept at giving speeches.  Despite the usualness of the request, the amount they were going to pay him for the speech was quite unusual.  They offered Bill Clinton $500,000 to give the speech, which was an amount too large for Bill Clinton to turn down. 

                Later, Bill Clinton found himself very ingratiated with Russia but since he still had American secret service members following him around, he couldn’t move secretly so he sought permission from the State Department to meet with Vekselberg and a man named Arkady Dvorkovich who owned a Russian nuclear company named ‘Rosatom.’  The State department official asked, “Why do you want to meet with them?”

                “Arkady wants to buy a Canadian company and I just want to make sure that America isn’t going to make a scene about it.”

                “Which company?”

                “Uranium One.”

                “A Russian nuclear company wants to buy a company with one of the largest uranium reserves?  Isn’t Russia heavily involved in the Middle East?  Most specifically, Iran?”

                “Yes”

                “I can see how people may have a problem with this.”

                “Well, my wife is Secretary of State and it is blessed by the president so this is more of a courtesy.”

                “I guess you answered your own question then.”

                Two years after Vekselberg proposed Skolkovo, the army would call it an overt clandestine espionage to steal military technology from the United States.  They claim it was along the lines of spying in that they already do except on a much larger scale and much more efficient.  A concrete result of it was now Russia has a hypersonic missile that could reach the United States bypassing the missile defense systems.  It turned out that not everyone in Russia was on board with Skolkovo either as law enforcement raided the offices to investigate embezzlement of state funds to Skolkovo.  This investigation would catch the ire of a longtime Russian official intensely loyal to Vladimir Putin named Surkov.

                Four years later, Kathleen Kavalec of the State department is meeting with Christopher Steele to hear his allegation that President Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.  Steele is talking about Trump’s campaign member Carter Page and his Russian contacts.  As she is handwriting notes during the conversation, she pens two Russian names that Christopher Steele informed her were her sources for the information.  Their names were Trubnikov and Surkov.  Kavalec inquires, “Are you aware that Surkov is extremely loyal to Vladimir Putin and has already scammed us with Skolkovo?”

                “That was a long time ago. He’s flipped now.”

                “I wouldn’t be so sure.  Hillary Clinton was heavily involved in Skolkovo and she paid your employer to dig up dirt on Donald Trump so it appears he has a motive to lie because Hillary no longer being in power hurts his Skolkovo goals; among others.”

                Kavelec will document multiple holes in Steele’s story, which presumably was ignored because 10 days later, they used the information to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page.  The information was so disregarded that some believe the notes weren’t to alert the FBI that Steele isn’t credible, but was given to Steele to help him get his story straight and not make such easily disproven assertions.  Either way, he didn’t get the message because he kept espousing the lies. 

                Three years later, in 2019, Hillary Clinton is frustrated.  She has had her tentacles in the FBI, CIA, DOJ and all aspects of government trying desperately to destroy Donald Trump but he keeps coming out the other side of scandal after scandal smelling better and better.  Even after the Democrats took control of the house in 2018, they couldn’t pressure him to destroy him as his favorability kept rising.  Finally, Hillary and the Democrats got desperate when the Mueller probe was an epic failure.  Their last stand was to call Mueller himself to testify and he came across as a bumbling idiot.  The very next day they made up a story in which Donald Trump talked to the President of Ukraine Zelensky and threatened to withhold military aid in exchange for an investigation into Joe Biden.  This is very similar to DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa meeting with, then Ukrainian President, Porochenko to find dirt on Donald Trump.  It is Chalupa that found out about Paul Manafort and his shady dealings in Ukraine politics.  Ukraine did produce a fake document called the ‘black ledger’ but the damage was done and Manafort was fired as Trump’s campaign manager and then charged and convicted for crimes that had nothing to do with Donald Trump.  Although no Republican voted to impeach Donald Trump and three Democrats voted against, Donald Trump was impeached.  This prompted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to hold the articles as Hillary used her tentacles and influence to try to find more information knowing that the House hearings were a sham and support for impeachment plummeted despite Republicans being denied the right to call witnessed.  In a trial with only Democrat witnesses, support among independents for Impeachment dropped 20 points. 

                It took three weeks, but finally Nancy Pelosi got what she was looking for.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a statement that Trump broke the law withholding military aid to Ukraine.  They also indicted a man named Lev Parnas for campaign finance violations in order to coerce him to cooperate against Giuliani and President Trump.  Parnas agreed and Hillary Clinton called her media boot lickers to have him on so he could sing the story fed to him by Clinton and the Democrats. 

                Before that, Pelosi presents the GOA findings to the Republican Senate leaders as they are in charge of the Impeachment trial.  A GOP representative squints her eyes, “You do realize that the GAO has claimed that every president was guilty of illegality?  Nobody ever takes them seriously because it’s an unconstitutional organization.”

                “This time they’re right though”

                “Were they right in 2014 when they ruled that President Obama broke the law by swapping 5 detainees of Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Bowe Beghdahl?”

                “No, that was just partisan politics by the Republican congress against a Democrat president.”

                “You do realize that we can make the same claim about you now?”

                “Look, it’s my job to tell you the facts so I did.”

                “It’s extremely weak.”

                “Don’t lose the forest for the trees.  This ruling proves that we should impeach.”

                “How do you figure when the ruling was 1/16/20 so you impeached him before the ruling?”

                “Donald Trump withheld military aid.  Congress set aside that money specifically to give to Ukraine and he didn’t.  That’s a violation.”

                “Congress gave President Trump the deadline of 9/30/19 and he did end up giving them the aid.”

                “That’s irrelevant.”

                “It is very relevant.  Their deadline was on September 30 and we transferred the money on 9/12/19 so how did he violate the GOA ruling?”

                Pelosi shakes her head and storms out of the office.  It appears the GAO isn’t going to be the ace up their sleeve that they thought.  When she reports this to Hillary, Hillary shrugs it off, “That’s okay, Lev Parnas is really our star.”

                Parnas tells everyone that will listen that he personally relayed the message to the Ukrainians that if they don’t investigate Biden, they aren’t going to get the aid.  When asked who he spoke to, he gives a name but when they asked the Ukrainian if this was true, the Ukrainian denied ever talking about the aid with Parnas.  According to the Ukrainians, they only spoke about arranging a meeting with Giuliani.  

                Upon Hillary’s urging, Parnas has a meeting with the New York Times.  The times reporter poses, “I understand that you have information about the quid pro quo with President Trump and Ukraine.”

                “Yes, I personally delivered the threat.”

                “Did the President ask you to do this?”

                “No, I worked with Giuliani but I’m sure Trump knew.”

                “Have you ever spoken to President Trump directly?”

                “No, I have not.”

                As Parnas makes his media rounds, his life becomes a whirlwind.  He lands on CNN and they ask him the question that everyone else has.  They all want to know what he knows about Ukraine.  Parnas responds, “President Trump called me in for a secret meeting.  I was tasked with a James Bond like mission to Ukraine.”

                “A secret mission?”

                “Yes”

                In order to pile on, CNN calls NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman on to the show to talk about Parnas and this bombshell moment.  Haberman is very familiar with Parnas’ contradiction with what he told her employer the Times and what he told CNN.  She already feels embarrassed because she went hard on the Russian collusion hoax only for the rug to be pulled under her.  She shakes her head and decides that she’s not going to toe the line.  They’ll find someone else to parrot the narrative but she knows someone who can’t keep their story straight when she sees one.  She tells the panel that after being burned by Avenatti and Cohen, perhaps they should be nervous about Parnas.  When asked about how the Republicans are worried if he becomes a witness, Haberman dismisses it saying that the Republicans want him because she doesn’t believe it will work out as well as he hopes it will.  This was a nice way to say that the Republicans would expose him for a liar and expose his contradictions.  As she is already started down the path, she lets out what she’s been holding on to for so long.  She warns the panel to stop giving instant credibility to anyone that is against President Trump.  If Hillary wants media personnel to gaslight, they’re going to have to pick someone besides Haberman.

                As Hillary watches Haberman’s performance on CNN, she is frustrated but concludes it’s not too devastating.  As Democrats are want to do, when America fails, go abroad for what you need.  Keeping it in the CNN family, they go to the foreign office with the always reliable and one of the few people at CNN with a shred of credibility, Christiane Amanpour.  She calls the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs on her show to ask about Parnas threatening to withhold military aid.  Hillary, believing Amanpour had a soft interview before going on air so is aware what the minister will say, breathes a sigh of relief as she finally thinks a Ukrainian is going to back up her story.  The Foreign Affairs minister rejoins that he had never spoke to Lev Parnas and if he was going to make that threat, he should’ve made it to him.  He goes on to talk about how he has a very close relationship with President Zelensky and the Ukrainian president never mentioned Parnas.  As if these statements weren’t clear enough, he flat out tells Amanpour not to trust a word that Parnas is saying.  He finally addresses the withholding of the aid by telling her that it is standard procedure to have the assistance reviewed twice a year to make sure that Ukraine is living up to their end of the bargain so it wasn’t a big deal if the aid was being held up.  He again asserts neither he nor President Zelensky were aware that the aid was being held up but adds that it doesn’t surprise him that there were questioning it since that was standard.  Hilary bows her head as she watches yet another narrative fall apart.

                Hillary takes out her phone and thinks to dial James Comey as he can at least stick to a story even if it is fabricated and an outright lie.  Before she clicks the green button to call, she remembers that Comey is under investigation for leaking classified information to the media.  She clicks off the phone realizing it’s a bad idea.  Finally, something happens to brighten her day.  Former congressman, Trey Gawdy is on the news and being asked about Comey.  Gawdy clarifies his statement that he doesn’t like Comey but admits that since Comey didn’t want to tell Senate Intelligence officials the classified information even though it was the committee’s job to be briefed on classified information, he found it hard to believe he leaked it to the media. 

                Hillary isn’t the only one watching as Jim Comey is also tuned in at his home.  A confidante of Comey taps him on the shoulder, “See, you’re getting defended by people who hate you.  This charge won’t stick.”

                “Yea, I’m just so pissed at how often I was lied to.”

                “With Brennan and the Steele information?”

                “Well that but no that’s not what I’m talking about now.  The thing that I leaked was Russian intelligence that they intercepted e-mails between Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Loretta Lynch.”

                “Saying what?”

                “That after Hillary wins the election, she’ll be exonerated.”

                “So what?”

                “It was a hoax.  There were no e-mails.  The Russians were lying to me.”

                “We all make mistakes.  The Russians are very good bullshit artists.”

                “Yea, but few of us make public statements trying to get ahead of the story.”

                “I don’t recall this.”

                “Remember on July 5, 2016, when I told everyone that Hillary was reckless with her e-mails and I laid out the case but then I told the world that no respectable prosecutor would prosecute this case?”

                “Yes, I do recall that”

                “That was because of this information.  I wanted to clear the deck for the future president and do a favor for Loretta Lynch.  As an FBI commissioner, I don’t prosecute, the DOJ does but I gave her a reason not to.  She took it too because Lynch released a statement later that she was taking my advice and not prosecuting Hillary Clinton.  That should have handed Hillary the election but it didn’t.  With Trump winning, I was exposed and now I’m in the center of this mess with conservative media constantly dragging my name through the mud.  Meanwhile, Loretta Lynch is hardly ever mentioned and given a pass.  Even Hillary and Obama who coordinated this whole thing are above scrutiny.  It’s all on me and Brennan.”

                “Shit rolls downhill I’m afraid”

                “I always thought I was enough uphill that it would flow passed me.”

                “You still kind of are.  They may investigate you but they’re not going to convict.  You’re too connected and too important.  You’ve survived everything else; you’re going to survive this. 

                “I hope you’re right.”

                “I am.  Look around, the only Democrat to be charged was Michael Avanatti and he went after Nike so he’s just an idiot.”

                “Yea, and his clients are porn stars.”

                “Right, so that’s really downhill and he’s the one that got shit on.  It’s over.  He’s the only Democrat going down.”

                “We shall see.  The spring will be very telling.”

                “Durham is going to be just like both Horowitz reports.  It’ll give the conservative media something to talk about and get them all in a hissy and then nothing will come of it and no charges will be made.”

                “Yea, you’re right.  I don’t know why I’m so upset.  Thanks.”

                “No problem”

                The Senate now has a decision if they’re going to allow witnesses.  2020 is going to be very ugly and very partisan.  The interesting thing is the focus is all on Trump that nobody really is paying attention to the Democrat field of candidates.  Three of them are going to have to sit in on impeachment hearings so won’t be able to campaign.