When is a Lie Not a Lie?
I’m sure that some of you will LOL about this, but I really do try not to write every blog story about how outraged I am about Donald Trump and the gang of Republican lawmakers and administration cronies that continue to stand up for the man. Today the situation has yet again shifted. As the parade of credible, patriotic career diplomats and intelligence professionals gets longer and longer in their recitations of what has been transpiring in the U.S. diplomatic entanglements with Ukraine over the past several years, a narrative of presidential abuses (specifically bribery), self-interested manipulation of public assets (Congressionally appropriated for specific national security reasons) and procedural duplicitous circumvention (the “hand grenade” that is Rudy Giuliani) has clearly emerged. It has proven to be a consistent and compelling narrative that may be possible for Lindsey Graham to ignore, but is increasingly difficult for those loyalists in the Ukrainian muck trying to do Trump’s bidding to lie their way around.
Imagine that you are a mid-level Trump team member having the time of your life in some cushy, perk-laden position of pseudo-importance. You are jetting here and there with the imprimatur of the White House, taking meetings and acting important. Life is good and you’re doing what you always wanted and then you get a call from the boss. It’s payback time and the boss wants you to cross some lines in his organization to get a job done. You’re one of his trusted soldiers and the diplomatic core is rife with all these “deep state” sorts that simply don’t understand the importance of loyalty and get bogged down in protocol. He wants you to work through Rudy. A little red flag goes up because you’re aware that Rudy is not technically a part of the official administration, but you’re no fool and you know how close Rudy is to the throne and you’ve seen enough of the ways and means of the boss to know that he doesn’t like his orders challenged, even for his own good. Furthermore, the boss has shown an amazing Teflon-like quality to get away with most anything he wants to get away with.
You were a successful hotel developer from Chicago and you didn’t really know Trump other than a few casual meetings here and there. In fact, you weren’t really even a Trump fan and truth be told, you didn’t even vote for the guy. But when he won you thought, why not? You donated $1 million to his election party and through those contacts, arranged to get a sweet ambassadorship to the EU for your donation. Trump didn’t give a shit about the EU, and you figured that out, but a tour in Belgium doesn’t suck. Now he wants you to help with this business in Ukraine. There is no point in telling anyone that Ukraine is not part of the EU. Those who know that know not to challenge the boss on anything. Those that don’t know that (like the boss himself) don’t give a damn about such designations. This is what has been wrong with American foreign policy, it’s too driven by facts and hidebound protocol rather than getting important stuff accomplished.
As you got into the task at hand and spoke to Rudy and the other White House staffers, it became clear that this was like any other business deal. The developer world and the Chicago developer world specifically were all about making deals by maneuvering around rules, regulations and even laws. You just needed to find the right points of leverage and then apply pressure. It was a little different due to language and the fact that this was a bigger playing field where you were dealing with the top national players not functionaries. The boss wanted the Ukrainians to help him deflect the whole Russian election tampering issue and also discredit Joe Biden by unmasking his Achilles heel, his son Hunter’s international finagling. Yeah, it was not kosher, but even by business standards it was all pretty minor league and the boss was on a roll. Not even Mueller laid a glove on him.
So, when this whole Whistleblower thing got out of Barr’s grip and found its way to the Congress, you set a clear course to keep things on track. When Congress called, you decided you were smarter and tougher than most of these wimps. There were now published texts between you and Kurt Volker that directly implicated you in this mess. You had mud on your shoes so simply ignoring the Congressional subpoena after ignoring the request to appear did not seem like a risk you needed to take. You prepared your testimony and knew there would be some minor explaining to do, but no big deal. You were confident and it all went fine. You successfully tread that line where you were able to appear forthcoming to the Committee and yet didn’t have to spill the beans about the boss’ true intentions, which you understood very well. All good.
Then the parade began and your lawyers were calling you every day warning you about more and more contradictory testimony from people all across the administration. There were State Department, Intelligence Professionals and now even an NSC active-duty Lt. Colonel who had a desk in the West Wing. This was suddenly taking a turn in the wrong direction. You hadn’t signed up for this. The fun was over. Your lawyer lays out the possible penalty for perjuring yourself before Congress. And those damn guys always bring along a few FBI guys in the room just so they can charge you with lying to the FBI as well. There’s always the Presidential pardon program, but that list was growing too long to count, and especially count those ahead of you on the importance list. So, it was time for a change of tactics.
You haven’t lied to Congress if you quickly amend your official transcript and declare quite innocently that all this testimony refreshed your memory on a few key points having to do with this whole “quid pro quo” thing. You are suddenly a very important witness to Congress and maybe the key turning point in this whole mess. Trump wouldn’t put himself out for you so why should you put yourself in harm’s way for him. You never really liked him that much anyway and this was all his fault. Congress is likely to be so grateful for your help that you’ll be a hero, not a goat. After all, a lie is not really a lie if you quickly correct the record, right?