In Our Possession - Audio Recording Admitting Collusion

May 10, 2017

We have successfully made an audio recording of President Trump's conversation with Russian diplomats Lavrov and Kislyak today. During the chilling conversation the three candidly discussed the open collusion between President Trump and the Russian government to influence the public with misinformation, the foreign policy agenda Putin wants President Trump to pursue, the President's compensation for services, and general strategy for upcoming propaganda. Lavrov expressed Putin's frustration with President Trump that he has fanned the flames of his own political problems, suggesting that the increased costs associated with generating sufficient propaganda material to aide President Trump might reflect in reduced financial compensation. One notable quote is President Trump saying If I'm going to attack North Korea before Christmas then I want 75% of the loans forgiven.

We will not be releasing this audio recording because it will have absolutely zero effect on anything. This audio recording will not lead to criminal charges. It will not lead to impeachment charges. The President's supporters will continue to make excuses and gaslight denials. Congressional Republicans will also deny what the recording clearly says, because it's embarrassing for the Party.

Of course, only one of those two paragraphs above are true. Namely, the first one is a lie. No such recording exists, but there is a deadly important matter surrounding the sufficiency and value of evidence against POTUS we need to discuss now that we have your attention. But the second paragraph is true. Many people seem to be sitting back waiting for evidence, wanting evidence, begging for evidence, getting mad at us for not finding and leaking new evidence. It seems that we are failing to communicate our message. And it's more dire than ever that people understand that the road to resistance is you, it is the pressure you put on Congress, it is the undeafenable roar you create that overrides every other divided loyalty that Congress has to special interests, partisanship, or political ideology .

The People must unite, and commit, and we must do it now. The President of the United States is a traitor, selling out the country to a foreign government. He is quashing dissent and attempts to reveal the truth, he is installing loyalists who will do his bidding so that he can control investigations, and is doing all of it using your own outcries for more evidence as his greatest protection. As long as everyone wants more evidence, the President can continue denying the evidence, pressing the threshold infinitely higher for the rest of his life.

We have said time and again that this hardly about evidence at this point. This is not about more evidence, or enough evidence, or incontrovertible evidence. Too many people seem to think that there is some level or degree of evidence that cannot be denied. If that is your thinking then you aren't just wrong, you are deadly wrong, bordering on complicity. That belief is exactly what President Trump wants you to believe. He is counting on you waiting for the day that when he can't deny the truth any longer. Because he knows that that day will never come.

There is no level of evidence that can't, or won't, be denied by this President, his supporters, or his apologists. There is no lie too brazen for them to tell. There is no excuse too irrational or absurd to embarrass them into silence. This is the same person who said he could commit cold blooded murder in front of the world without losing votes. And these are the same people who proved him right by cheering him on when he said it. Impeachment is not something that happens in a court of law. At it's core impeachment is a political tool for political crimes, not civic crimes. The meaning of high crimes in the constitution are wrongs and bad acts unique to government office. And those things can be entirely political. Treason, bribery, or other high crimes . Impeachment is not about DNA evidence in a rape case, it's a method for Congress to remove a government official for the grave political offenses, even after criminal law might fail to do so.

We have checks and balances in this country. You are part of them. The People are the ultimate check and balance of the government. And that doesn't end at voting. Voting is just the beginning. Our Founding Fathers enshrined in our constitution our incontrovertible rights to assemble, to petition our government to address our grievances, and to shout those grievances at the very doorstep of the Capitol and the White House. The full weight of the American people engaged, assembling, demonstrating, and demanding action from their government is the greatest force against tyranny that has ever existed. Our Founding Fathers knew that, they expected it, and they begged us to never forget it . No amount or degree of evidence will ever make Congress move as long as the People remain complacent.

Some people think that members of Congress are too selfish to listen to the People. In fact, the opposite is true. Congress is guaranteed to listen to the People when we appeal to their deepest seated selfishness -- their very survival in office. The problem right now is that apathy is the most deafening sound in our politics. Louder than the backlash about Comey's firing, louder than President Trump's opponents, louder probably than anything our country has ever seen or heard. How many times have you heard that Bannon and the President are trying to wait out the opposition? How many times have you been told that the goal is to see the resistance fade away, tired and defeated? Too many people are either unwilling to be involved because they've given up, or are placating themselves by waiting get involved until there is more evidence.

The firing of Comey is the most brazenly corrupt development yet that we have seen from President Trump. His grasp on power is increasing, and his wielding of it is escalating. And it's happening when opposition is putting itself to bed. Between the fatigue of some, the apathetic complacency of others, the partisan blinders that immobilize too many people for anything short than installing Hillary Clinton as some kind of supra-constitutional mulligan, and the failure to understand the basics of our civics by others yet still, the opposition to President Trump is tucking itself away into footnotes in the annals of history. We are at a dangerous crossroads from which there may be no turning back.

All we hear anymore is people demanding that we do something to stop this train wreck. Give us evidence, leak something we can use against him, do something! What do you really expect us to do? Even if we somehow managed to have the kind of recording we described at the beginning, it wouldn't matter because Congress still have no incentive to act when the People continue to be apathetic and complacent . People like Andrea Chalupa and her colleagues are organizing mass protests. And the most common responses we hear from people are Why bother? It doesn't matter. Someone else will investigate. I heard there was a Grand Jury doing something that's sealed and secret and it's gonna be big. You bother because the President is shutting investigations down. You bother because if you don't, then neither will Congress. You bother because indicting a low level fall guy from the campaign won't accomplish anything more here than it did with Scooter Libby. You bother because if you can't be bothered, then you are complicit. Authoritarianism does not arise in a day against the screams of the people. It ferments to the sound of a tired whisper.

Gee Rogue POTUS Staff, why don't you tell us something we can use? Tell us what's happening, tell us how to stop it.

Why bother? Every time we do, it's met with denials, brush-offs, and hyper-partisan repudiations. You want to know if President Trump is an agent for the Russians? President Trump is an agent for the Russians. Do you want to know if he fired Comey to shut down investigations? He fired Comey to shut down investigations. Do you want to know how you can stop him? You stop him by getting out in the streets to march and protest to demand an independent investigation and scare the living shit out of Congress in the process.

Everything depends on we the People forcing Congress to act. The only hope we have is getting through to Congress. Not because they want to. Because they have to. Because the uproar is too great. Because the momentum is too heavy and the possibility of being on the wrong side of public sentiment is too dangerous to their re-election chances. We did this with the Tea Party. A minority of the the Republican party became the most powerful political group in the entire country all because they were loud, they wouldn't back down, and they were determined, come Hell or high water, to see their complaints get an audience. And for half of those fools their biggest gripe was that the President was a black man. To this day, birtherism remains, despite incontrovertible evidence.

Not every act of protest will result in its facial goal, but widespread, massive protest identifying precise and substantive grievances can and will weigh on Congress. We have to remember to always aim higher than our reach, so that falling short of our aim still leaves us within reach of our goal. The March for Truth needs to happen, and needs to demand that Congress legislatively create an independent investigation. There is no such thing as an independent investigation that arises from the Executive Branch. If we move Congress to legislatively enact an independent investigation, President Trump will have no meaningful power to prevent it. If the President were to veto a bill creating an independent investigation against him that originated from Congress being pressured by the People, we go back out and march for impeachment. Keep the pressure on Congress to produce results and they will formulate a way to make an investigation happen. If it's their only out, then they'll produce.

Meanwhile, every act of organized, massive resistance puts the pressure on President Trump's ego and drives him closer and closer to collapsing under the weight of his own fragility. It's not pettiness that drives us to say that distressing this President needs to be a constant objective (though the fact that it's not mere pettiness is itself a sad indictment of how pathetically small and petty the President himself is). Every ounce of critical energy weighs on him and drives him to lash out at the very people around him he needs in order to stay protected. Every outburst in the West Wing, every unhinged phone call with legislators, every time he humiliates staffers high and low, every embarrassing public display of childish antics, all of these things serve to drive deep wedges between the President and his political allies. And yes, we once said the President should be deprived of Twitter. And we're not exactly abandoning that position, but the fact is that he is on Twitter. And if he's going to act like a child on Twitter at least something productive might come of it, but only in the greater scheme of keeping up the pressure so he continues to drive away his allies.

And, you know, when President Trump has his meltdowns we're the ones who end up on the front lines dealing with it. It makes our lives absolutely miserable when the President has a meltdown. But we're asking you to make it happen, and happen often. Those of us in this group can turn our backs on him publicly, but we're not enough. We are a drop in puddle in the ocean. We need your help to make that puddle grow. So don't just March for Truth. March in front of Congress, do it again and again, mail in eviction notices and send CCs to your Congresspersons, recruit everyone you know to engage in persistent mail campaigns (not simple postcards that don't say anything with no other aim than to create a big pile of mail; you have to write actual letters that specifically state grievances). For that matter, print out a few hundred eviction notices and organize with friends to go out into the community and recruit signers, as if it were a petition signing. And then turn around and march again when the next one is organized.

Everything comes down to you and your willingness to be involved.

Our country is teetering on a precipice. Yes, it is that bad. No, it is not about partisan politics or the fact that you want to save Obamacare or forgive student loans. If your objections to President Trump are about the partisan issues, then you are no better than the people who support him because of Clinton's emails. The President of the United States is betraying the country to the interests of foreign powers. The only partisan divide that matters here is between those of us willing and able to put party politics aside over this issue, and those who aren't.