DINNER PARTY TALK

The newly-released audio tape of Donald Trump and Lev Parnas is troubling for several reasons. It was purportedly recorded in April of 2018 at a dinner party at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Talking to Trump about Ukraine, Parnas suggests there's a problem with the ambassador. He says she's telling folks they shouldn't bother talking to Trump about anything because he's going to get impeached.

You should wait, she reportedly said, and talk to the next guy.

After clearing up the point about who Parnas is referring to (Marie Yovanovich, the US ambassador to Ukraine), Trump can be heard ordering some flunky to get rid of the woman.

"Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it."

(Oddly, it takes a year to make it happen, but that's another, twisted story.)

The first question, of course, concerns the authenticity of the tape. Is that really Trump talking? I have to say, it sure sounds like him, both in voice and in his habit of repeating himself.

Asked about the tape, Vice President Mike Pence says it just shows the president making a decision. Implied by his comment is his acceptance that it is Trump on the tape, so maybe we can call that a kind of authentication.

But now we need to look deeper.

Yes, the tape reveals the President of the United States making a decision. But a decision based on what information?

Trump appears to order the firing of our ambassador to Ukraine because a guy he didn't know (and repeatedly claims he still doesn't know) made a comment at a dinner party.

Does that make sense?

I think a more reasonable response to Parnas might be: "Wow, really? She said that? Sounds like something my people ought to look into."

You know, kind of ease into the situation, maybe check it out, see if there's anything to it. Get the ambassador's input, and so forth. Then act, if action is warranted.

But Trump goes from zero to sixty in nothing flat, calling for the woman's ouster on the spot. How come?

Here's a weird idea: Is it possible he mistook Parnas for Vladimir Putin? I mean, I guess they sort of resemble one another.

And no question, if Putin had said those words to Trump, Yovanovich would have found herself headed for a yak ranch in Siberia within the hour.

Putin definitely has that man's ear in all matters.

(In the "perfect" phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky, Trump said she'd be going through some things. But yak ranching?)

Or was Trump just goofing around to impress his dinner guests? Show them how decisive he can be. Give 'em a demonstration of his awesome presidential powers.

And meant not a word of it.

(Did the woman have to go just to back up his reckless words? Is that why it took a year, folks pushing back?)

Another possibility: Trump had already decided to ditch the ambassador, and used Parnas's words as an excuse.

If that's the case, the tape is not the origin story of the Yovanovich firing. Stuff was already in the works, for reasons unrelated to anything Parnas said.

The problem with that, this dinner party occurred a year before Joe Biden entered the presidential race against Trump.

That messes with the Democrats' impeachment story, which is that Yovanovich was dumped to make possible the quid pro quo with Zelensky, a "favor" that is all about getting dirt on Biden.

So was the Trump/Giuliani plot hatched before or after the dinner party?

The hand grenade in the room is Rudy Giuliani. Did his personal machinations in Ukraine predate Trump's reelection bid? Was this all about his attempt to make money in a country known for corruption?

Which brings up this: Was Trump involved in Giuliani's self-enrichment plan? The Donald certainly likes making money. And his one-time campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was already consulting for the previous government of Ukraine, and apparently making a mint at it, too.

Did Trump hope to get a piece of that oozing pie for himself?

Parnas says he no longer believes the rumor about the ambassador that he passed on to Trump. He says he's sorry for what happened to her. But what was his purpose in telling the president?

Was he just trying to sound important, to sound like an insider, to make himself out to be a wheeler-dealer, a man worthy of rubbing elbows with rich and powerful presidents?

I haven't heard the whole tape, but sources say Parnas was involved (or hoped to be involved) in a deal to sell liquid natural gas to Ukraine. Was that on his mind? Did he think Yovanovich would be an impediment to that deal?

His attorney says the rumor originated in Ukraine. It was not something Parnas made up. If true, his words were not part of something cooked up by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.

More questions rise out of the abyss:

Was Rudy also involved in the LNG deal? Was there an LNG deal? If so, how did it relate to Burisma Holdings, an energy company in Ukraine that produces five percent of the natural gas used in that country. (And also happened to have Joe Biden's son Hunter on the board [from April 2014 until his term expired in April 2019, according to Wikipedia.])

I fear we may have stumbled into quicksand here.

Motives that seemed to make sense are now morphing into something far more complicated. At the very least, folks start off with one plan and slip-slide into another, all the while moving in the same direction toward what looks like the same goal.

Getting Yovanovich out of Ukraine seemed to solve a multitude of problems for a crapload of people, related or unrelated, you pick 'em.

Several things remain clear, however: Donald Trump is a lying sleazeball who is a threat to our country. He needs to go.

He also appears to be a paranoid lunatic who can be set off by some rando's words at a dinner party, a fact that stands without a discussion of the rando's motives for saying those words.

And here's a bonus: We've got a brown-nosing vice president who seems not the least bit alarmed by that fact.