How I trained myself to drink black coffee

I stopped putting cream and sugar in it.

Dear AG Barr

Billy,

Can I call you Billy? AG sounds like what the 4H kids used to call themselves in high school, always followed by a head nod and hand gesture that has not aged well. And William makes you sound like a king, which, may I remind you, you are not. So Billy it is.

Look, Billy: We’ve got a situation on our hands here. At some point, people are going to read this damned thing, and they’re going to realize that there’s only one reasonable conclusion to be drawn from it. So I’m writing to help you with some of this damage control. You can’t change people’s opinion about what they read, but you can influence what they read. No, I’m not talking about redactions and the found poetry of your “summary” - those were cute tricks, but they leave behind a trail. What I’m talking about here is influencing not how they read it, but what they read. You’re going to leave several trails, so that the ensuing discourse will focus on which trail is real, not on the obvious implications of the one true report.

Have you seen the trick that TV villains use, where they stand in a hall of mirrors to confound the good guy? That’s your play. Release the report in ten different versions, with significant variations among them. Those prone to conspiracy, which at this point appears to be roughly half the country, will have everything they need. Some will argue that these are different drafts from Mueller’s team, others will argue that the version supporting their already-drawn conclusions is the one true report, and still others will (rightly) accuse you of trickery. But none of it will matter, because they’ll be talking about everything except what is, at this point, obvious to those of us whose brain has not yet been turned to mush. 

I think you can figure out what to put into those other versions, but just in case, here’s a starter list:

• Unnecessary, nonsensical editorializing by investigators, meant to confirm the worst fears of his constituents, coming out in not-so-subtle lines like, “The president, a white man, did not understand that his dealings with Klimnik were racially insensitive.”
• Salacious details about the president’s conduct, not just while in Russia, but also in places he could not possibly have been, such as Antarctica, the International Space Station, or inside a library
• “Accidental” inclusion of a report-within-the-report about Hillary Clinton’s role as a star witness

I could go on, but I think you’ve got it from here. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to screw this up as badly as you need to.

Your Friend,

Plaidimir

PS Just in case, I have leaked ten different versions of this letter to the press.