May 23, Washington
Drew Harwell, a Washington Post reporter specializing in coverage of the digital world, was at home in Silver Spring, Maryland, early on Thursday morning, May 23, sifting through his overnight emails. One caught his still-sleepy eyes.
A tipster had written from the West Coast, saying he had come across something odd. It was a video of Nancy Pelosi posted online. She was giving a talk, and she seemed drunk. The tipster suspected the clip was a fake. Googling for reporters with a track record for writing about doctored videos, he had found Harwell’s name.
Take a look, he urged Harwell.
Harwell clicked.
The video was of Pelosi’s appearance the day before at the Center for American Progress. A moderator was asking her questions. Many reporters were there, listening as she said Donald Trump’s refusal to cooperate with House investigators amounted to a “cover-up” that “could be an impeachable offense.”
Harwell listened now, too. She did sound drunk, just as the tipster had said. She was slurring phrases, “the United Schtates of Uh-merica.” But it was so blatant that Harwell thought it couldn’t possibly be authentic. Wouldn’t somebody in the press have noticed if the Speaker of the House had shown up in such a dreadful state? Especially while accusing the president of a cover-up? Everything pointed to a fake.
Politics wasn’t Harwell’s beat. But he had been reading the recent news stories about Pelosi and her impeachment balancing act. Was the video a political dirty trick, an attempt to undermine her credibility when she needed to be at the top of her game?
Still in his sweatpants, Harwell began thinking through his next steps. First and most important: Was the video already circulating widely? That was his baseline criterion for investigating doctored videos. Why give oxygen to something no one had seen?
Harwell had been down these digital pathways before. In November 2018, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had shared a video online of CNN White House reporter Jim Acosta at that day’s briefing. Acosta was pressing for an answer to his questions, using a hand-held microphone, and a young White House aide had come over to take it away. Their arms collided as Acosta fended off her reach for the mic. Working with experts at The Post and elsewhere, Harwell discovered that the version had been altered by someone—slowed down, and a few frames copied and added—to make Acosta seem more aggressive.
That story had put Harwell on the radar of tipsters who wanted to alert him to other fakes. The Pelosi video merited more scrutiny. As with the Acosta video, it would be easy enough to find C-SPAN’s recording for comparison.
It wasn’t yet 7:30 a.m. when Harwell started his digital dive. Checking Facebook, he saw the questionable video on multiple pages. On one, run by a conservative site called Politics WatchDog, the video already had nearly a million views. Enough to keep going, Harwell thought.
He watched the C-SPAN version. Pelosi sounded normal. He adjusted the playback speed to 75 percent, an option while using YouTube. Bingo. Pelosi sounded like she had in the other video. Harwell forwarded the link to several forensic experts he knew from earlier stories. He sent queries to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google, seeking comment. Around the same time, one of the experts got back to him. No doubt. The video had been deliberately doctored.
Harwell messaged Elyse Samuels, a colleague on The Washington Post video team. Samuels was a whiz at analyzing video. She determined that, as Harwell had suspected, the speed had been slowed to about 75 percent. But that wasn’t all, she told him. To correct for how the speed change would deepen the tone of Pelosi’s voice, the video had been altered to modify her pitch. It was simple to do. No high-tech wizardry required.
One key question remained: Was it a political smear? Maybe it was just somebody trying to be funny. But if politics wasn’t part of the agenda, why choose Pelosi to mock? Logically, it seemed safe to say that the person wasn’t a Pelosi fan. And that “somebody” was placing the fake video on message boards and regional news sites. The original tipster had emailed back, saying he had seen it on the Oregonian newspaper’s site, in the comments section of all places.
Whatever the motive, Harwell thought, the episode showed how even simple, crude manipulations could move quickly through the digital ecosystem. Soon, people who hadn’t even seen the video would be saying: Did you hear about Nancy Pelosi? How she was drunk at a speech?
As his editor had said when Harwell alerted him, this was turning out to be a good story.
While Harwell was chasing down the origins of the doctored video, Pelosi was back on the public stage, holding her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill.
After taking the “I” word for a test drive at her Center for American Progress talk, after Trump’s storming out of their meeting on infrastructure, Pelosi was expecting a larger-than-usual crowd of reporters with tougher-than-usual questions. A C-SPAN camera crew was there, of course.
She primed the pump, using the word “cover-up” again, just as she had the day before. She brought up Trump’s walkout, calling it a “temper tantrum” and a “stunt,” part of his “bag of tricks” to divert attention from his many problems.
Cover-up. That word again, echoes of the Nixon Watergate scandal. Was this Pelosi’s not-so-subtle way of indicating a shift from no, he’s not worth it, to hold on, I might be changing my mind? Or was this that favorite Washington gambit, a trial balloon, to see how the public might react? Or was this just more of the same, another Pelosi attempt to appease those in her caucus who were demanding that she push the “I” button?
The reporters were keen to ask. But before they had their chance, Pelosi said, “The House Democratic Caucus is not on a path to impeachment.” Then, in the same breath, she offered a new and provocative explanation for her resistance. Impeachment was what Trump wanted, she claimed. Impeachment was part of his reelection strategy. Impeachment would allow him to play the victim, knowing the Senate would never vote to convict him. By not taking the bait, Pelosi was thwarting his plan.
“That’s where he wants us to be,” she said.
When the time came for questions, the reporters aimed directly at her subtle shifts in position. “Yesterday you said that the president may have engaged in impeachable offenses,” one said. “Yet today, you’re saying you’re not on a path to impeachment. Can you explain why you’re opposed to launching an impeachment inquiry that many of your members want to do?”
Pelosi maneuvered around the question, circling it, addressing both sides. “Let me be really, very clear. The president’s behavior in terms of his obstruction of justice, the things that he is doing, it’s very clear, it’s in plain sight, it cannot be denied. Ignoring subpoenas, obstruction of justice. Yes, these could be impeachable offenses.”
But investigation was the best route for now, she said. “Impeachment is a very divisive place to go in our country. And what—we can get the facts to the American people through our investigation, it may take us to a place that is unavoidable in terms of impeachment, or not. But we’re not at that place.”
Pelosi had a plan. She had told her aides: She wanted to deliberately wind Trump up. Let him reveal himself as erratic and volatile. At the end of her prepared remarks, she said: “Again, I pray for the president of the United States. I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.” Calling for an “intervention” would get a rise out of him, no doubt.
It didn’t take long. A few hours later, Trump turned a White House event on federal aid to farmers into a fuming gripe session about Nancy Pelosi. He said her family intervention remark was “a nasty-type statement.” He said she had “lost it” mentally. He suggested that a new North American trade deal under negotiation was too complicated for her to understand. He denied that he wanted to be impeached.
Trump loved insulting schoolyard nicknames, like “Cryin’ Chuck” Schumer and “Crooked Hillary.” But he hadn’t come up with a keeper for Pelosi. He made a stab with “Crazy Nancy,” but then immediately told the reporters, “I don’t want to say that, because then you’ll say it’s a copy of ‘Crazy Bernie,’ ” his moniker for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
He said he was certain about one thing, though. Pelosi had changed. “I’ve been watching her for a long period of time. She’s not the same person.”
Something about Pelosi seemed to bug him. Perhaps he was frustrated that his verbal blows seemed to land on her like so many downy feathers. Perhaps he found her harder to deal with because she was a woman. Whatever it was, she needed to use it to her advantage.
For the moment, she had Trump red in the face and her caucus under control. Not a bad place to be. For the moment.
As Pelosi was talking to reporters at the Capitol, four men sat in the Oval Office, talking to Trump about their trip to Ukraine for the Zelensky inauguration three days earlier. It wasn’t going well.
Gordon Sondland was settled in one armchair. Next to him, getting more uncomfortable by the minute, were Rick Perry, Volker and Senator Ron Johnson. Sondland could hear White House aides coming and going behind him, but he wasn’t registering who was there. He was too focused on the problem right in front of him: a very unhappy-looking president of the United States.
Sondland and the others had arranged the meeting. They had wanted to give Trump a report on the inauguration trip and promote Ukraine’s new president as a corruption-buster worthy of Trump’s support. But they had barely sat down when Trump interrupted. He wasn’t buying it. He wasn’t interested. The Ukrainians were not on his list of favorite people.
“They were out to get me,” he said. “They tried to take me down.”
Trump railed on, complaining about Ukrainian deceit and treachery. “Horrible, corrupt people,” he said. Sondland was alarmed. So was Volker. Their goal of arranging a Trump-Zelensky meeting was in trouble. Trump doesn’t want anything to do with Ukraine, Sondland thought. His hostility is deep and intense.
The problem was quickly apparent to him and Volker. They were too late. Others had the president’s attention on Ukraine, including Rudy Giuliani, who was peddling an ominous, darker story: that Ukraine’s new president was one more bad guy, with bad people around him, bent on doing bad things.
“Talk to Rudy,” Trump told them. “Rudy knows.”
Rudy. Rudy. Rudy. Everything seemed to come back to Giuliani.
Now, with Trump saying, “Rudy knows,” Sondland was realizing that Giuliani wasn’t some rogue actor. He was Trump’s eyes and ears. If the “Three Amigos”—as Sondland had jokingly referred to himself, Perry and Volker—had any hope of changing the Ukraine narrative, they would have to talk to Rudy, Sondland thought.
But first, they needed to emerge from the meeting with something they could use to repair the damage Giuliani was doing. Sondland could see that it wasn’t going to be easy. Trump was repeating himself, like a needle stuck on an old-fashioned record album. “They tried to take me down,” he was saying. “Terrible people.”
Volker saw an opening. Instead of arguing, he told Trump: You’re right. Ukraine has long been a terrible place. Corruption is endemic. Zelensky agrees with you. He ran on a campaign to clean it up, and that’s why he won. It won’t be easy. He’ll meet with fierce and powerful resistance. That’s why he needs your support. He can’t do it alone.
For two years, Volker had been serving as Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, with a mission to help the country in its hostile standoff with Russia. He had the most Ukraine experience in the room, and he leaned on that credibility now. He described Zelensky as Ukraine’s best chance in 20 years to break the grip of corruption that had held the country back since winning its independence from Russia.
Volker had only met Trump in person once before. It wasn’t a positive experience. In September 2017, Trump was scheduled for a talk with then–Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Before the meeting, Volker wanted to persuade Trump that Ukraine was worthy of U.S. support. For months, Trump had been making clear that he wanted a better rapport with Russia. Volker feared that Trump’s overtures toward Putin might mean sacrificing good relations with Ukraine.
Just before Trump’s arrival then secretary of state Rex Tillerson told Volker that he should expect about 45 seconds to grab the president’s interest. Volker had been hoping for 15 minutes. He rushed through his pitch. Trump’s impatient reply sounded, to Volker, like talking points from Putin’s script.
Trump argued that Ukraine was really part of Russia, that most Ukrainians wanted to have a close relationship with Moscow, that the country was “totally corrupt,” more a kleptocracy than a democracy. Volker knew enough not to contradict the president. “You’re making some good points, sir,” he told Trump, and then tried to steer the conversation in a more pro-Ukraine direction.
Now, in the Oval Office, Volker could see that the president’s skepticism of Ukraine had only hardened. To Volker, Trump’s antagonistic stance made no sense. The administration’s strong support of Ukraine, which had bipartisan backing, had been a foreign policy success story for Trump. The election of Zelensky, a charismatic, pro-Western leader, suggested that even better days lay ahead.
“This is a new crowd,” Volker told Trump. “This guy is different.”
“That’s not what I hear,” Trump said. “I hear he’s got some terrible people around him.”
The amigos tried different tacks, taking turns. Sondland told Trump he was excited about Zelensky, about his team. Perry and Volker stressed Ukraine’s strategic importance in the region. But nothing was working. “Talk to Rudy,” Trump said. Sondland felt himself getting pissed off.
Senator Johnson felt he was in the strongest position to push back on Trump’s views. He was the only person in the delegation who did not work for the president. He stressed that no one was asking the president to support corrupt oligarchs and politicians. He told Trump: Look, you and Zelensky have a lot in common. Like you, Zelensky is a political newcomer facing strong resistance from entrenched interests, both outside and inside government. A reference to the deep state never hurt with Trump.
Looking for a way forward, Johnson asked Trump if he could keep his reservations about Ukraine private until he met with Zelensky. Trump agreed, but said he wanted Zelensky to know exactly how he felt about corruption in his country before arranging any sort of visit. As they got up to leave after about 20 minutes, Sondland didn’t know where they stood. Maybe Trump would make a phone call to Zelensky. Maybe not. Maybe he would be willing to meet with Zelensky at some point. Maybe not.
There was only one clear directive. “Talk to Rudy,” Trump said. Rudy would set them straight.
Sondland didn’t like the idea of involving Giuliani. He thought the State Department should be carrying out Trump’s policy in Ukraine. He didn’t understand why the president’s personal lawyer should be involved at all. But Trump didn’t trust his own diplomats and analysts, just like he didn’t trust much of the FBI or the Department of Justice. Sondland resigned himself to the idea that serving the interests of the United States, and a president he admired, meant talking to Rudy.
The meeting was most jarring for Volker, who knew Ukraine so well and U.S. foreign policy in the region. Perry was a former governor of Texas. Sondland was a wealthy hotelier who got his job because he was a Trump megadonor. Johnson had a keen interest in Ukraine, but his background was running a business in Wisconsin before being elected to Congress. Volker had worked as a CIA analyst, had spent years in Europe as a diplomat and had served as U.S. ambassador to NATO.
Volker had two options, he told himself. He could ignore the problem, at the expense of U.S. policy and Ukraine. Or he could try to fix it. Not much of a choice, he felt. He would talk to Giuliani. People at the State Department and the NSC would be furious. They would tell him, no, that’s crazy, it can’t work, the Ukrainians won’t understand what’s going on, we don’t need Giuliani and his irregular channel.
But Volker had convinced himself that it was the only way to go. Yes, it was risky. Yes, it was unorthodox. What else could they do?
He didn’t share with Bill Taylor any details from the Oval Office meeting. That would have ended any possibility of Taylor taking the Kyiv job. Better to wait for Taylor to talk with Pompeo. A conversation with the secretary wouldn’t satisfy all of Taylor’s concerns, but it might get him to yes. Volker hoped Taylor could be turned around. If they were going to contain Giuliani, it would be important to have a like-minded ally at the embassy.
Even as Harwell was preparing his story about the “drunk” Pelosi video, word about it was spreading. Rudy Giuliani had tweeted a link to it, asking: “What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi? Her speech pattern is bizarre.” Giuliani eventually deleted the tweet, but his original message was clear evidence that the video was being seen in conservative circles.
Later on Thursday, President Trump tweeted a different video taken from the Fox Business Network, a selectively edited clip focused on Pelosi’s pauses and verbal stumbles. The two videos fed into what Pelosi’s defenders have called sexist and conspiratorial portrayals of the health of America’s highest-ranking elected woman. They also resembled political videos that posed similar questions about Hillary Clinton’s fitness in 2016.
Just before 3 p.m., not quite eight hours after Harwell had first seen the tip, his story went online, along with side-to-side clips of the original video and the doctored one. His queries to officials at YouTube, Twitter and Facebook had produced widely different responses. YouTube immediately removed the videos because they violated “clear policies that outline what content is not acceptable to post.” Twitter did not take the video down. The company declined to comment, but its published policies permitted “inaccurate statements about an elected official” as long as they didn’t include efforts at election manipulation.
Facebook declined to remove the video, even after its own independent fact-checking groups, Lead Stories and PolitiFact, had deemed the video to be fake. “We don’t have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true,” Facebook said in a statement. The company said it would “heavily reduce” the video’s appearances in people’s news feeds and append an informational box with links to the fact-check sites.
Pelosi herself didn’t raise much of a fuss about the fakes. She was used to online assaults. There was probably not much use in fighting them anyway. After Facebook decided not to pull the fake video, Facebook groups kept promoting it. The Politics WatchDog page hosted a user poll with the question: “Should Pelosi video be taken down?” When a majority voted no, the page’s administrator wrote, “The people have spoken. Video stays.”
That was posted alongside an emoji of a wineglass.