A pair of Soviet-born men, who allegedly introduced Rudy Giuliani to Ukrainian officials in his ongoing quest to destroy his own reputation, were arrested yesterday while trying to leave the country with one-way tickets. Federal prosecutors alleged the pair also tried to funnel foreign money to a number of Republican candidates, which is against the laws of the former United States. As if that's not wild enough, these two dudes had lunch with Giuliani in a Trump hotel hours before being arrested. AND AS IF THAT'S NOT ENOUGH these two guys own a business called, I swear I am telling the truth, Fraud Guarantee. And they also own a Ukrainian club called Mafia Rave. Baz Lurhman and John Woo called to say that this was all a bit over-the-top.
But one shouldn't read anything into it. Plenty of innocent people have lunch with alleged criminals from Fraud Guarantee hours before said alleged criminals are taken into federal custody. This is what we call a coincidence.
And besides, it's not like they advertised it like a bunch of nincompoops heading to a mafia rave.
Oh... wait. This just in:
You are looking at actual video footage of the ghost of Rudy Giuliani's legacy sitting next to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who are currently raving in federal custody, and waving at the camera like a deceased spouse in a movie detective's tragic backstory. Not only have they stopped trying to hide the collusion, they've resorted to TikToking it.
I don't think we're fully prepared as a society for how deeply stupid the movie version of these events is going to be. Like a KidzBop version of All the President's Men. A quickly cobbled together Lifetime movie with terrible wigs that are still somehow better than the real life wigs. An atrocity.
That said, I would never say no to being hired to write this actual and figurative farce. Here's a transcript of my most recent pitch meeting with a Hollywood executive:
Okay, so picture it: you've got Rudy Giuliani and these two Ukrainian-associated dudes sitting in what looks like a mall food court.
Why?
A profound lack of taste. My best bet is they decided a fun lunch would be walking by the Panda Express multiple times and taking samples of the Orange Chicken until they were full.
Did they wear new disguises every time they got a sample?
I think we both know that they didn't. Okay, so the Hero of 9/11 is sitting there in an absolutely enormous shirt that has no relationship whatsoever to his physical form. Think Missy Elliott's inflated black costume from the "Supa Dupa Fly" video but by Brooks Brothers. And he's got his tie on but not tied. At all. Perhaps was never tied. It's just a flaccid tie dangling from his neck like a Scarlet Ligature.
I don't understand.
Please don't try to. Oh! Here's something. About a decade ago I went to a formal event and I wore a bow tie slung around my neck, untied. Purposefully. I think I saw it on a Justin Timberlake video. And the entire evening people kept asking me if they wanted them to help me tie my tie and I had to keep replying "No thank you. It's a look!" And I am now ready to concede that it was not, actually a look.
Why are you telling me this?
It adds color to the story! Anyway, so Rudy is sitting there half-dressed, next to Rosencrantz and Guilderstern, and for some reason they decide that this needs to be documented on video. What's crucial to this scene is that it's unclear if they knew, going in, that this was a video and not a photo but what is clear is that they all come to this understanding at different moments. As will be the case when he realizes he's fallen out of Trump's favor, Rudy is the last to know.
Don't you think that these people, whether guilty or not, would want to avoid the appearance of collusion?
Shockingly no! This is a character study, see? Of the dumbest criminals to ever walk the Earth. People so blinded by their power that they don't even realize how dumb they really are. You may say, "Isn't it dramatically convenient that hours after they take this pointless video, two out of the three of them are arrested?" And I say, "Must I remind you that this movie will be very, very bad? But not, I remind you, as bad as reality. Also there's a boat chase and I'll write a part for The Rock."
You're hired.
