After Mr. Ramirez left the witness box, Vice Adm. Crandall produced a second witness via a Zoom call, a Hispanic female who said her name was Elsa Fuentes and told the court she had been Pelosi’s unpaid intern between January-March 2018. Her appearance on video seemed to unnerve Pelosi, whose eyes narrowed contemptuously while gazing at the woman’s face on the screen. The admiral asked Ms. Fuentes a few routine questions: How did you become interested in politics? what were your routine duties? Did you enjoy the work? Was the environment pleasant? Did you enjoy Nancy’s company?
“I hated the bitch by day 2. My duties? Arranging her calendar, setting up appointments, cancelling appointments, fetching coffee and cappuccino, cleaning her office, taking her clothes to the dry cleaners, picking up her clothes from the dry cleaners, making her hair appointments, running to the liquor store for her twice a week…” Ms. Fuentes said.
“You sound a bit bitter,” Vice Adm. Crandall said. “Is it safe to say bitterness won’t affect your testimony?”
“Just cause she’s a bitch don’t mean I’d lie,” Ms. Fuentes said. “If I’m angry, was angry, it’s cause I knew interns for other Reps weren’t doing the sh—stuff I had to do. And most Reps paid interns, but Nancy didn’t. Hi, there, Nancy, good to see you’re finally where you belong,” she went on, suddenly smiling as she vigorously waved at the defendant.
Vice Adm. Crandall asked her to not address or incite the defendant. Meanwhile, Nancy sat still as a puddle of stagnant water.
“Let me pull your attention back to what you told me when you gave a sworn deposition, Ms. Fuentes. The day–March 10, 2018. You were in Nancy Pelosi’s offices then, is that correct?” asked the admiral.
“I was,” Ms. Fuentes answered without hesitation. “I remember cause Nancy kept me late doing spreadsheets and transcriptions, and other reasons.”
“And Nancy was present?”
“She was in her office and I was in what we called the side office. More like a large closet than an office, where secretaries or interns sit. A door connects the two, and it wasn’t really ever locked or closed all the way. I think Nancy probably wanted to eavesdrop, you understand, in case we were talking about her,” Ms. Fuentes said.
“Let’s refrain from speculation please, Ms. Fuentes.”
“Sorry, sir. Anyway, I overheard her on the phone talking to someone—no idea who it was—about killing President Trump. She was saying she didn’t care how much money it took. She wanted him dead. Nancy was spitting out large figures—like millions,” Ms. Fuentes said.
“Was there anyone in the offices besides you and the defendant?” Vice Adm. Crandall asked.
“Just us two. She was talking on a burner phone. Nancy didn’t conduct unofficial business on her office phone. She had a drawer full of burners,” Ms. Fuentes said.
“Let the record reflect that by burners the witness means, generally speaking, inexpensive, expendable, untraceable cellular phones paid for with cash. Do you recognize this?” asked the admiral, as he pulled from a cardboard box a plastic evidence bag holding the upper and lower halves of a prepaid phone someone had snapped in two.
“Of course, I do. I gave it to you,” Ms. Fuentes replied.
“How did you come to obtain this phone?” the admiral queried.
“Took it from her trash bin before I left that night. She’d left first,” Ms. Fuentes said flatly.
“Pretty bold of you and foolish of her, to just drop it in a wastebasket. Weren’t you worried she’d find out?”
Ms. Fuentes said Nancy that day had consumed a half-bottle of Smirnoff Vodka and was inebriated beyond comprehension when she stumbled out of the office at 8:30 p.m. Moreover, she said she’d covered her tracks: She proudly boasted how she had taken an identical, unopened burner phone from Pelosi’s drawer, broke it in a way the closely mimicked how Nancy had snapped the original, and laid it in the trash.
“When I got to the office next day, the trash had been emptied. Not a word was ever said,” she said.
“And you held onto it for what, almost five years now?” Vice Adm. Crandall said.
Ms. Fuentes nodded. “I wasn’t gonna hand it off to just anyone. Then I might have, you know, disappeared.
“Ms. Fuentes, I don’t think that’s anything to worry about anymore. You’re excused.”
The admiral told the panel that despite Pelosi’s pedestrian attempt to render the phone useless—she hadn’t even removed the sim card—from it JAG had extracted call logs and dozens of incriminating text messages that described not only assassinating President Trump but also her plan to “kidnap or get rid of” Trump’s then-12-year-old son Barron. Part of a message read, “ASAP. Take Barron and Trump won’t function. He’ll have to leave, and then I’ll have Pence. Wiring now to what’s been discussed.”
Another message: “Or Ivanka. Make her less pretty.”
“Of course her messages were sent to another burner phone—disconnected, but—” Vice Admiral Crandall began.
Nancy stood. She spoke. She said she was innocent. Innocent with an explanation. “It’s no secret I dislike Donald Trump. This is all fantasy—my fantasy, and fantasy is no crime. It was role play. Nothing more,” she hissed.
“We have your bank records. You wired $375K to an account in Zurich minutes after you sent that text. Ben Folds—a fake name, I’m sure. That’s a hefty sum to spend on role play, for someone who wouldn’t even pay her interns a dime,” Vice Adm. Crandall said.
“Your so-called witnesses are compromised, corrupt. I won’t stand for this.”
“Then please take your seat, or we’ll put you in it,” the admiral snapped as two Marines flanked Pelosi. “By the way, I think you got ripped off.”
“I’m sure you won’t like our next witness either,” the admiral continued.
He called to the stand a cooperating witness–Nancy’s estranged husband, Paul Pelosi.
Note: Part III ASAP.