Thread by @gryn_a

OK, here's a fresh entertaining story from Lithuania, because we all need a good laugh for the sake of sanity.
An anonymous troll tricked a member of Parliament to believe that he was going to dine with Musk 😂
I swear, this plan is on par with the exploding pagers.
Read on...🧵

The guy in question, Remigijus Žemaitaitis, is a scandalist who happens to be a member of Parliament at the moment, in the ruling coalition. I won't go into detail about his scandals, but he is a vatnik and antisemite, and the perfect person to fall for something like this.🧵

He received an email from someone claiming to be Ryan Riedel, the Chief Information Officer of DOGE.
The email address was [e-mail], but that didn't sound an alarm to the hero of our story. He believed it to be genuine (but it was actually the anonymous troll).
🧵

The troll, pretending to be Ryan Riedel, started communicating with Žemaitaitis, telling him that DOGE is very interested in collaborating, and asked if Žemaitaitis thinks he has a chance to become Minister in the future.
The hero of our story started...🧵

trashing the whole government, including the president, in the emails to "Ryan Riedel".
"Ryan" then offered to meet and discuss things further... in New York. He said he'd arrange dinner with Musk, and that Fico and Orban will be there too.
And the best part...🧵

DOGE will pay for the trip! First class tickets to New York, a stay in a fancy 5-star hotel AND tickets to a chosen musical. For two!
Žemaitaitis answered that he's taking his wife, and would like to see "The Great Gatsby" 😂
🧵

Žemaitaitis informed the Parliament (1 day before 🙄) that he needs a 3-day leave "for a personal trip".
Permission was granted.
So, the hero of our story and his wife packed their bags and today early in the morning were in Vilnius airport, ready to fly to New York.
🧵

Meanwhile, the cunning troll informed an independent media group "Laisvės TV" about all this, and they sent a journalist to the airport to ask Žemaitaitis where he was going.
He said he's going to New York and maybe Washington, that it's a personal AND a work trip...🧵

...and that he will tell everyone who he met after he's back. Oh, and that he's also going to see a musical 😂
Anyway...
When he went to the check-in desk, he stayed there for a long time, and there was some strange commotion among the airport staff 😱
🧵

You won't believe this, but they told the hero of our story that the tickets he had (that were sent to him by the cunning troll) were fake and his and his wife's first-class seats did not exist!
The troll, who was there, had the audacity to sit next to them...🧵

...and film the moment when the member of staff informed them that they were not going anywhere 😭
Here they are, still shellshocked, going back home instead of being on their way to dine with de facto president of the United States 😭😭😭
🧵

All the correspondence between "Ryan Riedel" and Žemaitaitis is in the hands of journalists AND the Parliament now. I won't go into detail, but our hero said a lot of interesting things there, to someone he's never actually met, and whose email ends with yahoo. com.
🧵

He was also planning to hide this "gift", worth over 30 thousand EUR, from the Parliament.
I will add that our hero is a lawyer and has served as assistant to various members of the European Parliament, one of them is the former president (impeached and ousted, lol!).
LOL.

We don't know who the cunning troll is, but he has said in an email to journalists that he doesn't regret any of this, and I think this is the kind of NAFO spirit that deserves a fella.
But maybe he already has one?
Who knows?

Here’s a video by “Laisvės TV” about this whole story.
It’s in Lithuanian, but it’ll give you some visual context, and the emails are in English.
youtube.com/live/B9R9_OfAB…