American Fascist

by Malcom James

  And then there was his manner, so gruff and off-the-cuff; on the one hand a stream-of-consciousness like that of a perverted, privileged child who believes he can do no wrong; and on the other, a man hyper-aware of how he was being perceived, reading every reaction, playing off it, as if a camera was watching every move, and he was watching the monitor to see his own performance being played back in real-time.

  He could be crudely charming, if you were in his good graces. His free-flowing rambling had an odd appeal to it; he often began a thought, and then abruptly stopped short and left the listener standing on the edge, trying to plug in the rest of the meaning, while he’d already taken a u-turn and shifted to some other half-complete thought, before doubling back again, or setting off in another direction altogether.

  As president he now had immense power, and if he chose to vocally approve of a person, they felt like a beam of light was shining on them. And he had the knack for nicknames, as everyone knew; they could be kind, or brutal. But in the end, they were all reductive. They distilled every recipient down to a pet or enemy; to a single, fundamental characteristic as Franks saw it, or as he wanted the world to. Just like the biggest bully on the playground, he could make them stick.

  But there was something else, and Eli had to dig to find the words, to name it for himself. It was like a vortex, that gravitational pull he had; a mirror that reflected back your image of the world… some kind of Rorschach test, an inkblot. When he spoke, the words were nearly always empty, or so full of contradiction that it rendered them meaningless; and so the listener projected an image of the world they already identified with, for better or worse.

  When Franks spoke of Muslims, it was in sweeping generalizations, not the specifics of individual human beings and their personal stories. And so the listener projected their stereotype in their own mind. Either they saw a terrorist, or a victim of poverty and violence, or just a regular neighbor, a guy at the gas station, or a doctor they knew. It all depended on the listener’s own experience and beliefs.

  In Franks’ over-simplified version of the world, there was no point to expressing the complexity or nuance required for a shared perspective; instead it was preferable to let pre-existing perspective conveniently divide everyone into camps. Roughly three camps, to be exact. Which meant that even if only forty percent of the country agreed with him, and the other sixty percent did not, because the other sixty percent were split in half, he was winning, not with a majority, but a simple plurality. In a highly-divided society, forty percent was enough for control. It was the same principle they had used to win the election.

  He smelled pizza coming from a brick oven, and realized he was on the backside of the White House complex, and it was past lunch time, and he was hungry, and there was a really good by-the-slice place just upwind from his sidewalk. He left the complex through the Eisenhower gate, walked over and ordered two slices, and decided it didn’t matter at this point, and added a beer. He sat at a small table, reading his phone until his slices and an IPA in a plastic cup were ready at the counter. It was there, over a warm slice on a paper plate and a cold beer, alone with his thoughts, that he resolved to take action, not just to play along, waiting for more evidence to somehow appear, but to finally do something.

  Monica Davies was the former acting attorney general that had been fired for refusing to support Franks’ travel ban. She was now unemployed, but was a law-enforcement veteran and former federal prosecutor, and was terminated for taking a direct, public, and principled stand against Franks. It was clear what side she was on, too. Eli had to find her.

  After lunch, a quick online search of the Justice Department’s leadership chart lead him to her contact information. She had been fired so recently, they hadn’t even bothered to update the chart. Now Eli had her phone number.

  ***

  Eli stood near an old-school pay phone in the Greyhound bus station, watching an elderly Hispanic woman from a safe distance until she finished her call and walked away with her rolling suitcase. He had a pocket full of quarters in case the conversation went long. When no one was nearby, he approached the phone and fed it with a few coins and dialed the number on the paper in his hands, and after the second ring a woman answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Monica Davies?” he asked.

  “Yes, who’s calling?”

  “I work in the White House, but I need to remain anonymous,” he said.

  “Let me stop you before you go on —” she started, but he interrupted her.

  “Please just hear me out, I chose you because you stood up to Franks on the travel ban, and you know what happened with Dearborn,” he said.

  “How the hell did you get my number?”

  “I told you, I work in the White House. I have access to the DOJ leadership contact list, and believe it or not, you’re still listed,” he replied. That struck her as an honest answer.

  “What do you want?”

  “Please listen to me, I’m harmless, I’m not some crazy person, I swear, I’m just trying to do the right thing. I have sensitive information, alarming information, about the president,” he continued.

  “If you work in the White House then you know I don’t work in the Justice Department any more, I’m a private citizen,” she said. “Call the FBI.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust them with this information, it’s too sensitive to risk, that’s why I called you,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  “Wait — I’ve seen direct evidence that the president is compromised. He’s being blackmailed, or controlled by someone, I think the Russians,” he blurted out in a low voice.

  There was a long silence. He looked around to be certain no one had come within earshot.

  “Are you there?” he asked.

  “Peter Tate. He’s at the FBI, and you can trust him, he’s a lead agent on Russia and the election. Take it to Peter,” she said, and she hung up.

  ***

  Back at the office, Eli tried the same methodology, but finding the contact information for a top-level FBI agent involved in a fast-moving counter-intelligence investigation, which might even include the White House, was not easy. They were not listed like the attorneys, which made sense; many of them were in sensitive, ‘do not contact’ circumstances, including undercover.

  After hitting nothing but road blocks, he decided to try emailing Tate based on the default naming conventions for more accessible FBI employees, like the lead spokeswoman.

  He set up a new Google account from behind his anonymizing VPN and sent an email to Peter.Tate@FBI.gov with a single sentence subject line: “MD recommended you…”

  Later that night, he got a reply. “And?”

  Bingo. He asked Tate to use MyMask, and several hours later, he responded with a handle that Eli could use, and shortly after they were in an unbreakable, encrypted chat.

  Eli told him what he told Monica Davies; he had evidence the President was being blackmailed. Tate wanted to know exactly what he had seen. Eli was torn. If he revealed what he saw and how he saw it, that would effectively pinpoint him, and if Tate was actually on the wrong side, or the information got into the wrong hands, Eli and his mission would be toast. But if he didn’t reveal it, where would it go from here?

  Eli wanted proof he could trust Tate before he continued, something like “proof of life” in a hostage situation. Tate wanted the same thing: proof Eli was not some freak. Eli had to go first, since he was the one who reached out. He told Tate that the president was going to issue a surprise Executive Order the following day that would require a re-examining of the “Waters of the U.S.A. Rule,” which had nothing to do with national security, and as such, the FBI would not be aware of it, but it was a controversial pro-business and anti-environmental move that was kept under wraps. Eli had heard the discussion in the coffee break room near his cubicle, but didn’t tell Tate exactly how he knew.

  They agree
d to reconnect the following day, and both logged off for the night.

  ***

  The following morning, Eli was proven correct when president Franks signed an Executive Order doing exactly as Eli had described. He got another MyMask message from Tate: “OK. You’re somewhere inside. AG Shelby Butler lied in his confirmation hearing when he said he had no discussions with Russians during the campaign.”

  If true, it would be a bombshell. Shelby Butler had just been confirmed by the Senate. He was one of Franks’ closest supporters. During his confirmation hearings, he told the Senate that he had “no discussions with Russians during the campaign.” If he lied about that to Congress, after Dearborn had just been fired for lying to the FBI about the same thing, it would have serious consequences for the Franks Administration.

  Eli said he would wait to see how it panned out, but he knew the chances were high that Tate would come through. No pro-Franks FBI agent would willingly share this type of information to gain the trust of an anonymous source. Although not a guarantee that Tate was trustworthy, when coupled with Monica Davies’ recommendation, it was as close as he could get.

  If Tate proved right, Eli would finally be revealing his dark discovery to someone in law enforcement, hopefully in a position to do something about it.

  ***

  The next day, news broke that newly-confirmed Attorney General Shelby Butler had been “less that truthful” in his Senate confirmation hearing, when he stated that he had “never met with Russians during the campaign.” The reports said he had met with the Russian ambassador in his office, and also during a campaign stop.

  Democrats immediately called for Butler to resign for lying to Congress, and Republicans stated that, at a minimum, he should recuse himself from any investigation into Russian interference in the election. Franks tweeted that he had “full confidence” in his AG, and that the “Russia thing” was a “witch hunt.”

  Within hours, Shelby Butler had recused himself from the Russia investigation in a hastily organized speech, in which he acknowledged he may have “inadvertently forgotten” the meeting, in his polite Southern drawl.

  The explanation had a strange similarity to Dearborn’s statement when he had resigned, about the “inadvertent” nature of his less-than-truthful statements. It was the beginning of a pattern.

  ***

  That night, Eli reached out to Tate on MyMask. He didn’t tell Tate exactly how he had seen it, but that a video existed of Franks in a hotel room with an underage girl, likely a Russian girl, and while he didn’t have time to see the whole video, the girl was dressed like a prostitute, and Franks was in a bathrobe; the circumstances were extremely bad, and the people in possession of the video were reminding the President of the United States that they had it. He didn’t know what they wanted, but it clearly wasn’t the first time Franks was made aware of what they had. It was a reminder.

  There was a long delay in Tate’s text reply, and Eli got nervous, and then:

  “Can you get a copy of it?”

  “I have no idea. My exposure was an accident.”

  “So have another one.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “You tell me this, but can’t give me anything else, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the expert.”

  “Find a way to get more.”

  “I’m trying. Any other ideas?”

  “Start keeping a journal, dates and times, and encrypt it somewhere until you need it. No matter what happens, you won’t regret it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t contact me again until you have something actionable. It’s too risky.”

  And that was the end of the exchange.

  11

  Russiagate

  Several days after Eli’s exchange with Tate, President Franks suddenly fired the head of the FBI, Roger T. Lonnegan. Lonnegan was a Republican who had served both Republican and Democratic administrations, and was mostly seen across the aisle as a straight-ahead lawman. The letter terminating him gave the reason as “mishandling the investigation into Eleanor Wilson’s use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State, and prior to and during the campaign.” The head of the FBI was in the middle of a ten year term, and was supposed to be immune to politics, and was heading up an investigation that may have included Franks and his team in its scope.

  Talking heads shouted and newspaper editorials screamed, some defending the president and his right to fire Lonnegan, others claiming it was clearly obstruction of justice, and eerily similar to the actions Nixon had taken as Watergate was unfolding. Most of the White House staff didn’t even know it was coming, and Steven Stevens was once again tap dancing at the podium on a daily basis.

  The one time Eli went into the West Wing to grab lunch from the Navy Mess, the mood was extremely tense. People were whispering more than usual. He’d heard nothing from Mack Martins or Walter since the taping system went live. Clearly they were caught up managing the chaos as best as they could.

  Not long after he was fired, it was revealed that FBI Director Lonnegan had taken detailed notes of his two meetings with President Franks, and in the second meeting, only one day after Dearborn had been fired, the president asked the vice president and Attorney General Butler to leave the Oval, and when he was alone with Lonnegan, he asked the head of the FBI to “drop the matter” of looking into Dearborn. If this was true, it appeared to be further evidence of obstruction of justice by the president. Lonnegan couldn’t agree to do it. And shortly after that, Franks fired him.

  With Butler already recused from the Russia investigation, the storm of controversy forced the Deputy Attorney General Gary Waldstein to appoint a special counsel to investigate “Russian influence in the 2016 campaign, and any and all matters that arose or may arise from the investigation.”

  The appointed special counsel was Jonathan F. Simpson Jr., a former Federal prosecutor, and the longest serving head of the FBI since J. Edgar Hoover.

  Jonathan F. Simpson Jr. was a man of intense work ethic, a dogged investigator and prosecutor with a sterling, apolitical reputation. He took the assignment with no press statement, and began building a team immediately.

  His assignment as special counsel set off a new round of panic in the White House. Publicly, Steven Stevens and attorneys for President Franks welcomed the appointment of a special counsel, saying that it would bring a “swift and just conclusion to the matter and vindicate the president and his campaign from any involvement with the Russian government.” Privately, it was a five-alarm fire, and Eli could feel the apprehension everywhere he went in the White House complex. He kept his head low, and stayed out of everyone’s way while the fires burned all around him.

  ***

  Eli was at home, watching “Russiagate” news unfold over some leftover Chinese food, when he got an unexpected phone call from his old boss at Paragon, David Beringer.

  “David?” Eli answered. He knew it was David but was surprised to hear from him.

  “Hey, I’m sure you’ve been watching the news, the special counsel and all. It’s totally ridiculous, this guy will be giving everyone a rectal exam, that’s my prediction.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so. No one has said anything to me about it. It’s kind of odd, actually,” Eli replied.

  “I’m sure they’re up to their necks in shit right now.”

  “It’s all a big witch hunt anyway, right?” Eli asked. He didn’t believe that for a second, but he had to tow the company line.

  “Yeah right. There’s just no way to predict what these guys will do, who they might question, what they might ask. It’s time to lawyer up, dude.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Eli said.

  “I’ve retained a firm, and they’ll cover you. You need to go in and meet, so they can develop a defense,” David said.

  “D
efense?”

  “The special counsel plays hardball. We have to be prepared. As long as we’re on the same page, everything will be good.”

  “What do I need to do?”

  David told him he would set up an interview, and the firm would take care of all the legal fees “for the time being.”

  Eli recorded notes of the conversation, then went to bed. He hardly slept, although he didn’t dream of the girl. He tossed and turned, going over the campaign again and again, trying to determine what his legal exposure might be.

  ***

  The next afternoon, Eli sat in the waiting area of the law offices of Schumacher, Kronberg, & Stone, LLP, the high-priced D.C. white-collar defense firm that Paragon had retained.

  While he waited, he watched on a TV above a tropical fish tank, as former FBI Director Lonnegan testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on his firing, and his discussions with President Franks around the Russia investigation and Lt. Gen. Dearborn, and his contemporaneous notes.

  It was clear that Lonnegan felt the president was trying to persuade him to drop any further investigation into Dearborn, and that’s why Lonnegan wrote down the meeting; and when he refused to do as the president requested, he was later fired. It was a very bad day for Franks and the White House.

  When he finally met with the attorneys, Eli spent nearly two hours going over his role in the Franks Campaign; how he had first come on board; all he had done in terms of data analytics and social media; every person he ever interacted with; every discussion the team had about strategy or tactics; whether he had ever heard anyone at Paragon or the campaign speak in any way about Russia; whether the FBI or any other Federal agency had contacted him with similar questions; whether he had ever acted as a lobbyist or agent for a foreign power; and then a long list of personal questions about whether he had any other “weaknesses of character” or financial or other exposure that might give Simpson and his prosecutors an angle to leverage. He said he did not.