American Fascist

by Malcom James

  Eli thought it was like a virus attacking the body of the nation from inside, methodically eating away at its host, damaging every common-sense norm, tradition, protection or benefit it could infect. The bonds of common decency were being broken down, and as people became more afraid and desperate, their anger at each other grew. Hate crimes against minorities and gays and immigrants were on the rise. Mass shootings were increasing. Drug overdose deaths reached pandemic levels. Friends and neighbors and relatives who once treated each other with respect now looked at each other with suspicion and doubt. In the highly-polarized environment, people were so afraid of the political beliefs of others they stopped speaking their own minds. And the silence enabled the virus to continue spreading. At every turn, Franks took the side of big business, and against the common man. If you were poor, middle-class, female, young or old, gay, an immigrant, a person of color, an animal or a natural resource, you were the enemy. Essentially, if you were not a billionaire white male with a private jet, you were fucked.

  ***

  While he was focused on dismantling the government and undoing the efforts of his predecessor, Franks’ failure to deliver any legislative victories to his base caused his poll numbers to sink to their lowest level yet. Someone had to take another fall, and next up was Chief of Staff Rick Reemus. An Army General, Dick Hartford, who had been running Homeland Security and overseeing the implementation of aggressive immigrant arrest and expulsion tactics, was promoted to be the new chief of staff, the hope being that since Franks seemed to respect generals as if they were his peers, perhaps Gen. Hartford could bring some discipline to the White House.

  There was a short period of calm as Gen. Hartford took over and began to enforce operational order in the West Wing, cutting off the constant parade of advisors and friends dropping by the Oval to distract Franks into taking action on their pet issues.

  But the brief calm was soon disrupted when a group of American Nazis and white supremacists held a large, torch-lit rally in a small town in Virginia. The rally had been met by counter-protestors who didn’t want their town affiliated with racist, hate-filled rhetoric, and quickly spiraled out of control, leading to a small-scale riot that was badly handled by police and culminated in a neo-Nazi using his car to ram into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one woman and injuring many others.

  When the president was asked about the outcome, he blamed both sides, drawing equivalence between the racists and their objectors, and even referring to some of the Nazis as “good people.” This set off another political firestorm, and even many in Franks’ own party condemned his refusal to draw a clear line between the two sides.

  Eli was shocked when days later, it was announced that Mack Martins was leaving the White House. It was portrayed as an amicable parting, and that Martins would continue to be a vocal supporter of Franks from his perch atop the alt-right website he previously ran. But Eli could see it was once again someone taking the blame, and as always, it couldn’t be Franks.

  Without Martins, Eli would be reporting to Walter again. Walter was glad to have him back, and the truth was, other than setting up the taping system and doing his work on the voter database, Eli had little interaction with Martins anyway, and never liked him, so in a way, it was good news.

  One by one, every senior Administration official who Franks had brought in with his inauguration were dropping like flies. And yet Eli was still around, waiting for his next move. His personal assignment was delayed as multiple state attorneys general had sued to prevent the Commission on Election Fraud from obtaining their voter rolls, so Eli’s massive database and servers sat empty in a GAO data center, while the lawsuits worked their way through the courts.

  He watched for chances to gather further evidence, but was never alone with Franks, and never alone with the taping system.

  He told his father he was feeling down and gaining weight, but had no desire to run. He desperately wanted to quit the Franks Administration, but needed to stay the full year to get the payout he was promised. Ben understood, and said he was facing his own challenges, but they both needed to “keep on keepin’ on.” Eli feared the purgatory he was in was might last forever.

  ***

  As summer gave way to fall and Congress returned to town and all the frenetic energy that came with it, rumors were flying that the special counsel was about to make major news. It wasn’t long before the rumors were confirmed, and three of Franks’ campaign team were officially indicted. These were the first indictments to come from the special counsel, and it sent tremors through the White House and the nation.

  The most significant was Franks’ former campaign manager Bruce Maxwell. Maxwell was indicted on twelve counts of money laundering, conspiracy against the United States, failure to register as a foreign agent, making false and misleading statements, and failure to report foreign bank accounts. The money laundering charges were related to Maxwell’s work as an unregistered lobbyist and consultant for the former President of Ukraine, who’d been allied with Russia before his eventual overthrow.

  The other two men were Maxwell’s aide and business partner Terry Patterson, also indicted on money laundering and failure to register as a foreign agent; and Milos Panapolis, a foreign policy advisor to the campaign.

  Maxwell and Patterson were perp-walked into a federal courthouse in front of the cameras, and both plead not guilty, and were confined to home detention. Everyone knew Maxwell was dirty, so it wasn’t a shock. But the Panapolis indictment was surprising, first because most people had never heard of him, and second because when his indictment was unsealed, it was revealed he had already been arrested and plead guilty to lying to the FBI about Russia-related matters, and the indictment stated that he was a “proactive cooperating witness.”

  To the legal analysts that Eli watched all morning, this was an indicator that he may have been given a plea deal in exchange for wearing a “wire” or providing other covert evidence against other unindicted conspirators. The White House tried distancing Franks from all three, pointing out that Maxwell had only been the campaign manager for a few months, and trying to paint Panapolis as a mere coffee boy, despite the fact that Franks had named him as a foreign policy advisor in a New York Times interview.

  The White House claimed the charges had nothing to do with Russia, and called it a vindication, as they did with every setback. The right-wing media went on and on about how this proved Special Counsel Simpson was grasping at straws by filing charges that were unrelated to Russia, and this once again proved there was no evidence of “collusion.” But any keen observer could see this was only the first of many cards Simpson likely had to play. Washington’s favorite new parlor game was “who will Simpson indict next?” The money was on Lt. Gen. Dearborn.

  ***

  Less than a month later, the special counsel unsealed a single count indictment of former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Jim Dearborn for lying to the FBI, and shockingly, he also plead guilty, and was also a “cooperating witness.”

  This sent Franks and his lawyers through the roof, although they once again attempted to pretend this was expected, and the White House tried again to convince the American public that the indictment had no connection to President Franks or the Russia investigation. But Dearborn was a much bigger fish, and if he truly was cooperating, that could lead to evidence of crimes by others in Franks’ inner circle, including Franks’ sons, and possibly Franks himself.

  Special Counsel Simpson had still not uttered a single public word since taking over the investigation, and it was clear that he was moving up the food chain, getting closer to the president. Each person that he interviewed was now on notice that if they lied to the investigators, they too could be charged, and their lives potentially ruined. It appeared Franks and his attorneys were playing checkers, and Simpson was playing three-dimensional chess.

  The rumor around the West Wing was that Franks was becoming more and more agitated in private, watchi
ng five to eight hours of news per day, yelling at the television and pacing around the Residence in his robe. There was a report that the president was walking up to random strangers at his New Jersey golf club and telling them that the “Russia thing” was made up, and it would all be over soon, as if they had even asked.

  Franks’ attorneys and allies were becoming more concerned that the Russia investigation could bring down his presidency. While the media and pundits played the speculation game about what information Dearborn must have to offer the special counsel in exchange for his plea deal, and whether the special counsel could even indict a sitting president, or whether the Republican-controlled Congress even had the spine to impeach him, Franks’ team was busy planning for the worst.

  It was under this black cloud of Dearborn being flipped by the special counsel, and the ongoing failure of Franks and the Republicans to produce any legislative victory, that panic set in. That’s when Eli got a phone call from Walter, asking him to come to his office.

  15

  Erasure

  Eli sat in Walter’s office and they were joined by Ron Tyler, senior White House counsel, and Ken Miller. Ken closed the door and lurked in the corner, while Ron introduced himself to Eli.

  Ron was a slick New York real estate lawyer who favored pinstripe suits and wingtips. He’d been Franks’ legal enforcer for years, and had no business being the White House counsel, but like most everyone else in the West Wing, his presence had nothing to do with experience, and everything to do with his loyalty to Franks.

  “What I’m about to say is extremely confidential, but I’m sure you know that,” Ron began.

  “Absolutely, sir,” Eli replied.

  “Okay, so with this ongoing fucking witch hunt, we need to be prepared. The special counsel is trying to build a case that the president obstructed justice when he fired Lonnegan. That’s because he has nothing on Russian collusion, and he’s grasping at straws. That said, the president didn’t do himself any favors when he fired Lonnegan, or went on television and said he did it because the ‘Russia thing was a made-up story.’”

  Walter shook his head slightly, as if he still couldn’t believe the boss had said that. Ron continued. “He’s probably got Dearborn singing like a fucking canary, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we get asked to turn over any records we have related to Lonnegan’s firing. And a recording would be considered a record, right? And since the president tweeted that Lonnegan better be careful, and hope there weren’t any ‘tapes,’ I would expect Simpson to zero in on that. Now, we could say there aren’t any tapes or other recordings, but of course that would be a lie, and we don’t do that, we’re the White House, right?”

  “Of course not, sir,” Eli answered.

  “Right. But we can’t turn over any recordings we don’t have. So we need to not have them. Understand?”

  “I think so,” Eli said as he thought through the logic. “So you want to erase them?”

  “No, no, I didn’t say that — I would never say that, if you understand me. I need to be very careful here, let me be totally clear. What I’m saying is, nobody knows what we have or don’t have. We don’t even know. That’s what we need to find out. But if it turns out we no longer have something before we get asked to preserve it, then we’re not violating the spirit when we get asked to, because it’s not there to preserve.”

  Stares crossed the room. Ron continued, “Imagine if the system wasn’t working properly all the time. Buggy or something. And so we’re doing some cleanup, archiving or whatever. Stuff gets lost. Then we can’t erase them after we’ve been told to preserve them, right?” he said as he looked at Eli to see if he was following.

  “Right,” Eli said slowly.

  “They need to not exist when I get asked, then I’m telling the truth when I say we don’t have anything pertaining to that. It’s parsing words a bit, but technically correct.”

  Eli shook his head like he was in agreement, but he was nervous. He was being asked by the White House counsel to erase evidence that the FBI may request that could link the president to an obstruction charge, the same thing that threatened to take down Nixon before he resigned. There were two other witnesses in the room that could later testify what he was asked to do, and whether he obliged. It didn’t seem like a well-thought out legal strategy either, but of course Eli wasn’t a lawyer.

  “We’re not asking anyone to destroy evidence,” Ron blurted out as he shifted in his chair, reading Eli’s mind. “What we’re saying is, we want to comply fully. We want to clean up the archives so we don’t have to erase anything after we are asked to preserve it. So let’s get ahead of this.”

  Walter, Ken and Ron all stared at Eli.

  “One question?”

  “Of course,” Ron said, happy to see Eli cooperating.

  “The system was installed after Lonnegan was fired, so there are no files from those meetings, so what is it we are trying to be certain we don’t have in the first place?” Eli asked.

  Ron looked at Walter. “You’re right, the kid is smart.” He turned back to Eli.

  “No one knows what’s been said in there which might be germane to the special counsel. So basically, it’s abundance of caution. We’ll go through key dates and times, review what we have, then make sure we don’t have it if it’s not what we want to have. Make sense?”

  As crazy as this was, Eli knew if he refused, he would be dead to them, and cut out of the circle of trust. Also, this might get him exposure to something, anything, he could use against Franks.

  “Makes sense,” he said.

  “Great, let’s go,” Ron said, standing.

  “Now?” Eli replied.

  “No time like the present,” Ron answered. Eli didn’t know why he bothered to ask. That was the standard since day one. Run to extinguish the next fire. Eli stood and looked quickly at Walter, who winked and gave him a thumbs up. Ken Miller opened the door for them.

  “We always know we can count on you,” Walter said and turned to his phone, which, as always, was Eli’s cue to get out.

  ***

  Eli and Ron Tyler sat at the monitor in the president’s lounge as Ken Miller observed from behind, Franks’ ever-present eyes and ears.

  The software allowed a keyword search of the audio files in the database, based on a voice recognition engine. Ron had a list of keywords as well as dates and times handwritten on a yellow legal pad. Eli keyed them in and pulled up the results. There were several hundred files with instances of “Lonnegan” and “FBI” and “FBI director” and “fired.” Ron directed Eli to delete all of them in a single batch, without review. Eli did it.

  Ron also wanted assurance there was no backup copy, and Eli assured him they were permanently and securely zeroed-out with a 7-pass, DOD-spec deletion utility.

  The second phase was reviewing files that included other key words such as “Russia.” These discussions had to be reviewed individually for the content, as Ron didn’t want to simply remove conversations if they were not related to the firing of Lonnegan. He said if they had a taping system at all, which they did, then they had to have tapes, and too many gaps would raise questions if they turned over more later, so he wanted to keep anything they could.

  The review process took nearly five hours. Eli was exposed to a wide range of topics, from top secret military operations and calls to the families of fallen soldiers, to political discussions about Cabinet members and judicial nominees and policy initiatives, to mundane topics such as golf outings, scheduling rallies and fundraisers, ordering lunch and booking haircuts.

  Many of the recordings weren’t relevant to the subject, but those that were, Eli deleted on Ron’s direction. From what he overheard, it was possible to paint a picture of discussions that both encouraged and warned Franks against firing Lonnegan, and which ultimately proved that the decision was a fully-debated action, and was not, as Franks said on television, a “sudden decision” based on Lonnegan’s fail
ure to perform his duties, but rather everything to do with preventing Lonnegan from digging into communications between the Franks team and Russian operatives, both before and after the election, with full consideration to the implications that firing would mean.

  All of those discussions were permanently deleted at Ron Tyler’s direction. And every time Eli deleted a file, an image flashed in his mind of his finger on the “Delete” key. And then his clicking “Yes” to the inevitable “Are you sure?” question the system asked, before taking its irreversible action.

  He knew he was doing something that could come back to haunt him. He couldn’t help but think of all the private matters he was exposed to, and how Ken Miller knew everything he heard. That couldn’t be good in the long run. But they asked him to do it; this was what he signed up for. It was too late to back out, so he plowed ahead. If he showed an ounce of hesitation, the game was up.

  It was deep in the sixth hour, just before midnight, and long after a coffee break with grilled sandwiches brought in from the Mess, when Eli heard one particular clip that caught his attention.

  “Here, you go, Mr. President,” said the voice on the recording. She sounded familiar.

  “Thank you, gorgeous,” Franks said in reply.

  There was a short silence.

  “Will that be all, Mr. President?” she asked.

  “Just one more thing. Come over here and sit down, will you?” Franks said in a low tone.

  “Of course,” she replied.

  “You know how much I value outside advice, right? I’m trapped here in this gilded cage, all these high-paid consultants and advisors, and sometimes I just need something real, you know?” Franks asked.

  “Sure,” she answered softly.