The Latina President...and the Conspiracy to Destroy Her

by Joe Rothstein

“No you’re not,” said Ben. “You’re in the very deepest end of it, where more hungry predators than even you can imagine live and stalk and feed.”

  Ben smiled at her. A smile of genuine warmth and affection. He understood her better than most. In all her life she had rarely been denied. Now, with all the weapons available to her in the most powerful office on Earth, she saw no reason why that winning streak should end. You had to admire her sense of purpose. Her confidence. You also had to fear, really fear, her lack of experience with defeat.

  

  President Tennyson’s first months in office would be compared by historians with President Franklin Roosevelt’s first hundred days, an explosion of compressed demand for change. No one doubted that immigration reform would be first up. The surprise was how quickly it became her first major legislative success. With Democrats back in control of the Senate, Reed Guess, in remission from cancer, returned as majority leader. He managed to steer an immigration bill through the Senate eighty-eight days after Tenny took office. The Republican-controlled House finally caved when Democrats agreed to a more onerous and expensive border control plan than the White House had recommended. The result was a bill barely different than the one George W. Bush had submitted during his presidency or the one the Senate had passed during the Obama years. Three months into her White House term, President Tennyson signed the new National Security Immigration Act, sending the decades-old battle into the courts, a battleground where opponents promised they would contest it for years.

  Embittered by their legislative loss on immigration, and in an effort to calm their furious base of supporters, House Republicans revived Obamacare repeal. What followed was one of the most surprising cases of legislative jujitsu in U.S. history. Democrats allowed the repeal bill to come to the floor. Then, with the support of all House Democrats and fifteen Republicans, they amended the bill to delete the eligibility age for Medicare. Then they voted to repeal Obamacare. Within days the Senate passed the House bill and it was on the president’s desk. The effect: a universal single-payer healthcare system built on extended Medicare would be phased in over a five-year period. It was a stunning development, totally unexpected. A strategy that post-mortems would reveal was hatched in the White House.

  Next came an omnibus bill with money to subsidize day care for most lower- and middle-income families, thirty days of paid parental leave, and federal grants for two years of college or occupational training. All paid for by taxing high-speed financial transactions.

  The Tennyson-Guess team was proving formidable in the Senate. In the House, Sheila Fishburne had risen into the party leadership and was the White House’s most reliable pipeline for House Republican leadership plans. For Tenny, these were golden days. She came to office believing she could make good things happen, and they were happening. You could feel the excitement at every staff and cabinet meeting.

  Tenny decided that now, after a frenetic, successful first eight months in office, it was time to reveal to Reed Guess the most ambitious plans of her presidency. With little outside attention, she had been meeting privately with Phil Stein, her treasury secretary, Carmie, her commerce secretary, and an ad hoc selection of experts in economics, finance, banking, housing, and community development. Tenny ran for president with a mission to perform major surgery on the nation’s economic system. Her working group was formulating plans for accomplishing that mission. Reed Guess and their other allies in Congress were going to have to make it happen. Now it was time to tell him that.

  They met for dinner at the White House, the two of them, privately, on a stormy night in early September, just before Congress returned from its annual August recess. Guess had been monitoring his cancer closely. His condition remained stable, his energy level high, his mind as sharp as ever.

  “You and I,” said Tenny, “are going to do something that will change the course of United States history forever, or, at least the next fifty, maybe hundred years.”

  “Haven’t we already?” said Guess. “Immigration, healthcare, all the help for middle-income families. We’ve blown through a big part of the agenda.”

  “All good stuff. But think of what we haven’t done. The money crowd still calls the shots. The economic system is still dangerously out of balance, most people are still desperately insecure about their futures, the country is still way behind in all kinds of development where we should be leading—like education and transportation.”

  And then she unwrapped her vision. An omnibus bill, the America’s Future Act, a centerpiece for righting so many things that are wrong. The act would bring the financial system under control with a twenty-first century version of Glass Steagall, regulating hedge and equity funds and stopping banks from playing in the stock casino with the public’s money. Anti-trust laws would be strengthened to restore competition among the richest and most important U.S. industries—banking, communications, airlines and others. Executive pay limits would be tightened and enforced. Worker participation on management boards would be mandated, the way they do it in Germany and elsewhere.

  The reform would include the largest infrastructure building and repair effort since creation of the original interstate highway program. Accelerated conversion away from fossil fuels, integrated road sensors, battery stations, rail. A major overhaul of U.S. urban areas that would include technology rich schools and communications, housing built with new low cost materials, long-needed repair to water and sewer systems.

  At the personal level, a much higher minimum wage would be guaranteed, social security would become a real pension program, not just a safety net. AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps would be expanded to provide wider pathways to education, job training, and jobs of last resort. Everyone who wants to work would find it in public service.

  Postal banking, land trusts for low-cost housing, coops for small businesses, all would be encouraged. Just as Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, and others are changing how we shop and get around, the government would promote new and innovative ways to end poverty and unemployment, promote education and health, and restore America’s assets and its faith in itself.

  The dinner table was too small for Tenny’s passion. She stood, as the evangelist she was, pacing back and forth, hands slicing through air for emphasis, voice rising and falling. And finally, as if to close the deal, she pulled her chair close to Guess, eyes fixed on his eyes, knuckles rapping the maple dining room table.

  Guess leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully weighing his words before responding.

  “All of this in one package?”

  “Yes, one bill to sell. One sweeping vision of the future.”

  “And to pay for it?”

  “I’ve had Phil Stein and others working on that. They’ve come up with a really strong package. People who make money from money pay the same tax rate as people who work for pay checks. We put a cap on total deductions, a minimum tax on foreign earnings, a tiny new tax on high-speed stock transactions. A small increase in the gas tax. Then we combine it all with making companies pay tax on the trillions in profits they’re hoarding overseas, and crack down on the hidden billions like the ones the Panama Papers showed us. And we’re there. If it doesn’t work out to the last dollar, we make the case that all the work and construction and development that the America’s Future Act would create would generate self-sustaining revenue.”

  Guess closed his eyes. “Good God, Madam President, think of what you’re asking. I’m trying to visualize the power that will descend on us if we try this.”

  “Don’t you agree with it?”

  “Of course, I do. Every last public policy goal on your list, I agree with it all. But to try to do it all at once? Guaranteeing that every powerful interest in the world will join forces to fight us? It’s so audacious. It’s like launching a nonmilitary World War Three.”

  “And you need to be my Eisenhower.”

  As a senator, Tenny earned a reputation as an impatient firebrand, disrespectful of age and seniority, and wit
h little understanding of legislative history and nuances. She was no less impatient as president. Reed Guess and other supporters tried to tame her touch when she pushed against inflated egos. Guess had what she lacked, a collegial style that bridged the political aisle. He was always popular with senators in his own party. His war injuries, his cancer, the courage he displayed in handling his unpredictable future and his voluntary withdrawal from the presidential race, earned him even more respect. Guess said he would keep his Senate seat and leadership role until his Senate term ended, or his body told him it was time to go home and die.

  Tenny was now asking him to direct a legislative war that if successful could change life on the planet. If they failed, it could be the end of her presidency, along with the political futures of many of those who supported her. Guess was in a place he never expected to be. He felt his days on earth were limited. The cause was worthy. She intended to pursue it with or without him. He knew that without him she would fail. With him she had a chance.

  “I’ll get our leadership together with your working group,” said Guess. “Let’s see what we can put together.”

  

  Isabel Aragon Tennyson entered the White House with rock star celebrity. Twelve months later, her image was frayed around the edges but less than one might expect, given the intensity of the issues that crossed the legislative battleground since her inaugural. The public still liked President Tennyson, and liked the idea that Congress was actually taking care of business that had been warehoused for far too long. Her first year in the White House forged an unbroken chain of legislative success with little negative impact on her popularity. It was understandable why Tenny assumed that chain would remain strong, and why she failed to sense the forces that would soon bring her presidency to the edge of destruction.

  27

  In January of her second year, the State of the Union speech became the launch platform for the America’s Future Act. It was a stunning concept, one plan, one piece of legislation to address the broad sweep of legacy issues facing the country. Her professional team had designed a plan solid enough to withstand the intense scrutiny of impartial experts. While many powerful interests would be losers, many others would benefit, enough to insure a deep reservoir of allies. Opening night was a hit. The show ran for weeks to positive reviews. Then, as the early wave of enthusiasm dissipated, the forces aligned to reject the America’s Future Act merged with those determined to bring down President Tennyson.

  Autocrats can say “do it” and it’s done. Plutocrats can throw enough money at it and it’s done. The U.S. form of representative government was intentionally designed to keep things from being done. Among their greatest concerns, the nation’s founders fretted that immediate passions could overrun long-term common sense. All along the path to change they erected high hurdles. It was not difficult for obstructers to derail the America’s Future Act. Even though it was presented as a single piece of legislation, House leadership sent sections of it to nearly every standing committee, insuring extended review and in many cases, no review at all. Those on the losing end of proposed changes organized an advertising campaign designed to terrify the public. Lost jobs, lost revenue for communities, increased crime, bad people moving into good neighborhoods, higher taxes, failing banks. The plan’s broad sweep allowed for an infinite number of narrow targets.

  That November, the Republicans picked up a dozen seats to retain the House. They gained four U.S. Senate seats, one short of a majority. Republicans and Democrats now had fifty senators each. Democrats kept Senate control only with tie-breaking votes by the vice president, Roderick Rusher.

  President Tennyson accepted much of the blame for the midterm defeats. Her job approval ratings dropped into negative territory, 43-49. Three weeks after the disastrous off-year election, Reed Guess announced that he had fallen out of remission. The brain tumor was growing. He would need more radiation. The governor of Connecticut, a fellow Democrat, would appoint a replacement. Tenny’s best Senate strategist and deal-maker would be gone.

  28

  President Tennyson’s third-year State of the Union address was substantively rich and packed with admonitions to Congress to move America’s Future forward. The argument was sound. But given the change in the political climate from a year earlier, it was received more as a voice of desperation, a plea to save the ship, a stark difference from the buoyancy of its launch.

  With Reed Guess no longer there to direct legislative traffic, Tenny lost a reliable conduit for moving White House programs through the Senate. Guess’s replacement as majority leader, Sidney Alcorn from Oregon, had no majority to lead with the Senate now divided. Alcorn was not the tenacious leader who could overcome gridlock, and he and the president had not been close working partners when she served in the Senate. Senate action drifted inconclusively. Misunderstandings between the Senate and the White House increased. Washington’s lobbying machine had adjusted itself to the wrenching proposals of the America’s Future plan. Opposition obstructions erected during the past year were proving formidable.

  In early February, shortly after Tenny delivered her third State of the Union address, a memo landed on the desk of Drew Vine, managing editor of the San Diego Beacon.

  Drew:

  See attached. I understand there is more to this story worth checking out. Please send someone.

  I.P.

  Attached was a clipping from a Mexicali newspaper. The article was in Spanish and it wrapped around a three-column wide photo of a strikingly handsome man who appeared in the photo to be about forty to fifty years old.

  The first sight of him is captivating. Broad shoulders, open collar, gold chain, mildly hairy chest, thick and dark head of hair that says, “run your fingers here.” His eyes, under dark and prominent eyelashes, are deep brown and penetrating. He’s wearing a gold blazer, the jacket’s gold perfectly accentuating his darkened features.

  Drew Vine and most reporters at the Beacon were multilingual, a requirement for a newspaper so close to the Mexican border. The man in the photo is identified as Gabriel Montes, a Peruvian banker who handles wealth management accountants for Premier Group of the Americas, one of the largest financial firms in South America. Montes, a former soccer star, was arrested in Mexicali on charges of laundering money for one of the area’s most violent drug cartels.

  Why the boss wanted to send a reporter to Mexicali to follow up this story was unclear to Vine, but Irving Pounds owned the newspaper. Mostly Pounds stayed clear of the newsroom. But now and then he had what the staff came to know as “a project.” Gabriel Montes, for some reason, was a project.

  Dianne Worsley, Vine’s reporter who drew the assignment, returned from Mexicali barely able to contain her excitement. In Montes’ address and log book, police found the name and phone number of President Tennyson. Mexicali police were unusually cooperative with Worsley. They provided her with photos and full background information about Montes and the cartel. The White House wouldn’t comment, but it didn’t matter. There was enough for a long, above-the-fold front page story for the San Diego Beacon. The AP wire carried that story to publications throughout the United States. Montes became the focus of a media herd. His only response:

  “Some things a gentleman simply does not discuss.”

  The relationship soon became clear. Tenny and Montes had been, and some speculated they still were, lovers. The president involved with someone deep into money laundering and drug gangs? The story took on a life of its own.

  A hotel keeper in Cusco, Peru, near Machu Picchu, remembered them together there for a few days. An industrialist spoke of having dinner with them, together, in Buenos Aires. All of that was long ago. Fifteen years. Why would Montes still have her name and phone number in his pocket fifteen years later?

  As a U.S. Senator, Tenny had been on a special committee investigating drugs and money laundering. Committee records were analyzed, revealing that Senator Tennyson had disappeared from her hotel in Mexico City d
uring one committee trip and refused to say where she had been. A most unusual occurrence. Was she secretly seeing Montes? Were they still in contact? If not him, who?

  All of this triggered old suspicions raised in her U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns, discarded then, but not so easily now.

  As the cherry blossoms created their annual floral halo around Washington’s tidal basin, Chris Santos, editor of the El Paso Daily, another newspaper in the Pounds chain, found a “project” on her desk. A former agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency claimed he was pressured to look the other way and abandon an investigation that involved Montes’ bank, Premier Group of the Americas. The agent had refused to give up on the lead and soon after lost his job.

  “Where did you get this, boss?” Santos asked Pounds.

  “Overheard in conversation at a party I attended,” replied Pounds.

  The former agent, who asked that the newspaper not reveal his name, confirmed Pounds’ news tip. And more. He claimed the White House was taking an unusually high level of interest in what was happening in the border drug trade.

  Next came a widely-publicized arrest of midlevel drug cartel member Santiago Flores, captured by border guards as he tried to smuggle a van of high-powered weapons out of the United States. Among his possessions was said to be a note from a higher up in his organization telling him that $20,000 had been paid for his safe passage. According to the note, arrangements had been made at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Apparently, someone on the border didn’t get the same message.

  By summer, journalists from publications that could afford it, freelance writers, and Republican Party operatives were swarming the border looking for evidence of White House interference in illegal drug and gun trafficking. Others were searching for, and finding, men who said they had had affairs with the president. Two congressional committees were checking the Banking Committee files for irregularities that might be linked to the president’s time on that committee. The Treasury Department was trying to keep up with congressional requests for information that could link the president to money laundering.