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

by Joe Rothstein

  “So if the charge is did I have sex with that man, I plead guilty. Not that it’s anyone’s business any more than all the goings on among the guys. I was a private banker, held no public office and did what consenting adults do every day of the week. That’s the beginning and end of it. Anything else you may hear will be a lie or a forgery.

  “You know my relationship with Hal. Hal’s going to be dragged into this—one more time. God, I’m sure he wishes he’d never heard of me. But at least he’s in his last year as governor and won’t have to deal with it in a re-election campaign. Ben, you know better than anyone that he did not appoint me to the U.S. Senate because we slept together. He appointed me against his better judgement because you talked him into it. Admit it!”

  “You give me too much credit for that,” said Ben.

  “Bull shit. He knew we could wind up where we are right now, him being accused of appointing me as a consolation prize for not marrying me. Me being accused of being a slut. Ben, face it, you may have to testify to clear the air on that.”

  Ben started to speak but she left no commas or periods, took no breaths to give him an opening.

  “There’s absolutely nothing to the other stuff. The banks? Christ, I’ve got billions I don’t know what to do with. Why would I risk everything to steal more? Drugs? Guns? Come on. I know I’ve brushed it off for months, thinking that if I ignore such crap it would eventually go away. I can’t believe they actually got eighteen votes in that committee to set up an impeachment hearing. So, here we are. I’m not sure any of us could have stopped this earlier. They seem so determined to get me.”

  “Oh, they’re determined all right,” said Ben. “The House Judiciary hearings will be ugly. And the full House voting for impeachment is almost a slam dunk, since they’ve got control. We just have to stop it in the Senate, like Clinton did. They need sixty-seven votes you know.”

  In tough political situations, Ben, like Tenny, became all business.

  “Madam President, we will hire our own investigators and our own research team to walk in their tracks. We need to know what they know to disprove anything they throw at you. Whatever happened, happened and we can’t afford to be surprised when it comes up in the hearings or media headlines. We’re going to dig as deeply into all this as they do. All of your personal finances and business dealings. All your travel in the years you were on the road. All the paper that’s moved through the White House that has anything to do with any of this. Even, I’m sorry to say, all the men you slept with who might turn up to do you harm. Much deeper than we did for any of your campaigns. If they find anything that would hang you, we need to have found it first. Can you stand that kind of scrutiny?”

  “Dig away. Ben, you know my flaws and weaknesses better than most people. Scratch them ‘til they bleed. Make the worst case you can against me. But do it on facts. That’s the only way I know how to fight back. About the sleeping around part. The fact is that over the years I’ve been with many men. Let’s face it, I enjoy good sex. I’ll try to remember them all for you to check out. I may forget a few who were forgettable. You need to find my former husband, Andres Navarro. I got a very nice letter from him after being elected. His contact information is in our data base. I don’t think he’ll be a problem. I made some deals when I worked with Groupo Aragon that I’m not proud of. That was years ago, and should have nothing to do with this. But I’ll give you enough to get started just in case. My finances? Hell, I’ve got nothing to hide. Maybe just some embarrassing losing investments.

  “Dig into all of it. We can win this on truth. But I don’t know how we fight what they make up. I’m trusting you to figure that out. Win this campaign, Ben, but don’t bother me with the details or take any more of my time than you absolutely need to. I ran for president to be president, not a criminal defendant. There are precious few days for that and I don’t want to waste them.”

  She stood up abruptly. As Ben and Deacon walked to the door she stopped them.

  “By the way, if I survive this I’m going to run for re-election.”

  They both spun in surprise. She had never said a word about re-election even though Ben had prodded her for months to do or say something to head off competition. Already two other serious Democratic candidates had announced and were building campaign teams and bank accounts. A wounded incumbent draws plenty of interest from those ready to bury the final sword.

  “Just thought you should know. Oh, and while I have your attention, those pictures of me they’ve been running in the tabloids, the ones that make me look like a cheap hooker...I actually look pretty good in them, don’t you think?”

  She struck a seductive post, winked and lifted her skirt just above her knee.

  President Tennyson had not been so oblivious to the media campaign against her after all.

  30

  The Nixon impeachment hearings had broken ground untouched since Andrew Johnson’s trial in 1866. Twenty-five years after Nixon there was Clinton. Now, Tennyson. Much of what was mystery in 1973 had become almost routine.

  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Zachary Bowman had not even been born when Nixon was president. New to the committee chairmanship, George Clooney looks, quick wit, unlimited ambition, Bowman was a good bet to run for president himself.

  For the moment, he was at the center of the biggest political story in Washington. He would chair the hearings that would decide whether President Tennyson would be the third recent President to be impeached. Convening in Bowman’s office this morning was Lawrence Anderson, the ranking committee Democrat, a polar opposite of the telegenic Zach Bowman. Receding line of gray hair, slightly stooped from age, and corpulent from too many nighttime fund-raisers. Anderson was from New Jersey, a safe place to be if you’re a Democrat. He had been entrenched in Congress since his first election and had been through all this impeachment stuff before, voting in the House minority against impeaching Bill Clinton.

  Also sitting in on this meeting was Bo Willard, Speaker of the House, and the one who would inherit the spotlight should the House Judiciary Committee find Tennyson impeachable. Willard had become Speaker when the House flipped back to the Republicans during the George W. Bush years. It took savvy to navigate a Republican House caucus since the emergence of a sizable right wing party-within-the-party. Willard was hell-bent for impeachment so that his friend, Rod Rusher, the vice president, could become president. What a great pair they would make. Even though they were in different political parties, on most issues they were of the same mind. As Speaker, Willard would be next in line for the White House, if they could get rid of Tennyson.

  “I want to do this very quickly,” said Bowman. “It’s July. I’d like to see hearings in September and be ready for a House vote in October. I think we can finish this whole business by the end of the year. We don’t want to drag this into the election year.”

  “No reason we can’t,” said Speaker Willard. “The committee votes out impeachment resolutions, the House votes on them. It goes to the Senate. The reasons for doing this are clear enough. I think everyone’s ready to make the case.”

  “Then why even bother with the hearings?” asked Democrat Anderson. “You already have a guilty verdict. No need for a trial. But if you want to do this fairly, she has to have time to send up her own witnesses, hell, come and defend herself right here if she wants. We give axe murderers months to mount their defense. The president just gets weeks?”

  “Hey, Larry, get off your soap box. How much more evidence do we need that she helped that old bank of hers launder the drug and guns money?”

  “So you’re going to parade a bunch of losers through here who claim that one of the richest people in the world risked her job as United States president to make a few extra bucks laundering money? Who believes that crap? And all the sex stuff. I guess we’ll have a replay of Lewinski and publish a report called fifty shades of Tennyson. And what do you expect her to say, ‘I am not a crook. I am not a whore?’ This is all politica
l bull shit and you know it.”

  “Let her defend herself with everything she has, Larry. She can afford the best lawyers, the best private investigators. And, hell, she’s got the whole federal government to use against us. This won’t be rigged. It’s a fair fight.”

  Anderson slumped in his seat.

  “Huh. Do what you want. I can’t stop you.”

  Bowman turned to Willard.

  “I’ll need $10 million to get staff assembled and the investigation in gear. And I’ll need temporary assignment from your chief counsel. Also, we’ll need to build out a platform for the TV guys. Cody over here, my media guy, has been studying how they handled Clinton, and that’s a good roadmap for us. We’ll also need a separate room for the internet people, podcasters, and all.”

  “Can’t they just cover it by watching it on TV?”

  “No,” thundered Anderson. “Everyone needs to be part of the circus.”

  “Larry, will you object to any of this?”

  “Handle all the arrangements the way you want as long as our side gets its share of the money for staff and research. But don’t mind me if you read that I’ve told the press we’re going into this with a hang-her-first and then have the trial mentality. I’ve had my problems with the president, too, She’s not the friendliest lady ever to be here. We go back plenty of years, since she was in the House. She used to drive me nuts there. Push. Push. Push. She’s even worse now. But having differences in style and policy hardly makes her a criminal. There’s a high bar for impeachment. This committee dropped it as low as Lewinski’s drawers when I first got here. Now you’re making it even lower so eventually every president can expect to be impeached if they wind up with the wrong Congress.”

  “Don’t worry, Larry, we’ll do this by the book. But from what I’ve seen, it looks pretty grim and we won’t sugarcoat it. By the way, have you been in touch with the vice president?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well I think you should. Over the next few months, anything could happen. Remember, after this committee asked the House to impeach Nixon, Goldwater and a bunch of other Republicans went to him, told him it was time to go, and he did. It never even got to the House floor. Not everybody stays ‘til the bitter end, like Clinton. The vice president needs to plan his schedule to be around for whatever happens. You’re the best one to tell him that.”

  “You’re probably right. Coming from me he’ll understand the committee is likely to take this all the way and that he’s a good bet to be delivering the next State of the Union speech.”

  “Although his defense of her I saw on TV last night was pretty strong and looked authentic.”

  “What else would you expect from him? It’s what vice presidents have to do. Until they don’t.”

  

  The weeks between the House decision to hold impeachment hearings and the hearings themselves resembled the peak days of election campaigns—each side jockeying to command the heights of Mount Validity. Tenny’s opposition was prepared for this combat. Within days of the Judiciary Committee vote, Republican support groups were on television with frightening ads of guns and drugs being trucked across the border into the United States with drivers showing White House passes to border guards.

  Tenny’s defense, caught off guard through wishful thinking and Tenny’s refusal to take the impeachment threat seriously, moved quickly to play catch up.

  A support organization was quickly formed to raise money and to manage her counter-attack. At the group’s center was a small strategy team: Ben and Lee; Alistair Seltzer, one of the lead defense attorneys; Chip Fanning, CEO of Fanning and Frazier, a political research firm relied on for years by Sage and Searer; Henry Deacon; and Bruce Han, chief White House legislative assistant.

  Platoons of respected leaders and organizations were enlisted for her defense. Campaign-style paid media was produced to compete with the opposition’s. Mail and email blanketed digital and snail mail boxes. Supporters swarmed talk shows and wrote op-eds and letters. Tenny herself was on the move, obediently heading to cities and states the strategy team labeled pivotal.

  Compared with the House and Senate Watergate hearings that led to Nixon’s demise as president, the Tennyson hearings drew a meager television audience. Back then, before cable, before the internet, before smart phones, you either watched what any of three broadcast networks gave you or you didn’t watch anything at all. When all three networks broadcast the same program, you had no choice. Besides, the Nixon hearings were historic, the first serious proceeding in a century that could lead to the removal of an elected president. While the Nixon hearings were rare, the Tennyson hearings were not. In fact, for many Americans, it was the third time they were asked to sit through an impeachment trial. The last one, Bill Clinton’s, was considered a farce by most Americans, devaluing what was once seen as a solemn process. Now, the impeachment show was back for a rerun. Many found the game show “Jeopardy” more interesting than the jeopardy confronting the White House.

  So it was a meager viewing audience that watched live while Judiciary Committee Chairman Zachary Bowman opened the impeachment inquiry with a brief statement of its purpose.

  “For the past two months, committee staff has been reviewing certain allegations made against the president of the United States, which, if true, would rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, the bar set by our nation’s Constitution for impeachment and removal from office. Committee staff has interviewed dozens of witnesses, including the president herself, under oath. Staff members have traveled to various locations where the inquiry has taken us to obtain first-hand information and to review circumstances related to the allegations. Tens of thousands of documents related to this inquiry have been obtained, verified, and analyzed. All of this information has been reviewed by members of this committee. To summarize, our hearings will focus on the following topics:

  “One. Was the president of the United States complicit in a scheme to launder money obtained illegally in a manner that violates U.S. banking, currency, and national defense laws?

  “Two. Was the president of the United States complicit in a scheme to violate laws for the transport of illegal substances and weapons across the United States–Mexico border?

  “Three. Did the president of the United States willingly misuse her high office to conspire with foreign nationals to enrich herself and her family and for other illegal purposes?

  “These hearings will take testimony from those making such allegations, possessing documents alleging such crimes, and from those who will speak on behalf of the president to counter those allegations. The president will be welcome at any time to address these charges personally. The committee begins these hearings without prejudice or bias. We will form no judgements until all of the witnesses have been heard and the evidence presented. Now, counsel, please call your first witness.”

  

  At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, in a small White House office, the president’s core strategy group was completing its first head count of U.S. Senate votes. Thirty-four senators would be enough to block the president’s removal. Now the legislative staff was evaluating each Senator’s current thinking. Others were suggesting ways to influence Senators’ votes, through wives, children, close friends, contributors and pet projects. True, the current action was in the House. But Republicans were in the majority there. The president’s defenders had little expectation that they could win either in the committee or on the House floor. But marshalling thirty-four votes in the Senate seemed possible. Even likely. That’s where they focused their resources. In the midst of a lively exchange, suddenly, the chatter stopped. Deacon had turned up the volume on one of the room’s three television sets. All eyes swiveled to it.

  Filling the screen was a full-frame image of a startlingly handsome middle-aged man. His photos had been so widely published that anyone paying attention to the impeachment story would instantly have recognized him. For those who had not,
the words on the screen spelled it out. Gabriel Montes. The camera pulled back to reveal him at the witness table being questioned by Katherine Polaski, chief Judiciary Committee counsel.

  “I want to review this again, Señor Montes, because it obviously is important to our deliberations. You say you have been involved in a long-time affair with president Tennyson.”

  “Sí.”

  “When did the affair begin?”

  “Twenty years ago.”

  “And you say it began when you both were young international bankers. Can you please elaborate on that?”

  “Yes. We met at a conference in Peru. She and I were competitors for wealth management accounts in Latin America. She worked for Groupo Aragon. I was with Premier Group de las Americas. We were on the same conference panel. She was very smart, very quick. And quite beautiful to my eyes. After the panel, I suggested that we have a drink in the hotel lobby. That led to dinner. We talked of many things, including the ancient arts of Latin America. Her mother had been an art student and filled their home with many rare and beautiful artifacts. It became a passion, also, of Señora Tennyson. I could feel that passion she had for art. That raised my passion for her. I asked if we could have dinner the following night, too. But she was occupied.

  “Before the conference ended, though, I had a chance to speak with her again. She was much in demand, representing a major Mexican bank group and a member of the famous Aragon family of Mexico. A very rare combination of assets. Señora Tennyson, I asked, have you ever been to Machu Picchu? That got her attention. She had never been to this important site.

  “I have many connections there, I told her. And it was true. The owner of the Cima del Mundo hotel in Cusco was a long-time friend. In fact, I had helped him finance his purchase. The chief of the major guide service was from my home city of Chiclayo, in Peru. I told the señora we could have excellent accommodations, with service and a tour such as others seldom enjoy.