The People's House

by David Pepper

  “In all my years, through all our debates, I could never have imagined our politics sinking this low,” she said in front of a wall of television cameras, willing to go further rhetorically than I had. “We must fully investigate what happened and bring to justice whoever decided to steal an election from the American voters. And then we must change our system to never allow such a crime to happen again.”

  With everything to lose, Republicans took their cue from Speaker Marshall’s hard denial in the initial Vindicator story. Their pushback got nasty and personal.

  “BREAKING NEWS: Radical Feminist Renee Jones Is Upset That Republicans Are in Power,” the House Republican Caucus press release mockingly announced. According to this broadly disseminated narrative, a liberal feminist aide for former President Obama had spoon-fed a lazy, small-town reporter a bunch of tainted data and he convinced his liberal paper to run with this wild conspiracy theory.

  By Tuesday, conservative news outlets launched a full-fledged attack on Jones. The lede in the National Review summed it up: “Radical leftists like Renee Jones will do anything to discredit Republican leadership in Washington, especially with all the progress being made since they won the House last November. And a left-wing media is all too happy to report their nonsense.”

  Marshall and his top lieutenants scoffed at the idea that Congress should waste time and taxpayer dollars pursuing a partisan conspiracy theory. Rank and file Republicans quickly fell into line. And because the majority party opposed hearings, they weren’t going to happen.

  I give them credit. They wisely took full advantage of my one big mistake.

  Despite our robust reporting and rock-solid findings, only talking to Democrats about the story was a costly, unforced error. Stupidly, I had underestimated how partisan this story would become. In my mind, the facts were the facts. The story was about a mysterious company called Abacus and compelling proof of vote-rigging. But in Washington, it was politics. The legitimacy of the new Republican majority was at stake, and they were going to fight to protect it.

  And now it was too late.

  As I tried to chase down Republicans for comment, they all replied the same way: “Sorry, this is too hot. We can’t help you on this one.”

  The battle over Abacus ground into yet another Washington stalemate.

  “If they can ignore all the science on global warming even as the oceans rise, I guess politicians can willfully ignore blatant evidence of voting irregularities,” Jones said as we commiserated by phone a few days after the story ran.

  At the same time, the partisan pushback did have one positive effect.

  “It pisses me off,” I yelled through the phone, Jones on the other line. “They’re attacking my credibility, my professionalism. My good name. Yours, too. If these politicians want a fight, I’ll bring one to them.”

  Jones was equally energized, so we brainstormed a new course of inquiry.

  “Jack, some group, some person paid for every dime of the Abacus operation. Someone clearly calculated that the entire operation was an investment worth making. And they dumped it all in, no doubt at a major loss.

  “Absolutely,” I added. “Republican politicians may have gained from the outcome. But others did too. Who would have been willing to invest millions to accomplish it all?”

  “Well, the best way to figure that out is to see who’s benefited the most from this year’s flood of activity on the Hill.”

  “That’s a whole lot of people.”

  After we hung up, I got to work compiling an inventory of legislation that had passed after November or was working its way through the House and Senate. Years of industry-written bills had piled up against the logjam of the Democratic House. So when the House flipped, a tsunami of tax breaks, earmarks, deregulation schemes and the like flooded the Beltway.

  Dozens of industry groups from big banks to energy companies had benefited, while hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses and major investors had profited. Social conservative causes, and their deep-pocketed funders, also won big following Marshall’s promotion to Speaker.

  Finding who from among these countless groups and causes might have bankrolled the Abacus plot posed a gargantuan task. But I plunged right in.

  * * *

  In the days following our initial story, a flood of emails, letters and packages stacked up at the Vindicator. Every crank in the country with a political conspiracy theory had found their new hero. And, they hoped, their scribe.

  They rewarded me with pages of elaborate plots—stolen elections, assorted political scandals, every form of corruption imaginable. Many missives came in the form of handwritten or typed letters that went on, single-spaced, for pages. Others simply sent envelopes stuffed with old clippings, every other sentence underlined and exclamation points scattered throughout.

  And then the hate mail arrived, accusing me of being a partisan stooge. Outside of two death threats, the nastiest letters came from the Canton area, saying my story had reminded them why they had voted Dad out of office decades before.

  “I always knew your damn family wasn’t real Republicans,” one Stark County senior wrote. “But even your dad would be ashamed of this stunt, you sellout!”

  Fun stuff.

  But a good reporter learns that amid a whole lot of crazy come tidbits of truth and, occasionally, a major find.

  So I glanced over every piece of mail directed my way. And a few interesting ones did pop up.

  A dozen letters came from people across the country who, like Chairman Rogers, protested the election results in their own district. And from predictable places—Peoria, Tucson, and Kansas City. All Abacus districts.

  The Vindicator published some of these letters, doing our own journalistic touchdown dance.

  A detailed letter from Cincinnati caught my attention. My story had included a few paragraphs on Hamilton County’s decision to choose Abacus. While we didn’t directly accuse Snyder of corruption, the story explained that no documentation supported the problems that Snyder complained about. A Cincinnati neighbor of Snyder’s sent a fascinating letter describing how Snyder suddenly began spending what looked to be large sums of money, a new sports car being the most glaring purchase.

  “Something seemed fishy to all of us, both in his newfound wealth and then his sudden death,” the neighbor wrote. I put the note in a file for later follow-up.

  These were all interesting. But three days after the story published, the true bombshell arrived.

  A professional manila envelope with my name and address typed neatly on a label. No return address, but sent from a post office in Bethesda, Maryland, a mile outside Washington. And its contents were more rigid than plain paper.

  Inside, two large black and white photos clung to one another. I removed them both.

  A time stamp—5:05 p.m., fifty-eight days prior—appeared in the upper-left corner of each photo.

  The photos captured an impressive set of historic brick row houses sitting on a quaint cobblestone street. One photo zoomed in more closely than the other, making the actual house numbers legible: 1842, 1844, 1846.

  Looked like a street you might see in Georgetown, or the Beacon Hill area of Boston. But on closer look, in the wider shot, a distinct city skyline rose behind the row houses. I’d only been to Philadelphia once, but recognized the William Penn statue sitting atop Philadelphia’s City Hall, along with the iconic Liberty Place skyscraper towering behind it.

  Then I looked again at the first photo. The close-up. Outside the house numbered “1844” sat a gray Ford Escape. And on close inspection, I could make out the Ohio license plate. Not the number, but the Ohio flag displayed on it.

  “Jesus.”

  I’d seen this SUV before.

  I rifled through some old clippings and found the one I was looking for.

  Two months ago, Lee Kelly’s gray Ford Esca
pe crashed as he drove from Philadelphia back to Ohio.

  And here it was, photographed hours before.

  I always assumed he had visited Abacus. And maybe he had. But these pictures begged a new question.

  Who was Kelly visiting in this Philly neighborhood only hours before his death? And who the hell took a photo of it and sent it to me?

  PART THREE

  INVESTIGATION

  Chapter 27

  WASHINGTON, DC: 19 months before the election

  Stanton was a creature of habit.

  The congressman left his Georgetown home every morning at 6:30. If not at a breakfast fundraiser somewhere on K St., he enjoyed a private breakfast meeting in the lobby of the Capital Hilton, usually with a fellow Republican, a lobbyist, or both. The handshake greeting, the serious talk over orange juice and oatmeal, the handshake goodbye. And usually the exchange of an envelope containing a campaign check or two. Every morning.

  He arrived at his office in the Capitol no later than 8:15, and spent the rest of the morning there, doing official government work. Lunch took place in the Members’ Dining Room, catching up with colleagues—in many ways, the most important part of his job.

  After lunch, Stanton walked a few blocks to a non-descript building on Ivy Street. He was usually joined by any number of colleagues, often traveling in packs, heading away from the stunning edifices of the congressional campus to this bland, windowless location throughout the day, sometimes multiple times per day.

  Inside the building, known as “the Bunker,” rows of phone cubicles host politician after politician as they dial for dollars. In and out they come, some for thirty minutes, some for several hours, all depending on that day’s vote schedule back in the Capitol. Each politician is accompanied by a twenty-something staffer lugging binders. Their collective assignment: calling through lists of donors back home and begging for campaign contributions.

  The calls from the Bunker are not long, friendly conversations. That would defeat the purpose. To ensure effective fundraising, each call time session is tracked for its efficiency, measured by dollar raised per minute. To maximize that ratio, each staffer dials a number, asks the person who answers to wait a few moments, the politician wraps up another phone call, and is handed the second phone. The staffer then starts dialing a new prospect with the other phone. And they keep switching. Quick calls. Little small talk. Constant dialing. Rapid-fire asking.

  Stanton preached the same sermon all the time, especially to new members: If the single greatest risk to your congressional career is a willingness to work across the aisle (which invites a primary challenge in a gerrymandered district), the second greatest is failing to master, with gusto, the dialing for dollars process within the Bunker. Every six months, if your totals are not where they need to be, the pundits will deem you vulnerable, and your colleagues and caucus leaders will consider you lazy. Those labels invite viable opponents into either your primary or general election, and discourage your own party from digging in to help when you need it. To avoid this fate, whenever you have a moment, you hustle to the Bunker and get to work.

  Hence the steady stream of visitors all day long.

  Unlike the typical Bunker visitor, Stanton had a permanent, personalized calling cubicle. And he didn’t simply call home to Philadelphia donors. The minority whip spent his hours calling the largest donors in the nation, raising dollars in huge chunks for the Republican Caucus. He usually wrapped up at the Bunker around 4:30.

  Then a round of in-person fundraisers began. Stanton would pop into three or four each evening, supporting his members as they scratched together the special interest dollars that flooded the Beltway. Even a brief appearance by Stanton paid dividends, a seal of approval that the candidate enjoyed his support, and was therefore worth investing in.

  After the events, usually around 8:30, Stanton headed back to the Capital Grille for a late dinner and drinks, reviewing political gossip and rumors with his closest advisers, friends, and colleagues. And then he’d head home around 10:00, dropped off in front of his front door by the black Suburban.

  But his night was not quite over.

  About fifteen minutes after he entered his home, the Suburban would return. This time, it would enter the garage to drop off that night’s visitor. But the congressman liked to sleep alone. So at about 1:00 a.m., the garage door opened again, and the car shepherded the now disheveled guest away.

  With that departure, the congressman’s daily routine ended.

  Six hours later, it began again.

  * * *

  “The man does nearly the same thing every day.”

  Kazarov’s goons had reported back to London about Stanton’s every move. And by day three of tailing him, they managed to get a bug on the congressman’s leather briefcase, the one he clung to everywhere he went.

  From that point on, two Kazarov security specialists listened to Stanton’s every conversation and meeting. While they heard a lot—deals with donors, plots with pols, off-the-record leaks to reporters, late-night activities where the young women seemed to do all the work—what they didn’t hear was any talk whatsoever about his Abacus visit. It was as if he had never been there at all.

  Two thousand miles away, Kazarov interpreted Stanton’s silence optimistically.

  “We will keep listening, but he doesn’t plan to stop us,” he told Andersson.

  * * *

  “Did you want me to do any more research on that Abacus company?”

  Stanton tried answering but was at a loss for words. An uncommon occurrence. So he simply stared back at her.

  “It’s just so strange that they’re in all the districts we’ve been targeting in recent years,” his young researcher said. “I can’t imagine it’s a coincidence.”

  Speechless for a few more seconds, Stanton responded carefully.

  “When I asked them about that, they said their focus is on rural areas. Those happen to have a lot of the swing districts.”

  “Happen to?” she said with a forced chuckle. “It’s as if they purposely targeted those districts. They don’t seem to be anywhere else. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me unless they’re up to no good.”

  She then went a step further.

  “Did they say anything else when you were there? Who is DMI in the first place? Why would they have bought a dying company?”

  Stanton cut her off, hoping a little anger would throw her off the trail.

  “We’ve got so many things to do, Joanie,” he snapped. “Chasing down conspiracy theories is the last thing we need to waste time on.”

  She still seemed unmoved.

  It was getting close to 1:00, so he was too tired to argue further. She’d be leaving any minute anyway.

  But this was a concern.

  He had seen enough on his Abacus visit to guess what the company was up to. And after several days of weighing his options, he had concluded that there was little he should do to disrupt it. In fact, telling anyone would be a risk. If the plot he suspected took place, that person would know he knew. Even worse, he or she may try to stop it.

  But now someone knew.

  He would have to keep a close eye on her.

  Chapter 28

  WASHINGTON, DC: 18 months before the election

  Joanie Simpson was not about to let her hunch about Abacus go unexplored.

  From the day after the funeral, when Stanton first dropped the file on her desk, Joanie had dug into Abacus. It soon became her obsession. Something dark was taking place, and she had to get to the bottom of it.

  Stanton’s scolding only propelled her to dig further. To prove him wrong. A lifetime of challenging others guaranteed this would be her response.

  The way her parents told it, Joanie Simpson kicked off her debate career shortly after learning to talk. At two years old, she first began to pepper her parents with
question after question. Direct talking back followed a few months later, increasing with her ever-growing vocabulary. As she aged, she argued with her siblings as they ate their cereal together in the morning, took on her grade school classmates in the cafeteria, and challenged her neighbors on the playground.

  It only escalated from there. One-on-one. Groups. Formal venues. Family reunions. Always challenging, always prodding, always rebutting. A frenzy of facts, figures, humor, and sarcasm, all delivered ferociously.

  And armed with a razor-sharp mind and an intense competitive streak, she was damn good at it.

  From her blue-collar St. Louis middle school, Simpson won the spelling bee championship of the county. In high school, she finished as the state debate runner-up, the only girl to make it that far in Missouri history. That performance and her near-perfect SAT opened a path out of a depressed area where few kids ever left.

  Once at Williams College, she channeled her feistiness into spirited political activity. It began as a reflex to the silver-spoon liberals from fancy prep schools that dominated the place. Her dad was a construction worker, her mom was a nurse, and Simpson worked twenty hours a week in the cafeteria to help pay her room and board. And these sons and daughters of Wall Street traders and Ivy League professors dared to lecture her about the needs of the working man.

  That didn’t last long.

  Simpson founded the Libertarian Club and promptly ran circles around the other political pugilists in every debate of the college’s Political Union. Most East Coast liberals dismissed conservatives as unthinking dolts. So with her unassuming appearance—thin frame, awkward gait, straight brown hair and over-sized glasses—they were never prepared for the full Simpson fusillade of facts, rhetoric, and humor.