by Randy Singer
Technically, Paige didn’t know whether the Patriot was a government employee. But she knew better than to play word games with these guys. “That exceeds the scope of the investigation authorized by Judge Solberg. I’m not going to answer questions about that.”
“Are you asserting the Fifth?” Vaughn pressed.
“Yes.”
“So you think answering questions about whether someone has provided you with classified information might incriminate you?” Vaughn asked.
There was no longer a pretense of this being a friendly interview. Paige was determined to shut it down.
“I’m asserting my Fifth Amendment rights.”
“But I thought you said there was no classified information on your computer,” Diaz said.
Paige could feel her face turning red. This was why attorneys always told their clients not to talk to investigators at all. “I said I’m not answering any questions about this.”
Diaz flipped back a few pages in her notes. “Here it is, right here. I asked whether you had any classified information on your computer and you said, ‘No.’” She looked down at the digital recorder. “Do you need me to play it back for you?”
“I think this interview is over,” Paige said, standing. “I’ve answered your questions about the Marcano deposition. I’m not talking about anything else.”
Vaughn let out a big sigh. “Paige, please. . . . Sit down. We didn’t come here to give you a hard time. There’s nothing in your background to suggest that you would intentionally violate the law. But you’re running with some guys that have a—how shall I say this?—a more checkered history. Wyatt Jackson is not going to have your back if somebody has to take a fall.”
Paige stared at him for a moment. Everything in her—all of her law enforcement background—was screaming that she should cooperate.
“Work with us, Paige. You’re in over your head here, and we can help. We’re talking about some serious felonies and, at the very least, a violation of Judge Solberg’s protective order.”
Paige took a deep breath and ignored her instincts. “I have worked with you,” she said, her voice more resigned now, though she was still standing. “I’ve answered every question about Marcano’s deposition as fully and honestly as I know how. These other questions are invading attorney-client and work-product privileges, and I’m just not going to answer them.”
“If you received classified information from a third party, that’s not covered by attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine,” Diaz insisted.
“I’m done answering questions.”
Vaughn pulled himself up by the arms of his chair and limped over to the recorder. He dictated the time that the interview was ending based on the decision of the witness to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights. He shut the recorder down and placed it in his pocket.
Diaz pulled another document out of her manila folder and handed it to Paige. “This is a search warrant for your condo and vehicle,” Diaz said. “You can see the things we’re after.”
Paige pretended to study the document, though she couldn’t focus on the words. She wanted to call Wyatt or another defense attorney but knew there was nothing anyone could do to stop the search.
“Have at it,” she said.
65
The agents left after ransacking Paige’s condo and car. She sat on her couch for several minutes, thinking. She had lied to the FBI. In the pressure of the moment, and with circumstances pinning her down, her self-preservation instincts had taken over. She had spent her entire professional life prosecuting people who committed crimes and lied to cover them up. Now she was that person.
Beating herself up wasn’t going to solve the problem. She prayed for forgiveness, a heartfelt prayer borne of desperation and guilt, then hopped in her car and drove straight to Wellington’s apartment. Nobody answered the door. She got back in the car and headed to the KOA campground, where she parked out of sight because she saw the agents’ black sedan sandwiched between Wellington’s Fiat and Wyatt’s truck in front of the RV.
Forty-five minutes crawled by as she watched the RV, waiting for Vaughn and Diaz to leave. Eventually they emerged, carrying a computer and cardboard box to the car. She watched them pull away, waited another five minutes, and then went inside.
Clients was happy to see her, jumping on her legs, trying to lick her, and wagging his tail like crazy. After Wyatt settled the dog down, the three lawyers traded notes.
Wellington had told the agents that he wasn’t willing to talk to them without his attorney, Wyatt Jackson, present. The agents had taken his cell phone and computer pursuant to their search warrant and followed Wellington to Wyatt’s RV. They had interrogated both lawyers there, but Wyatt had shut down any questions that didn’t pertain to Marcano’s deposition.
“Did you tell them why you weren’t answering those questions?” Paige asked.
Wyatt gave her a smug look. “I told them it was none of their business. We were taking the Fifth on anything that didn’t have to do with Marcano’s transcript.”
“What did they say?”
“They just frowned and stared a lot. It got to the point where they would ask a question and I would say, ‘Fifth,’ and then they would move on to the next question. They’re not the sharpest tools in the shed, but after a while they got the gist of it.”
And you looked 100 percent guilty, Paige wanted to say. But there was no sense arguing about it. They were all on the same team, and this was serious.
“I saw them with a computer and a box full of stuff,” Paige said. “I thought you were destroying your computers.”
“They didn’t get mine,” Wyatt said. “I pounded it to shreds last night with a rock and then melted it in a fire.”
“Did you tell them that?”
He scoffed. “Of course not. I didn’t tell them anything.”
Paige turned to Wellington. “But they got yours?”
“Yeah, but I deleted anything having to do with the Patriot and erased any trace of him from my hard drive.”
Paige didn’t like the sound of that. Wellington was good, but this was the FBI, and they had unlimited resources. Her stomach was already in knots, and this conversation wasn’t making it any better.
“They got our cell phones, too,” Wyatt said. “But there’s nothing on there about the Patriot.”
“You don’t think they can trace the number that he called from?” Paige asked.
“I certainly couldn’t,” Wellington said.
“Even if they do, they’ll only get the name of the man giving us the inside information,” Wyatt said. “They won’t know what he told us.”
They speculated for the hundredth time about who the Patriot might be. Wyatt favored someone from the military establishment, like Defense Secretary Simpson, who didn’t like the extent of the CIA’s growing power to wage war. Wellington thought it was someone involved with the legal team or in the attorney general’s office. Paige didn’t know what to think—she bounced between a dozen different possibilities.
The three attorneys discussed their predicament for a long time. There was a general consensus that the failure by Paige and Wyatt to produce their computers would lead to all kinds of suspicions and probably result in the FBI concluding that they had released the Marcano transcript. The U.S. attorney would issue a stinging report to Judge Solberg, who might well find them in contempt. But Wyatt was of the firm opinion that a finding of contempt was far better than the criminal charges they might face if the FBI found out about the Patriot.
And Paige knew he was right. One of the last things she had done before burying her computer was to look at the code section dealing with the disclosure of classified information. There wasn’t a lot of wiggle room.
Whoever knowingly and willfully . . . makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses . . . any classified information . . . concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States . . . shall be fined . . . or
imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
She had received classified information, no doubt about that. And the three of them had all used it and published it as part of their lawsuit. But the Patriot was the one most at risk. He was the one who had provided the information in the first place.
And that wasn’t the only statute that was causing Paige to spin dark scenarios of humiliation and imprisonment. There was also 18 U.S. Code Section 1519, which prohibited anyone from knowingly destroying, concealing, covering up, or falsifying any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to obstruct or influence a criminal investigation. And that statute had a maximum term of twenty years.
Paige drove away from the RV with her thoughts about Kristen’s case entirely eclipsed by worries about her own personal freedom and reputation. Her mind played out the drama of being arrested, the headlines that would follow, and the agony of a public trial. She envisioned herself sitting in the witness box with prosecutors asking questions that had no good answers: Why did you lie to the FBI? Why did you bury your computer? Didn’t it dawn on you while you were studying to obtain security clearance that you could not use classified information in order to obtain an edge in litigation?
Paige longed for the days when she had been working as an assistant attorney general. She’d been one of the good guys. Now she was teamed up with Wyatt Jackson, a renegade attorney who liked to fly so close to the sun that he was sure to get burned.
Only this time, he wouldn’t be the only one feeling the flames. Paige and Wellington would be consumed right along with him.
Five days later, Agents Vaughn and Diaz returned with a grand jury subpoena that required Paige to produce her old cell phone and computer within one week or show cause why she could not.
She thanked them for the subpoena and generally kept her composure until they left. Her hand trembled as she read through the document and realized the legal import of what she was holding in her hand. This investigation was now well beyond Judge Solberg’s rule to show cause. A federal grand jury had been impaneled; a full-blown criminal investigation was under way. From the gist of the agents’ questions and these subpoenas, the grand jury would be investigating both the unauthorized use of classified information and obstruction of justice charges.
She called Wyatt, who had received the same kind of subpoena. He’d told the FBI agents that he had destroyed his computer because it contained attorney-client confidences that he was not about to turn over to them. “I can’t produce what I don’t have,” he said.
When she got off the phone, Paige knew she was in way over her head. She needed a criminal lawyer to give her some objective advice. She had been resisting hiring someone because she didn’t have the funds, and she was too embarrassed about the circumstances to ask for a favor.
But none of that mattered now. She would promise payment as soon as things turned around. She could no longer navigate this alone. She and Wellington could hardly concentrate on their Supreme Court brief while they incessantly worried about what the FBI might do next.
During her time in the attorney general’s office, Paige had seen a lot of local defense attorneys in action. There was no question whom she wanted on her side.
She called Landon Reed that afternoon. As a college quarterback, Landon had been caught in a point-shaving scandal and had served two years in prison. Following his release, he went to law school, passed the bar, and after an arduous review process was deemed of sufficient trustworthiness to practice law. Paige had seen his work firsthand and knew he was always prepared. More importantly, at least from Paige’s perspective, Landon really seemed to care about his clients. Other lawyers might look down on their clients, but Landon never forgot that he had once been in their shoes.
Landon was in court, and Paige only talked to his assistant, setting up an appointment for first thing Monday morning. But when she hung up the phone, she felt like she could take a deep breath for the first time since the FBI agents had shown up at her door more than a week earlier.
66
Paige woke early Monday after another fitful night of sleep, put on a black dress with red trim that she normally reserved for court, and arrived a few minutes early at the address for Landon Reed and Associates, less than a mile and a half from the beach. It was a tasteful, three-story office building with impressive pillars framing the front door. She pulled into the parking lot with her mind churning through the challenges of the Anderson case. What had started as a crusade now felt like a cancer.
She met with Landon in the firm’s large conference room, which featured a huge marble table, paintings of beach scenes on the walls, and handcrafted bookshelves populated with old volumes collecting dust. Landon looked the part of a former quarterback—handsome and tall, white shirt neatly pressed, and a red tie snug around his neck. He had probably put on a few pounds since his playing days, but he still moved with athletic grace and confidence.
He offered Paige something to drink, and they sat down at one end of the conference table, each nursing a small bottle of water. At first Paige was nervous and somewhat embarrassed, but Landon had a calming demeanor that soon put her at ease. She told him everything, and when she had finished, she felt a flood of relief from just having shared her story with someone as empathetic as Landon. There were no easy ways out, but talking through it out loud somehow made her feel better.
“Talk about no good deed goes unpunished,” Landon said, shaking his head. “I know you probably can’t sleep at night, but you need to know that people like me look at this and think you’re heroic, not some kind of criminal.”
At some level, Paige knew Landon was just trying to reassure her, but at another, his words were like balm. Landon had faced his own high-profile trial and at a young age had developed quite a reputation with the local bar. To have someone like him on her side, not just because he was getting paid but because he believed in her, made Paige sit up a little straighter.
“Unfortunately, these classified information laws are not very forgiving,” Landon continued. “And hindsight is always twenty-twenty. I’m sure that if you had it to do all over again, you would have reported this confidential source early in the process.”
Paige wasn’t so sure about that, but she didn’t want to pick a fight with her new lawyer. “I guess so,” she said. “But at the time, this person just felt like a good inside source. I really didn’t think of it as a classified information problem.”
“Most of it probably wasn’t,” Landon said. He pulled a thick document out of a file folder. “After you called, I read Marcano’s deposition. Ninety percent of what your source told you was ruled not to be a state secret by Judge Solberg. There are a few exceptions, like the unredacted CIA report or the imam being killed by a drone strike. But to be honest, I’m a lot more concerned about potential obstruction of justice charges than I am about mishandling classified information.”
They segued into a discussion of the obstruction charge, and Landon studied the subpoena for Paige’s computer. Knowing that the ethical rules were fuzzy about lawyers helping their clients conceal evidence, Paige had only told Landon that she could access the computer if she needed it. She didn’t tell him the location.
“Is your law practice a professional corporation?” Landon asked.
“Yes, I incorporated just a few months ago.”
Landon made a face. “I wish they had addressed the subpoena to you individually,” he said. “Individuals have a Fifth Amendment right not to produce documents or electronic devices that might incriminate them. But corporations don’t have Fifth Amendment rights. The FBI knows this, so they’ve addressed this subpoena to you as the officer and director of the Chambers Law Firm, meaning that if you have access to the computer and don’t produce it, you can be held in contempt.”
Paige felt her spirits sinking again. She couldn’t give them the computer.
Landon stood and walked over to a window, his hands in his pockets as he gazed out at the trees beh
ind his office building.
“You’re making me nervous,” Paige said.
“Sorry about that. But I wanted to think this through because you might not like what I’m about to say.”
He sat back down, looked Paige straight in the eye, and told her that they needed to come clean with the U.S. attorney’s office. Mitchell Taylor, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was a straight shooter and a good lawyer.
“Let me talk to him,” Landon said. “You’ll need to be ready to produce your computer.”
He apparently saw Paige flinch because he held up his hand. “I know you don’t want to burn your source, but my job is to protect you. You didn’t dig this person up and convince him or her to divulge this information. Your source came to you. And you shouldn’t feel duty-bound to go to jail to protect him.”
“It’s not just the Patriot,” Paige said. “If we go to the U.S. attorney and agree to cooperate, they’ll ask me about Wyatt and Wellington, right? And I’ll have to tell them that Wyatt destroyed his computer and advised me to destroy mine knowing that the FBI would want to see if we’ve received classified information.”
“Not necessarily,” Landon said. “If we give them your computer, I might be able to convince Mitchell that your conversations with cocounsel are protected by the counsel work-product doctrine. It’s worth a try.”
Paige asked for a few days to think it over. She couldn’t agree to any scenario that would incriminate Wyatt and Wellington.
“Sure,” Landon said. “But the return date for the subpoena is Friday.”
Paige left the office feeling the same tight vise squeezing her that she’d had when she first arrived. Landon was the right lawyer to help her; she had no doubt about that. But even he couldn’t make the subpoena disappear. The only way out was straight ahead, and the road was littered with land mines.
