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 Originally published in Italy's Panorama Magazine in August 1998 under the name David Ford
The bespectacled, middle-aged man entered the White House, a lumpy litigation bag banging against his blue-clothed leg. He seemed calm, but with a heightened sense of alertness in his eyes.
In another room, a buzzer sounded.
A man opened the door to the Oval Office. "He's here, sir."
The president nodded at the three attorneys and four political advisers. "Let's get this done so I can get back to the work the American people elected me to do." He paused and then looked at each of them. "You know, this is beneath this office. This is beneath me. The world is falling apart and the president of the United States of America has to take the time to testify about an intern. This is a great wrong to the American People. This, this is a day of infamy."
"Beautiful," Adviser No. 4 said under her breath as she scribbled notes.
"We'll have the ongoing polls available on the laptop during your testimony, sir," said Political Advisor No. 1."
"Good," said the president.
"Okay, here's the plan, sir," growled Lawyer No. 1, the President's nimble-minded lead counsel.
The President leaned forward, one hand cupped under his chin, "I'm listening."
"During the course of your testimony you are entitled to speak to your attorney at any time. You will elect to do so at any time you feel unsure of a question or legal issue."
"I know," the most powerful man in the world said. "I'm no a stranger to litigation. My family is broke because lawyers in this country will go after you at the drop of a hat. I'm going to spend my 'golden years' paying you off."
Lawyer No. 1 continued, "You will find that you are unsure at roughly five minute intervals."
"Okay, I see where you're going," said the President.
"And if we see any troublesome fluctuations in the polls, we can assess it during those times as well," Political Advisor No. 1 added.
"Agreed," said the president. "I want this over with sooner rather than later. It's hard enough the man has come to my house to conduct this circus."
Lawyer No. 2 ventured to say, "That was our idea, Mr. President. We didn't want you filmed walking into the courthouse."
"It's still very difficult to swallow."
Everyone looked at the president as he said these words. The silence was shattering.
"Okay," Lawyer No. 1 said, "let's just everybody take a deep breath. We've prepared thoroughly. There's not one question he can ask that you haven't heard before."
"A great waste of time then." The president strode over to the window and looked out.
Lawyer No. 1 joined him.
"Mr. President, a private word." The president nodded. "May I speak frankly, sir?"
"I'd appreciate it. Certainly."
"Sir, it's been a long, tiring battle, both sides will admit that. But a few things you have to keep in mind, sir. This is not politics. This is a grand jury. You are the best politician I have personally ever seen. You love to talk, it's part of who you are. Great for a politician, deadly for a witness."
"Meaning long answers will kill me."
"With all due respect, your rather lengthy responses in the past have made things more difficult."
"I guess I can't disagree with that."
"The man waiting for you in that room, you may not like him, but within the four corners of that room you have to respect him. He is a superb lawyer. He has won cases of enormous significance. To underestimate him is tantamount to legal suicide. Do you get my point?"
"Yes. I'm with you."
"One last thing. Before you go in that room and testify, I would like to know if you plan to answer any of the questions you've already been asked, any differently than you already have."
The president looked at him. "Should I?"
"The grand jury process is a fact-finding one, sir, that's all. Just give him the facts as you know them to be true. As a lawyer, that's all I can tell you."
Lawyer No. 1 went away and the president was joined by Political Advisor No. 1.
"The polls are very strong, sir. A fat, happy group of capital gains-laden voters. You could go in there and say you had that intern for lunch and they wouldn't care." It really was the economy, stupid, he thought to himself.
The president considered this for a moment. "So, what if I stick to my prior testimony and they find evidence to the contrary? Then what do the polls say?"
The man looked suddenly nervous. "Well, sir, that gets a little more tricky."
"Let's go through the scenarios one more time," the president said.
"Okay." The man ticked them off on his fingers. "If you say you didn't and they can't prove it, home free."
"Obviously. Good."
"If you say you didn't and we can show she's lying, again, home free."
"God, if only we could."
"If we -
The president broke in. "Let's cut to the chase. If I continue to say I didn't but they sort of prove I did, will the voters demand my impeachment?"
"That depends on how strong the evidence is and what sort of evidence it is. Right now it's he said, she said. I'm no lawyer, but I know the prosecution never wins with that one." He paused. "Uh, is the dress a problem, sir?"
"Send my lawyer back over here."
"Yes, Mr. President," Lawyer No. 1 said as he rejoined the president.
"Hypothetical."
"Certainly."
"I change my testimony. Say something happened between the woman and me. Not exactly what, but something. Maybe intimate on some level. She was mixed up, maybe seeking a father figure. I'm the sort who often reaches out, in my nature, nothing lecherous, all in good faith, but perhaps inappropriate to some."
"Yes, Mr. President?" Lawyer No. 1 said nervously.
"So I plan to change my story. Should it be in the grand jury setting, or to the press or both? If so, in what order?"
Lawyer No. 1 licked suddenly dry lips. "Let me get your political advisor, sir."
After being apprised of the hypothetical, Political Advisor No. 1 said, "Isn't this a legal matter?"
Lawyer No. 1 piped up. "I clearly see it as political, particularly with any statements to the press. As a lawyer, my rule for a client is no comment. It's your call."
"Hold on, now," the president said. "It was just a damn hypothetical. And all I want to know is Press or Grand Jury. I'm not saying I'm doing it."
"Well, sir," Lawyer No. 1 said, "since the issue is so delicate, perhaps the president should decide if your testimony will change. If it won't then we needn't reach that issue at all."
"I agree with him, sir," Political Advisor No. 1 said. "There is something to be said for not upsetting the apple cart." He paused and then added quietly, "Is the dress a problem, sir?"
"Dress?" Lawyer No. 1 cried out. "The dress is no problem. Chain of custody nightmare. Mother had it, who the hell knows what she did with it, where's it been. It's months old, DNA deterioration and all that. And after O.J. who gives a shit about DNA? Not the public, I can tell you that. It's not a damn fingerprint, it's a probability. One or two out of a billion is not good enough in the old US of A. If all they have after spending all this time and forty million dollars is probability the American Public will stone them all to death."
"I've made up my mind," the president said, slapping Lawyer No. 1 on the back. "Good, thank you. Earned your money today. Hope I can pay it sometime."
In the small room the President stared at the camera. "I hope they're putting y'all up at a nice place," he said to the grand jury members sitting back at the courthouse watching him. "With all the money the American people are spending on this thing I hope you're at the Ritz."
He chuckled so they would see he was kidding. Partly.
The president looked over at the prosecutor. "Mr. S., you just let me know if you need anything. This is my home and you're my guest. Anything at all. Real southern hospitality."
"Thank you, sir, I appreciate that," Mr. S replied.
"You do your duty, sir, regardless of what people say and you know what they're saying about you. Good God Almighty what they're saying about you. But you do what you have to do, Mr. S." The President checked his watch as he said this.
Mr. S. coughed and looked over his questions.
Outside the room the latest poll numbers were spread across the laptop's screen.
"How're we looking?" asked Lawyer No. 3.
"Holding steady," replied Advisor No. 2. "Eighty percent don't care if he's telling the truth, lying, cheating, stealing, smoking dope, or doing nasty things with animals."
"Percentage error?"
"Plus or minus three."
Lawyer No. 1 leaned back, crossed his arms and nodded thoughtfully, "So far, so good. But the day's still young."
"I'm going to need a short recess."
Mr. S. was startled. "But why, sir?"
"I am the president of the United States. I have a country to run. You knew that when you issued the subpoena."
Outside the room the President looked over the troops. "Polls?"
"Excellent, sir," Advisor No. 2 and Lawyer No. 3 answered in unison. "We can confidently report being in a position of power."
"How's the testimony going?" asked Lawyer No. 1.
"Piece of cake. I think Mr. S. might be overrated."
"Please don't underestimate him."
"See you in five minutes."
"Well, I don't know much about DNA, but if you told me what sort of dress it was I might be able to help you," the president said to the prosecutor.
"Please just answer the question."
"Well, what about this scenario? DNA is also secreted in sweat, is it not? Now I hug lots of people. Hugged her, you saw it on TV. And I sweat a lot. Now you put hugs and sweat together and you got DNA on a dress. My DNA. That would explain it. Now if the American People want me to stop hugging, I will, but I think this is getting a little absurd, don't you?"
"More obfuscation, Mr. President?"
"Just exercising my constitutional right of free speech, sir. If you have a problem with that, you might try looking for a new country," said the smiling president .
"What if we're not talking about DNA from sweat, sir? What then?"
"I know of no controlling legal authority on the subject."
"Please answer the question."
"I need to speak to my legal counsel."
Outside once again, the president said, "Nobody told me there was a damn difference between DNA from sweat and from other stuff."
"He said this?" Lawyer No. 1 asked.
"He clearly intimated it. Clearly. Now I thought it was your job to prepare me." A trickle of sweat slid down the president's nose and he angrily swiped at it.
"Forget the dress. I told you, it's worthless."
"Oh, shit!" exclaimed the Advisor with the laptop.
"What? What?" they all said.
"The polls are tanking. We're down to fifty-five percent support ratings from eighty an hour ago."
They all crowded around the screen. "What's happening? How is that possible?" the president asked.
At that moment the door opened and Mr. S. looked out. "Mr. President, I'd liked to continue."
"Look, I've got a crisis of national importance on my hands here. You're just going to have to wait." He looked at his troops. "Come on."
When they returned to the Oval Office, the president quickly took charge.
"Now look here, call up Treasury and see if anything's happening there. Maybe Greenspan went off and said something stupid again." He shook his head wearily. "Today of all days." He pointed to another advisor. "You call up the State Department and see if there's an international event going down. I'll be back in five minutes and I want some answers on those polls dammit."
Five minutes later the president faced some very anxious faces. "Let me have it," he said.
"Wall Street is tanking," Political Advisor No. 2 said. "We've been on the horn to Treasury. As you know, the Dow dropped three hundred yesterday. It started falling from the bell this morning and hasn't stopped. It triggered the breakers in less than thirty minutes. The market's back running and it's down another five hundred points. Over a trillion dollars in market value wiped out."
"You mean investor wealth. You mean mom and pop America," the president said uneasily. "What triggered the sell off?" He looked around. "Bad economic numbers, War? Asia? What?"
"We don't know," moaned Political Advisor No. 2. "State, Treasury have nothing to tell us. We've checked everywhere. Nothing."
"Sir," this came from Lawyer No. 1. "Sir, perhaps the answer is right under our noses."
"Well?" asked the president. "We don't have much time. I'm giving testimony for God's sakes."
"Perhaps it's your testimony that's driving down the financial markets, and with it your ratings in the polls."
"I'm the president, what the hell do I have to do with the economy?"
"Well, perhaps your support polls started falling and took Wall Street with it," further mused Lawyer No. 1.
"It could merely be coincidence," said Political Advisor No. 3.
"I don't believe in coincidences that big and neither should you," Lawyer No. 1 said with asperity.
The president said, "It's political, not economic. I can smell it. My nose is gold in situations like this."
"But how could they possibly know what your testimony is?" wailed Political Advisor No. 3. "No one's even seen it yet."
The president suddenly looked in the direction of the witness room. "He has, that sonofabitch. He's leaking it himself. They've been pulling this crap from day one, and I want to know what we're going to do about it."
"How could he be getting the information out?"
"We swept the room for bugs and stuff like that, didn't we? After he got here?" The president said.
Political Advisor No. 3 turned gray. "Omigod! We were so busy, all the last minute details. I forgot to tell the Secret Service."
"Well, that's just great. That's just swell and dandy," roared the president, as he loosened his tie and took a long drink of water straight from the carafe on his desk.
"Let's step back a minute, calm down," Lawyer No. 1 said. They all looked at him. "Now, let's assume for the moment that I'm right and that the Wall Street meltdown is due to your leaked testimony. If so, we need to know what that testimony has been thus far."
The president suddenly looked pale. "If I'm reading you right, you're saying that my testimony is causing people to jump ship, sell out?"
"And with the financial markets tanking, people's opinion of your behavior, er, alleged behavior is also changing."
"In other words," the president began.
"The people, being much poorer than they were yesterday, may suddenly care about this case," Lawyer No. 1 finished the sentence for him. "They now may be inclined to judge your actions, hold you to some sort of, well, standard."
"Jesus H. Christ. I can't believe this." The president plopped down in his chair and put his hands over his face. "Can anyone in this room believe that the morals of the American People are dictated by what they have or don't have in their damn pocketbooks? Have we fallen that far?"
Lawyer No. 1 cleared his throat. "Mr. President, we need to know what you've been saying in there."
"Saying?" The president took his hands from his face. His eyes were red, his face sagged. "I've been saying, well, I've been saying what I said all along." He jumped up and looked out the window before turning slowly to them. "I've been telling the truth. If the American People have a problem with the truth, then maybe they don't want me as president." He shook his head, a solemn expression on his face. "And if that day is here, we are less of a country than we were yesterday." He stared at each of them. "But listen up. I'm only going to say this once: I will persevere."
"Beautiful," Political Advisor No. 4 said to herself as she scribbled damage control notes.
"So, if your leaked testimony is that nothing happened with the intern and Wall Street and the polls are tanking," Lawyer No. 1 reasoned out loud, "then apparently the public doesn't believe you."
"But dang it I thought they didn't care," the president griped. "Wasn't that the whole point?"
"They didn't, but apparently now they do care that they don't believe you." Lawyer No. 1 said.
"But why? Why now?"
"What the hell does it matter why?" roared Lawyer No. 1 before quickly regaining his calm demeanor. "Look, we don't have much time here. The issue is thus: your testimony may have somehow destroyed the very support that has kept you afloat to date. You need a robust economy to ensure that the American People don't care whether you're telling the truth or not. Whether the economy is tanking because of your testimony or for some other reason, doesn't matter. It's tanking! And you're going with it."
"Oh God," Political Advisor No. 1 said, "we're down another ten points in the polls and trading has been halted on Wall Street."
"But I'm telling the truth," the President wailed. "I didn't touch the woman or her dang dress. Why won't anybody believe me?" He pulled at his hair, his face had turned the color of red brick.
The phone buzzed. The president picked it up. "Yes? What? Look, you tell Mr. S. I'm in the middle of an emergency national security meeting and he can just stand in line and take a number." He slammed the phone down.
"So what do I do? I am not, repeat not, going to be the first American President forcefully removed from office."
"Well, actually if Nixon hadn't resigned, sir --."
"Not exactly the company I want to keep," the president snapped. He looked at each of them, a pleading look on his face. "What do I do, folks? I need some help here." He looked down, his shoulders slumped, his hands idly drummed the top of his desk. He resembled a large, stricken child. Still looking at the floor, he added quietly, "I really need some help here."
Political Advisor No. 1 took the challenge. "I think I've got it." They all stared at him, hope in their eyes. "If your lawyer is right, then the problem is the American People think you're lying even though you're telling the truth. And because of the stock market tanking or some other reason they now care that they think you're lying even though you're not." He looked around the room. "Everybody with me so far?"
"I am," said the president.
"Okay, as bizarre as it sounds, by telling the truth, you're going to be impeached."
The president cupped his chin with his hand. "I'm listening. Go ahead."
"So, we have to fight back with something other than the truth."
Lawyer No. 1 interrupted. "I have to protest, sir. From purely an ethical point of view."
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," the president said. He looked at Political Advisor No. 1. "How do I do that?"
"Your hypo, sir, from earlier. But we don't go to the grand jury, or the press. We go straight to the American People."
"And tell them what?" Lawyer No. 1 demanded.
"That something happened. Not sure whose fault, but the president will accept responsibility. To put this behind us, to put it behind the country."
Lawyer No. 1 thought about this for a moment. "Like settling a lawsuit, for nuisance value. Neither admitting nor denying guilt. Taking the high road."
"The very high road," the president added. "But I get your point. Young, hero-worshipping woman. Friendly, eager-to-please, want-to-be-loved-by-everyone president gets in her sights and bam, something happens, just not sure what. Only human. Take the high road. Clear the conscience of America with it. Put this behind us. Get on with the work of a troubled world."
"Beautiful," Political Advisor No. 4 said, scribbling notes for the television address.
"I'll do it," the president said. "For the American People I will do anything. Even sort of not telling the truth. But just so everyone in this room is straight, my conscience is clear, for I had every intent to tell the truth. Okay, then, let's get this over with, sooner rather than later."
The president's grand jury testimony was temporarily halted and the television appearance was hastily scheduled. The president was striding to the podium to tell something other than the truth to the waiting American People when it happened.
Political Advisor No. 1 ran down the hall and clutched at the president's coattail.
"Mr. President?"
"Yes?"
"New development, sir."
"I'm listening."
"The polls, sir, the financial markets."
"Yes," the president cupped his chin with his hand. "How much more have they fallen?"
"That's just it, sir. They haven't, I mean aren't."
"What?"
"They've come roaring back. Dow Jones is up nine hundred points."
"Good God." He gripped the man's shoulder. "And my polls? My polls?"
"At record levels. We were wrong. The markets tanked first and drove down your ratings. There was no leak of your testimony."
"Praise be to God. But then what happened in the first place to drive down the market?"
Political Advisor No. 1 looked sheepish. "Apparently there were, briefly, more sellers than buyers for stock. Happens sometimes or so I've been told. Crazy world."
"Huh, who would have thought. So you're telling me--"
"That the public is rich again. They don't care again. You can go back in and testify with confidence."
"And what do the polls say I need to say when I testify?" the president cautiously asked.
"That's the beauty of it, sir. Your ratings are so high, you can say anything you want. Nobody cares. Isn't it wonderful? You can even tell the truth, if you want."
The president clasped his hands behind his back, flexed his thick shoulders. "I intend to tell the truth. Always have. Feels good to finally be able to do it."
"Absolutely. We all win. You are the man again, sir." He looked like he might cry.
"Well, don't just stand there, cancel the TV thing. And get Mr. S. back here." The president felt the oppressive weight lift from him. For the first time in a long time he felt young again, alive. A single, genuine tear of relief, of renewed hope, slid down his cheek.
"Let's get this done, sooner rather than later." He squared his shoulders. "God, I love this country."
* * *
© 1998 by David Baldacci Ford; Illustration by Rudy Baldacci |
