Kompromat

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Both Wilbur Brown, director of the FBI, and Bud Hollingsworth, director of the CIA, had made time in their busy schedules to respond to the US attorney general’s urgent request.

‘This came in the post today,’ Dirk Goddard, the former Senator for Mississippi explained. ‘Brown-paper envelope. Posted in Washington yesterday.’

They sat round a table in Goddard’s office to listen to the tape.

‘Okay guys,’ they heard Craig say. ‘This is what we’re offering if I’m elected president. Number One, the US is going to drop the current sanctions against Russia, as regards Crimea and the Ukraine. We would hope that NATO will follow us in this, but even if they don’t, we will act unilaterally.

‘Number Two: if I’m elected president, the United States will not challenge the deployment by Russia of the ground-based, nuclear-capable 9M729 missiles, even though possession of these missiles is a violation of the terms of the INF… Bert, what the hell does INF stand for?’

‘INF means the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Ron.’

‘I guess that’s Bert Rumbold,’ Wilbur Brown commented. ‘Sounds like he’s still on six packs a day.’

‘Thanks, Bert,’ they heard Craig say. ‘We understand the 9M729s have a range of 620 to 3240 miles. Apparently they hit Syria from the Caspian the other day. So if we agree that their use is compatible with the INF, then Russia can legally hit every capital in Europe. More to the point, perhaps, Russia will be able to blast the living daylights out of every city in China.

‘Let’s take China’s build-up in the South China seas. I believe the United States must be ready to go to war with China over these illegal bases. But it would be better still if Russia and the US could take a coordinated approach. We can say to China “Pull back from the Spratlys or the Russians will whack Chengdu or Xian or wherever with their 9M729 missiles can reach.” ’

‘Now we’re going to hear the Russian ambassador to Washington, Georgiy Reznikov,’ Goddard said.

They listened right to the end of the tape, until they reached Reznikov’s damning conclusion.

‘Thank you, gentlemen. This has been a most productive meeting. I can assure you that President Popov will be pleased. In view of what I have heard today I am authorized to tell you that between now and Election Day we will make sure that our cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee, including those from Caroline Mann, the Democratic Presidential candidate, is deployed to the fullest possible extent. We further undertake to offer Craig Shipping and Craig Oil the most favourable terms possible as far as their operations in the Russian Arctic are concerned.’

There was a pause. Then they heard Reznikov say, ‘Of course we will, I hope, have further conversations, many further conversations when Ron – may I call you Ron? – is elected. But perhaps our discussions today will do for starters.’

There was one last intervention from Ronald Craig, the presidential Candidate. ‘Don’t forget about my old friend Mickey Selkirk. Selkirk Global is planning a major expansion in Russia. I think he has his eyes on Pravda and Izvestia as well as RT, Russian television!’

Goddard switched the tape off. ‘So my first questions, gentlemen, are: did this conversation really happen and is this an accurate recording?’

He looked at them expectantly. They were the experts; he wasn’t.

Bud Hollingsworth raised his hand. ‘Hold on a moment, Dirk. Let’s assume for a moment this isn’t a fake. It’s a real recording of a real conversation. What would you say the implications are?’

The attorney general answered without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Totally massive. Lethal actually.’

‘Lethal to whom?’ Wilbur Brown asked.

‘To President Craig, of course,’ Dirk Goddard replied. ‘People have tried to argue the contrary, but in my view – and I’m attorney general – there’s no presidential immunity for crimes committed before taking office.’

‘You’re talking about violations of the Logan Act?’ Brown said.

‘You bet I am,’ the attorney general replied. He pulled down a thick, brown volume from a shelf. The page was already marked.

‘Listen to this,’ he said.

‘Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.’

‘Now, I’m a supporter of the president,’ Dirk Goddard continued. ‘He appointed me to the high office, which I now hold. But when I took up my job, I solemnly swore to uphold the Law and Constitution of the United States. So help me God. What we’ve just heard is a clear violation of the Logan Act.’

‘Nobody’s ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act, not for the last two hundred years or more,’ Bud Hollingsworth said.

‘They darn well should have been,’ Dirk Goddard countered. ‘Do you remember, back in 2007, when then-House speaker Lucy Wainwright went to Syria to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad? Or 2015, when another House speaker, David Draper, invited Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Moses to address Congress without President Matlock’s permission? I would have used the Logan Act then, if I’d been attorney general. But that’s chickenfeed besides the deal that Candidate Craig was trying to set up with the Russians.’

There was a long pause, as the two very senior officials tried to digest the full implications of what the Attorney General was saying.

Wilbur Brown shook his head. ‘You’re a lawyer, Dirk. If you based your case on the evidence of that tape, you’d lose. The president would set the pack on you. They’d ask you where you got the tape. Did the Russians send it to you as their way of signalling that the honeymoon is over? Or if the Chinese sent it, which is another possibility, did they manage to bug the Russian Embassy? The government’s lawyers would query its authenticity every which way. They’d argue that it was in any case inadmissible because it must have resulted from an unauthorized surveillance operation, so the court would have to ignore it.’

There was another long pause. Dirk Goddard, an honest man, looked truly crestfallen. He had always believed that Washington was indeed a “shining city on a hill” and, if what Wilbur Brown said was right, he was going to lose the chance to prove it.

‘Shall we tell him the good news, Wilbur?’ Bud Hollingsworth asked. ‘Will you go first? Or shall I?’

‘You go first, Wilbur.’

Bud Hollingsworth took out a pen and doodled some stick-figures on the yellow legal pad in front of him.

‘Let’s take first things first. In my view, the conversation we just heard actually happened and this is an accurate recording. I can say this with total confidence.’

‘You mean it rings true?’ Dirk Goddard asked.

‘I mean more than that. I mean it is true. We have exactly the same recording ourselves.’

The attorney general looked stunned. ‘You’re not telling me, after all these denials, you actually bugged Ronald Craig, after all?’

Hollingsworth sighed. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’

He pushed the pad aside.

‘Let me explain,’ he continued. ‘You may not be familiar, Dirk, with the executive order that President Brandon Matlock signed on May 18th, 2016. President Brandon was worried that Ronald Craig’s personal security could have been compromised. I’ve still got the text on my iPhone. Only half a dozen copies of that executive order were ever produced and I was one of the recipents.

‘Let me read it out:

‘To cut a long story short,’ Bud Hollingsworth went on, ‘as soon as that executive order was issued, Craig was picked up in Florida, whisked up to the Walter Reed Medical Centre in Maryland and subjected to a clinical examination as specified. We didn’t, as a matter of fact, find any evidence of a Russian bug, though we still believe that such a bug may still be in place, but not where we were looking.’

‘So?’ Dirk Goddard was looking for some light at the end of the tunnel.

‘I want to make it clear,’ the Director of the CIA explained, ‘that Wilbur and I were determined to act strictly in accordance with the law. The issue here is quite simple. I’ll read that paragraph again:

‘The crucial phrase, of course, is that we had the president’s explicit authorization by means of an executive order not just to ensure that Craig was submitted to a clinical examination but to “take all appropriate measures.”’

‘I still don’t see how that helps us get the tape we just listened to into evidence before a court,’ the attorney general said.

‘Oh ye of little faith,’ Hollingsworth sighed. ‘Wilbur and I have heard every word of that conversation before. We have listened to it a dozen times, if we’ve listened to it once. How did we do that? Well, while we looking for the Russian bug, we planted a bug of our own in Ronald Craig’s posterior. I can tell you that our recording of that fateful conversation repeats word for word, phrase for phrase, the text we heard earlier.

‘The vital point is that while the tape you just played us would not be admitted in evidence, our own tape, properly sworn and notarized, undoubtedly will be since it was authorized under a specific presidential executive order.’

‘Mah, oh mah!’ The former senator’s Mississippi drawl was working overtime. ‘You two ole boys really have got it all worked out.’

Dirk Goddard rose to his feet. What was he going to do? He had surely come to a fork in the road. Which path should he take? How did that poem go? The one less travelled by?

‘I’ll let you know my decision,’ he said.

A last thought occurred to him. ‘So basically you’re telling me that the 45th president of the United States is at this very moment walking around with three bugs implanted on his person, like a bloody pincushion? The Russians put one on him, though not where we originally thought. We’ve put one on him, on his backside if I understand correctly.’

‘The left buttock actually,’ Wilbur Brown said.

‘And where is the Chinese bug?’

‘We don’t know for sure. Probably the right buttock, but that’s just a guess.’

‘You mean he’s literally talking through his ass?’ the attorney general asked. ‘How long will they go on transmitting, these bugs? ‘Till the next election?’

‘Negative,’ Wilbur Brown replied. ‘All these systems use solar radiation. Subcutaneous insertion, which is what we have here, means that they have to rely on the initial battery charge without any recharge being possible. Realistically I would say that all three bugs must be approaching the end of their useful life.’

‘Let’s be grateful for small mercies,’ Dirk Goddard said.

With Southern courtesy, the attorney general escorted them to his private elevator. ‘Thank you, gentlemen, very much for stopping by today. I’ll be in touch.’

On the way down, Brown asked: ‘Would a criminal conviction under the Logan Act lead to impeachment? Impeachment, as we know from experience, can be a long process and is seldom successful. You have to have a majority vote in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate.’

‘A criminal conviction would be enough to force him to step down,’ Hollingsworth replied. ‘But I’m sure there would be a lot of people, Goddard included, who would be ready to launch a formal impeachment process if the president looked as though he wanted to cling to office.’

‘What does all this make us, Bud?’ Wilbur Brown asked. ‘Co-conspirators?’

‘Patriots. It makes us patriots,’ Bud Hollingsworth countered. ‘That wasn’t one of his aides, or potential Cabinet nominees, trying to do a shady deal with the Russians, a deal with immense geopolitical implications. That was the man himself. Negotiating with a foreign power with no authority to do so. If ever there was a time to invoke the Logan Act, this is that time. The man crossed a red line, Wilbur. That’s all there is to it.’

‘What if Craig knew all along he was being bugged?’ Brown asked. ‘Knew we planted one on him ourselves, quite apart from any devices the Russians or the Chinese might have succeeded in installing. He might be testing our loyalty. He really might. And then we would look stupid.’

Hollingsworth laughed. ‘You’re getting carried away by your imagination.’

There was a lengthy pause as they each thought about what had just been said.

Then the two men looked at each other. They weren’t laughing any more.

‘The President could terminate us overnight,’ Hollingsworth said.

‘Overnight?’ Brown countered. ‘You must be joking! He’d fire us without notice or warning of any kind. We’d probably see it on the news first.’

The Director of the FBI shuddered. Deep down, he knew he’d probably handed the election to Ronald Craig, back in the fall of 2016 when, with just days to go, he reopened the inquiry into Caroline Mann’s emails. But that fact by itself wouldn’t necessarily save him. Not with a man as ruthless as Ron Craig. How did the old saying go? No good deed goes unpunished!