Ballots and Blood Page 21

  G. G. physically recoiled from the charge, pulling his head back sharply. “My memory was jogged by notes I found later,” he said slowly, struggling to maintain his composure. “Once I remembered, the details came rushing back to my mind.”

  “How convenient,” sneered the defense counsel, shooting a glance in the jury’s direction and stretching his face into a sarcastic smile. “Are you sure it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you faced federal money-laundering charges for using your tax-exempt organization as a conduit for cash from donors like hedge-fund manager Stephen Fox?”

  “No,” said G. G., his face hardening.

  “That is in fact what you did, is it not, Mr. Hoterman?”

  G. G. ignored the defense lawyer and turned to face the jury, exactly as he had been instructed by Shapiro. “I believed the funds raised by CBA would be used to turn out grassroots activists to attend Democratic state conventions in Virginia and Minnesota,” he said firmly, eyes unblinking. “That is a party-building activity and is well within the purview of a social welfare organization under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue code.”

  “Unless!” shouted the defense counsel, raising his hands in the air dramatically. “Unless those funds were raised and expended in coordination with a federal campaign committee, according to the Federal Election Campaign Act—in this case the Stanley for President campaign.” He stepped in the direction of Hoterman. “That’s what you claim happened in your own testimony, is it not, Mr. Hoterman?”

  Hoterman’s face fell, the color draining from his face. He walked right into the trap. “That was not my intent. But it is what occurred.”

  “So according to you, the contributions to CBA constituted illegal and excessive corporate contributions to a federal campaign, correct?”

  Hoterman pursed his lips. “Again, not my intent. But as it turned out, yes.”

  “Isn’t it true that you were in charge of the Committee for a Better America, not Michael Kaplan?”

  “I raised the money. I didn’t decide where the money went.”

  “Oh, you didn’t? Even though you served as chairman? Even thought you are an attorney whose law firm advises candidates on federal election law?” The prosecutor turned back to the jury, making eye contact. “If you were so clueless, why did you continue to participate?”

  “Mike was a friend, I wanted Senator Stanley to win, and I believed we took the necessary steps to comply with the law.”

  “Are you sure it was Mike’s assurances and not your desire to protect your mistress from prosecution?” asked the defense counsel, twisting the knife.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Your deputy Dierdre Rahall recruited Stanley delegates in Virginia, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Including her brother.”

  “Yes.”

  The defense lawyer paced to the front of the jury box, his back to Hoterman. Their eyes followed his every move, enraptured. Suddenly he wheeled to face the witness. “You were in this up to your armpits, weren’t you, Mr. Hoterman?”

  “That’s not the way I would characterize it,” said G. G., his eyes smoldering. He wanted to lunge over the barrister and strangle the attorney but restrained himself.

  “Sounds like it to me,” said the defense counsel in a sarcastic lilt. “Your law firm is advising the Stanley campaign, you’re raising money for a tax-exempt group that is paying money to Stanley delegates, your mistress is running the delegate operation. . . . What, pray tell, do you call it, sir?”

  “I was trying to help a friend,” said G. G., his voice jagged and weary.

  The defense counsel threw his hands up. “Well, you certainly did a fine job of that, Mr. Hoterman! Look around you!”

  The courtroom broke out into laughter. The judge banged his gavel. “Order in the court! Order in the court.” The laughter descended to muffled chuckles, then silence.

  “Mr. Hoterman, you’re here today because you and your mistress cut a deal to avoid prosecution in exchange for your testimony against Mr. Kaplan, isn’t that right? You were willing to feed Mr. Kaplan to the wolves to save your own hide.”

  “No,” said G. G. “I was informed early on I was neither a subject nor a target of the investigation. I was never accused of any wrongdoing, and I am here today for the same reason I have cooperated from the beginning—to tell the truth.”

  “I know the truth was painful for your wife and your children and your law firm and its clients whose money you laundered, Mr. Hoterman,” said the defense counsel. “But sending an innocent man to prison is something else entirely.”

  “Objection!” shouted the lead Department of Justice attorney.

  “Sustained,” said the judge. “Counselor, I’m striking that comment from the record and instructing the jury to ignore it. I’m also warning you not to make a similar personal comment about a witness in the future or face the sanction of this court.”

  “I apologize, your honor,” said the defense counsel. He stared at G. G. with a look of contempt. “No further questions.” He walked back to the defense table.

  “The witness is dismissed. Thank you for your time, Mr. Hoterman,” said the judge.

  G. G. Hoterman stepped down from the stand, his legs rubbery, his bum knee aching, his head spinning. He felt drained and flop sweat ran from his armpits and down his torso to his waist. To make matters worse, he accidentally made eye contact with Kaplan as he left the courtroom. Kaplan’s vacant stare sent a shudder through him.

  22

  The Senate gallery was packed with spectators and family members as the senators entered a tense, final day of debate on the Iran sanctions legislation. Long was leaving the following week for a European Union meeting in Rome, and the administration hoped he could sign the bill before he departed, setting an example for European allies and carrying the strongest sanctions package possible to the conference.

  Salmon Stanley had other plans. He saw the march to war with Iran as a reprise of George W. Bush urging Congress to authorize the invasion of Iraq in 2002. Stanley viewed the drumbeats of war with Iran like Iraq, driven by flawed intelligence, Dr. Strangelove scare tactics, diplomatic brinkmanship, and raw politics. Even worse, he saw Jay Noble’s fingerprints. With the off-year elections looming, a vote on military action against Iran would make the Democrats look weak on terrorism.

  The Senate minority leader yielded the floor to Senator Tom Reynolds, who clipped a microphone on his coat pocket and adjusted the papers on the lectern placed at his desk. The press corps rustled with anticipation. Reynolds prepared to speak to the GOP-sponsored “trigger” amendment authorizing “all means necessary” to disarm Iran if the National Security Council and CIA certified within six months that the sanctions had failed.

  Wearing his best suit and a new blue tie, his thinning brown-gray helmet hair sharply parted, Reynolds’s cherubic face bore the strains of fatigue and stress. He had a high bar to clear. Most viewed him as a gaffe-prone chatterbox, an inveterate camera hog, and an egomaniac possessing an outsized ambition even for the U.S. Senate. Reynolds, for his part, knew he had to project gravitas on a subject of existential importance to the United States and its allies. That was why he stayed up until the wee hours of the morning practicing his speech in front of a mirror, including punctuating the words with hand gestures.

  “Mr. President,” Reynolds began, his voice even, his shoulders rounded. “I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for the bipartisan manner in which they have proceeded on the Iran sanctions bill before us.” It was a calculated and disarming extension of an olive branch from one of the Senate’s most dedicated partisans. “Our dear departed friend Perry Miller left some big shoes to fill, but Senator Sue Warren has done so with leadership and the ability to build consensus. I am hopeful we can pass crippling sanctions against Iran’s financial sector, stop its importation of refined petroleum products, and end its pursuit of dual-use technologies and facilities.�
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  Reynolds pointedly excluded Stanley from his lavish praise. The two men despised each other. Stanley sat on the front row, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Reynolds, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t take long.

  “I say more in sadness than anger, Mr. President, that in spite of the best efforts by me and many of my colleagues, we have been unable to achieve bipartisan agreement in one essential area,” said Reynolds, a expression on his face. “These sanctions must have a mechanism for ascertaining whether they have worked. Otherwise, what is the point?” He raised his arms and looked at the presiding officer, a freshman Democratic senator reveling in his moment in the sun. “After all, Mr. President, if we don’t do that, these sanctions will fail, like all the U.S. and UN sanctions that preceded them, and this will have been an exercise in futility.”

  Reynolds dropped his chin, pausing for dramatic effect. “This is not a time for timidity. It is not a time for half measures. It is not a time for appeasement masquerading as diplomacy.” He let the words sink in before looking directly at Stanley, his eyes unblinking. “None of us want war. But the question is: how best to prevent it? Some believe the way to prevent war is to project weakness and hope our enemies view that weakness as an invitation to negotiate. Like Ronald Reagan, I believe the best way to secure the peace is through strength.”

  Stanley glared back at Reynolds, his eyes shooting darts.

  “Some forget how perilously close Great Britain came to defeat in May 1940,” said Reynolds, pointing his finger toward the sky to punctuate his point. “Hitler drove across Europe in a blitzkrieg of overwhelming military superiority. Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France all fell in its wake. The United States had not joined the war effort. The British army and navy were seemingly on the verge of being driven from the European continent, their tails between their legs. In this dark hour, some urged a negotiated settlement with Hitler rather than allowing a Nazi invasion of England.”

  Reynolds’s dark eyes darted as he reached his peroration. The entire chamber stood still. Not a single person moved.

  “One person stood in the gap: Winston Churchill. On June 4, 1940, shortly after assuming the prime minister’s office, he addressed the British Parliament. He said, ‘We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.’”

  Reynolds reached down and turned a page over on the lectern. His eyes scanned the text. “Mr. President, we have arrived at a similar hour of testing. It is time for all of us to take a stand for victory over Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism which now possesses the ability to blackmail other nations with nuclear weapons, or to follow the path of ignoble defeat urged by counselors of timidity and humiliation.

  “History will record how we acted. Its verdict will not be forgiving. May we not be weighed in the balance and found wanting. May we, like Churchill and Roosevelt in their own time, respond to the call to save Western civilization for our children and grandchildren.”

  Up in the press gallery, Dan Dorman of the Washington Post turned to Marvin Myers. “Was he speaking to the amendment or giving a Chautauqua speech?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “I think it was a little of both,” chuckled Myers.

  “I think Henry Clay is safe,” joked Dorman.

  “Clay? Heck, Joe Biden is safe,” replied Myers. They both laughed.

  IN THE SMALL ANTEROOM OFF the Oval Office, Long’s inner circle watched the debate in a power clutch. Long stood in his coat and tie, rocking back and forth on the heels of his spit-shined, ostrich-skin cowboy boots, nervous as a senior waiting for his grades to be posted. Charlie Hector, dark circles under his eyes, gazed at the television with the dispassionate stare of a man halfway through a marathon. Truman Greenglass, a pensive expression on his face, hands on hips, shot an occasional glance at Long to gauge his mood. Lisa leaned forward, cobalt blue eyes staring at the image on the screen, biting her lower lip. Jay sprawled out in a wing chair, rubbing his chin, his body coiled with nervous energy.

  “I never thought we’d have to rely on Tom Reynolds of all people to save the day,” muttered Hector, shaking his head.

  “Me either,” said Long. “But beggars can’t be choosy.”

  “When was the last time a national security vote was this polarized along party lines?” asked Jay, throwing up his hands. “I can’t believe what I’m watching. This resolution should pass 95 to 5!”

  “The Gulf War resolution,” replied Greenglass with clinical detachment. “People forget, but it passed 53 to 47. Sam Nunn took a powder, and the Democrats followed him off the cliff. They lived to regret that.”

  “They’ll regret this,” said Long. “There are a lot of presidential ambitions going up in smoke on the floor of the Senate today. They’re not being serious.”

  “Any chance the threat of a veto saves the trigger?” asked Lisa to one in particular.

  “Possible, but unlikely,” said Greenglass.

  “What’s our latest hard count?” asked Long.

  “Forty-seven votes in favor, 45 against,” said Jay.

  “Even with AIPAC and all the conservative groups scoring the vote?” asked Lisa. “That’s amazing.”

  “It’s all about the far left holding a gun to the head of the Democratic caucus,” said Greenglass. “No one wants to pay a price for a pro-war vote like Hillary did against Obama in 2008. Now, having said that, we’re still negotiating with a few wobbly Democrats.”

  Long sighed. “Truman, you nailed it. The Democrats have never recovered from Vietnam, much less Iraq. It was a big part of why I finally left the party.”

  “The press is going to want to know if you’re going to veto the sanctions bill if the trigger mechanism is defeated,” said Lisa. She glanced at Greenglass. “Any guidance?”

  “I’d kick that can down the road,” said Greenglass. “They still have to go to a conference committee. The House bill has the trigger language. There’s a chance we can save it in conference. We don’t need to make a declaratory statement yet.”

  “That’s Stanley’s game,” said Jay. “He’s telling his guys to vote ‘no’ because they can still yield to the House and then vote for the conference report.”

  “Where are the profiles in courage?” asked Long in frustration.

  “I’m not sure we can hide behind the skirts of the conference committee,” Lisa offered. “The press will still want to know: if the conference report doesn’t include the trigger mechanism, will the president sign or veto the final bill.”

  Everyone turned to Long. “It’s not an easy call,” said the president, his voice falling to a near whisper. “If I go to the EU meeting empty-handed, it’ll be played as an embarrassing defeat, and it’ll hurt us with Germany and Spain. If I sign it without the trigger, I look weak.”

  “The U.S. has to show leadership, or the Europeans will use it as an excuse to tread water,” said Hector. “They don’t want to act, and America’s failure is exactly what the nervous nellies want as an excuse to do nothing.”

  “This is like Reagan at Reykjavik,” said Greenglass. “Sometimes you have to reject a bad deal to get a good one. People said Reagan failed. So what? Had he taken Gorbachev’s deal at Reykjavik, the Berlin wall probably would have never come down.”

  Long nodded, deep in thought, not yet showing his hand. “Keep me posted,” he said. “I’ll be in the living quarters. Let me know if I need to talk to any senator.” He paused. “Don’t worry about how late.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hector.

  Long walked out of the room. As he passed through the door, two Secret Service agents slid beside him. Everyone headed back to their offices. It was going to be a long night, and no one knew what would happen.

  IN T
HE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE in the heavily fortified Knesset building in Jerusalem, Hannah Shoval huddled with her national security team, a motley crew of Likud careerists, retired army officers, and Israeli army veterans. She sat behind her desk, a small display of an Israeli and a U.S. flag with their poles crossed behind her, a gift from an American Zionist group. All eyes were glued to the television, watching the Senate debate.

  “Tom Reynolds may be a gadfly, but he’s got kahunas,” said Shoval approvingly.

  “That he does,” offered one of her advisors.

  “If Reynolds’s amendment loses, we’re in the hot seat,” said the minister of defense, a retired army general. “At that point we’re down to the least bad option.”

  Shoval shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  Shoval’s communications director, a wiry man with gray, closely cropped hair and intense eyes, came into the room. He had been working the phones to the States. “My contacts at the embassy and on the Hill tell me the vote on the trigger amendment is too close to call, but their best guess is we come up one or two votes short.”

  “Well, gentlemen, we won’t be able to count on the United States,” said Shoval. She let out a long sigh. “Israel will have to go it alone.”

  “What if Long vetoes it?” asked an advisor.

  Shoval shrugged. “I hope he does.” Her face hardened, its fine, feminine features turning brittle. “This is no time for half measures. We need courage and moral clarity from the West.”

  “I guess we’re about to find out what Bob Long is made of, aren’t we?” asked the minister of defense.

  “We’re about to find out a lot more than that,” replied Shoval.

  “Like what?” asked the communications director.

  “Like whether Israel survives.”

  Her statement landed like a howitzer round among her national security advisors. The thought of Israel acting alone militarily against Iran was a prospect so unsavory they were all reluctant to contemplate it. But if the U.S. sanctions legislation failed to authorize force if necessary, there would likely be no other option.