“Any chance we can do something legally about them? Classify them as a hate group or something?” I asked.
Will and Mindy shrugged, but Frank responded. He was a lawyer, after all. “I don’t know. Their first amendment free speech and freedom of religion rights are pretty potent shields. Your best bet is to call Frank Keating and have him look into it. My bet? If they tell people to kill your family, they are protected. If somebody listens to them and kills somebody, maybe not so much.”
“You’re just a bundle of fucking joy, Frank. You want to call Frank and take this up with him, please? I can’t believe they aren’t already watching these guys.”
I dismissed everybody and called my wife back over at the Hyatt in Pittsburgh. I let her ramble on. It would seem that the cops were very pleasant with her, and much more sympathetic to the mother of a critically injured athlete and war hero than to the fruitcakes down in the holding cells. Security was much tighter than before, and her lead agent, in fact almost her entire detail, had been replaced. Ditto for the kids. Holly, Molly, and Bucky planned to visit Charlie in the hospital and then go home, to work and to college. Megan planned to stick around for at least a few days more. She and Marilyn were going to visit him in the hospital again today. I made her swear six ways from Sunday not to punch anybody out.
The media were all over this today. I watched the news at lunchtime and saw more of what had been shown the other day. In addition, the Hyatt had been staked out, and a telephoto lens got an excellent picture of Marilyn as she headed back to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. My wife had a shiner the equal of anything I had ever gotten! I asked Mindy to get me an 8x10 glossy. I just had to wonder what Charlie would think about his mother with a black eye. He’d probably laugh so hard something else would break.
I stayed away from the Press Room, and my schedule didn’t have me traveling anywhere for the rest of the week. That was the good news. Better news came that afternoon, when Marilyn and the girls called; Charlie was improving rapidly, his condition was upgraded to serious, and they wouldn’t need thoracic surgery on his ribs. His right arm had already been put in a cast. His right leg was going to involve some major surgery, probably several operations, and they simply had the bones immobilized. If anything was set wrong, they would break it and reset it during the surgery as needed. That might not begin for another week or two. I promised to come up for the weekend.
The bad news came in the form of politicians. John McCain joined me late in the afternoon. He had been in the Senate before becoming the Vice President, and he had ties there, like I had ties in the House. This entire mess looked like amateur hour and did not reflect well on the professional image his campaign was pushing. Harry Reid was going to make a nuisance of himself over this, looking for anything under the sun that they could throw at me, and by extension, John. By the end of the week I should expect a Senatorial delegation requesting an audience.
“Let me guess. They want to consult with me or some such nonsense? I don’t suppose anything else might happen in the rest of the world that could let me duck this,” I commented.
“Nothing serious enough, anyway, no matter what you might personally want. You won’t be able to duck them,” he replied.
“Any ideas what Harry wants?”
“Basham’s head, for starters. Warren’s, too, but I think they know they won’t get it. He’ll ask anyway. It’s odd, though, since they don’t really want Warren out of there. She’s a Democrat. The Republicans will want her gone.”
I sighed. “I am going to trust you to shut them down about her. Basham’s on death row right now. He’s probably cleaning his desk out as we speak. What if I fire him now? Can we shut them down prematurely?”
“No. This isn’t about him, this is about embarrassing you and me. He might be all they get, but they are going to want hearings and an investigation of the Secret Service. Even if you gave them Warren and the rest of the Secret Service’s management, it won’t be enough. They want the hearings to embarrass us.”
I shrugged and made a wry face. “Talk to some people over there. Set up a meeting for Thursday or Friday. We can have Basham fall on his sword in front of them. I’ll give Ralph the good news.”
John snorted and said, “It will be a start, at least. It’s just a start, though. Reid is going to be calling for testimony from everybody involved, and I heard through the grapevine he plans to subpoena your wife. He figures she can’t invoke Executive Privilege and will personally embarrass you on live television.”
I stared at him for a second, but then put my head back and gave a long laugh. After a minute I straightened up and grinned at my VP. “Tell Harry Reid that I am going to do him a favor, and let him think that one through. Ask him what he thinks is going to happen when he calls the First Lady to testify and she walks in, with me holding her hand? I’ll tell you what will happen! They’ll swear her in, and she’ll spend half the time sweet-talking everybody there, and the other half the time ripping them all new assholes! I won’t have to say a word! She’s more popular than me and Congress combined!” I shook my head and smiled. “Ask Harry if that’s really the picture he wants to have on national television!”
“Yeah. That’s true enough. Still, he’s going to be a problem.”
“Fine. Force it out now, sooner rather than later. He wants to drag this along for as long as he can, even into next year. Get with the Republicans on the Committee and have them order up hearings and an investigation now! Bury this thing now. By the time you have a primary, it will be old news.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He stood and left, stopping at the door and saying, “Tell Marilyn that the next time I see her I’ll give her some tips on surviving in prison. I’ll teach her the tap code we used in Hanoi.”
“You, too?! Out!”
He laughed and left.
This whole mess was a gift from Heaven for the late night comics. Marilyn in jail was the lead joke on every television show that evening. Then they started up on the photo of Marilyn with a black eye. It stayed that way for the next few days. I couldn’t wait for Bill Maher and Saturday Night Live to play with this.
Thursday I had a meeting with the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, Treasury, and the Secret Service. The bloodletting was about to begin. I had Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the committee, and Chuck Grassley, the Republican ranking minority member, in the White House, along with Elizabeth Warren, Ralph Basham, and Frank Stouffer. Harry Reid wasn’t there, but he might as well have been. While both Max and I were friendly enough, Max was taking direct orders from Harry to create as much havoc as humanly possible. Ralph promptly handed me a letter of resignation, much like he had after I had been shot; this one I accepted.
Chuck nodded and looked over at Elizabeth. “This is a good start, Mrs. Warren, but not sufficient.”
“With all due respect, Senator, I don’t work for you. I work for President Buckman. If he wants my resignation, all he has to do is ask.”
Chuck got a distasteful look on his face, and Max replied, “We were certainly hoping for more cooperation. This entire situation shows a serious breach in security! We need to understand what happened and why. Without more cooperation, the committee is going to have to hold hearings. Madame Secretary, I am sure that we will also be appointing a Special Investigator to look into this disaster!” Max added. “We will be examining the entire Secret Service, and if necessary, your entire department.”