Stanley Johnson: Kompromat

‘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:

‘Whereas it appears to be possible, if not probable that Ronald C. Craig may unwittingly have been the target of an unauthorized attack by a hypodermic dart or some other intervention while visiting the Russian Far East.

‘Whereas it is necessary through a clinical examination to establish whether such an attack or intervention has indeed taken place, and to take all appropriate measures,

‘Whereas the implications for national security of the said event need to be fully evaluated,

‘Now therefore: I, President of the United States, have decided and determined that the said Ronald C. Craig should be immediately brought by federal marshals to the Walter Reed Medical Centre, Bethesda, Maryland, and that the said federal marshals are authorized to use all necessary means, including force, towards that end. Signed: Brandon Matlock, 44th President of the United States, May 18th , 2016.’

‘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:

‘Whereas it is necessary through a clinical examination to establish whether such an attack or intervention has indeed taken place, and to take all appropriate measures…’

‘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!