Here we go.
“Yes, Suliman Cindoruk is the leader of the SOJ,” I say.
“The most dangerous and prolific cyberterrorist in the world, correct?”
“I’d say so.”
“A Turkish-born Muslim, is he not?”
“He’s Turkish-born, but he’s not Muslim,” I say. “He is a secular extreme nationalist who opposes the influence of the West in central and southeastern Europe. The ‘jihad’ he’s waging has nothing to do with religion.”
“So you say.”
“So says every intelligence assessment I’ve ever seen,” I say. “You’ve read them, too, Mr. Speaker. If you want to turn this into an Islamophobic rant, go ahead, but it’s not going to make our country any safer.”
He manages to crack a wry smile. “At any rate, he’s the most wanted terrorist in the world, isn’t he?”
“We want to capture him,” I say. “We want to capture any terrorist who tries to harm our country.”
He pauses. He’s debating whether to ask me again: Are you sure about that? If he does, it will take all the willpower I can summon not to knock over this table and take him by the throat.
“Just to be clear, then,” he says. “The United States wants to capture Suliman Cindoruk.”
“There’s no need to clarify that,” I snap. “There’s never been any confusion about that. Never. We’ve been hunting Suliman Cindoruk for a decade. We won’t stop until we catch him. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Well, Mr. President, with all due respect—”
“No,” I interrupt. “When you begin a question by saying ‘with all due respect,’ it means you’re about to say something that doesn’t show any respect. You can think whatever you want, Mr. Speaker, but you should show respect—if not for me then for all the other people who dedicate their lives to stopping terrorism and keeping our country safe. We aren’t perfect, and we never will be. But we will never stop doing our best.”
Then I wave at him dismissively. “Go ahead and ask your question.”
My pulse banging, I take a breath and glance at my trio of advisers. Jenny, my political adviser, is nodding; she has always wanted me to be more aggressive with our new Speaker of the House. Danny shows nothing. Carolyn, my levelheaded chief of staff, is leaning forward, elbows on her knees, her hands pitched in a temple under her chin. If they were Olympic judges, Jenny would give me a 9 for that outburst, but Carolyn would have me under a 5.
“I won’t have my patriotism questioned, Mr. President,” says my silver-haired adversary. “The American people have grave concerns about what happened in Algeria last week, and we haven’t even gotten into that yet. The American people have every right to know whose side you’re on.”
“Whose side I’m on?” I come forward with a start, nearly knocking the base of the microphone off the table. “I’m on the side of the American people, that’s whose side I’m on.”
“Mr. Pres—”
“I’m on the side of the people who work around the clock to keep our country safe. The ones who aren’t thinking about optics or which way the political winds are blowing. The ones who don’t seek credit for their successes and can’t defend themselves when they’re criticized. That’s whose side I’m on.”
“President Duncan, I strongly support the men and women who fight every day to keep our nation safe,” he says. “This isn’t about them. This is about you, sir. This is no game we’re playing here. I take no pleasure in this.”
Under other circumstances, I’d laugh. Lester Rhodes has been looking forward to the select committee hearing more than a college boy looks forward to his twenty-first birthday.
This whole thing is for show. Speaker Rhodes has engineered this committee so that there is only one real outcome—a finding of presidential misconduct sufficient to refer the matter to the House Judiciary Committee for impeachment proceedings. The eight members of Congress on his side are all in safe congressional districts, gerrymandered so cartoonishly that they could probably drop their pants in the middle of the hearing, start sucking their thumbs, and not only would they be reelected in two years, they would also run unopposed.
My aides are right. It doesn’t matter if the evidence against me is strong, weak, or nonexistent. The die is already cast.
“Ask your questions,” I say. “Let’s get this charade over with.”
Over in the corner, Danny Akers winces, whispering something to Carolyn, who nods in response but maintains her poker face. Danny doesn’t like the charade comment, my attack on these hearings. He’s told me more than once that what I did looks “bad, very bad,” giving Congress a valid reason for inquiry.
He’s not wrong about that. He just doesn’t know the full story. He doesn’t have the security clearance to know what I know, what Carolyn knows. If he did, he’d have a different take. He’d know about the threat to our country, a threat like none we’ve ever faced.
A threat that led me to do some things I never thought I’d do.
“Mr. President, did you call Suliman Cindoruk on Sunday, April 29, of this year? Just over a week ago? Did you or did you not contact the most wanted terrorist in the world by phone?”
“Mr. Speaker,” I say. “As I’ve said many times before, and as you should already know, not everything we do to keep our country safe can be disclosed publicly. The American people understand that keeping the nation safe and conducting foreign affairs involve a lot of moving parts, a lot of complex transactions, and that some of what we do in my administration has to remain classified. Not because we want to keep things secret, but because we must. That’s the point of executive privilege.”
Rhodes would probably contest the applicability of executive privilege to classified material. But Danny Akers, my White House counsel, says I will win that fight, because we are dealing with my constitutional authority in foreign affairs.
Either way, my stomach clenches as I say these words. But Danny said that if I don’t invoke the privilege, I might waive it. And if I waive it, I have to answer the question of whether I placed a phone call to Suliman Cindoruk, the most wanted terrorist on the planet, two Sundays ago.
That is a question I will not answer.
“Well, Mr. President, I’m not sure the American people would consider that much of an answer.”
Well, Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure the American people would consider you much of a Speaker, either, but then again, the American people didn’t elect you Speaker, did they? You got eighty thousand measly votes in the third congressional district in Indiana. I got sixty-four million votes. But your buddies in your party made you their leader because you raised so much damn money for them and promised them my head mounted on a wall.
That probably wouldn’t play so well on television.
“So you don’t deny that you called Suliman Cindoruk on April 29—would that be accurate?”
“I’ve already answered your question.”
“No, Mr. President, you haven’t. You’re aware that the French newspaper Le Monde published leaked phone records, along with statements from an anonymous source, indicating that you called and spoke with Suliman Cindoruk on Sunday, April 29, of this year. You’re aware of that?”
“I’ve read the article,” I say.
“Do you deny it?”
“I give the same answer I gave before. I’m not discussing it. I’m not getting into a game of did-I-make-this-call-or-didn’t-I. I don’t confirm or deny or even discuss actions that I take to keep our country safe. Not when I’m required to keep them secret in the interest of national security.”
“Well, Mr. President, if one of the largest newspapers in Europe is publishing it, I’m not sure it’s much of a secret anymore.”