by Alan Sears
Chapter Thirteen
MATT BRANSON SPENT part of his day reviewing a long list of DTED’s actions since its formation and John Knox Smith’s promotion. When seen together, it was chilling. Matt saw a trend. John was not only pushing for new laws, hotly prosecuting violators, and making life miserable for religious groups, he was also making it difficult for his opponents to fight back. Things had been orchestrated so that any opponent ran the risk of being painted as a purveyor of hate and a religious bigot.
This was one reason why so few organizations ventured to challenge the DTED. It was nearly impossible to confront the agency without looking intolerant, insensitive, or filled with prejudice. No one wanted to end up on the wrong side of the Department of Justice.
So far John’s plan had worked beautifully. Even if the Alliance lawyers challenged him in several important cases, his team of agents and advocates were making life miserable for hate speech offenders in district courts all over the country.
Matt studied the list and the material his aides had gathered. In one case, a federal district judge in Texas told a group of high school students who were planning to pray at graduation exercises that, “If any of you mention the name of Jesus, God, or any other deity, you will regret the day you were born. You will spend up to six months in jail.” DTED lawyers were there in the crowd on graduation day to make sure the young people complied. Matt was not an old man but he could remember when graduation ceremonies always included prayer.
In another case, the principal of a Christian school in the Midwest, refused to allow investigators into the school building, then barricaded himself in his home out of terror of what the government might do to him. A judge in Kansas City ruled that sending kids to a private Christian school was a truancy violation. At first the principal had been defiant, demanding a fair hearing, but as the pressures increased, he simply gave up. He had a heart attack while in custody.
Another U.S. attorney general had ordered the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to shut down a religious school in a family compound in Arkansas. After a long, costly confrontation and a series of tragic, complicated errors, fire broke out and eighteen innocent men, women, and children died. In the wake of John’s attacks, more than ideals were dying.
As far as Matt Branson could see, John Knox Smith was unmoved by the tragedy, and that broke Matt’s heart. He closed his eyes and wished for simpler times. Things were bad, but a stirring in his soul said they were about to get worse.
WHEN IRS SPECIAL AGENT Bob Maas and Postal Inspector Sandra Evans returned from Chicago with their report on the Alliance, they had more information than anyone at DTED could have anticipated. They brought the team leaders into the conference room where Bob had connected his laptop to the wall-mounted monitor. As soon as the lights dimmed, he said, “John, here’s the stuff you asked for. Let me say first of all that I believe we can beat these guys, but it’s not going to be a cakewalk.
“We discovered the organization is bigger than we realized. They have a full-time staff with district offices in several major cities. With allied attorneys and their staffs in just about every major city in the country, we estimate that they may have as many as twenty-five hundred lawyers on call, 24/7.”
“Are those all full-time people?” John asked. He was having trouble processing the number.
“Not all of them,” Bob said. “But that doesn’t matter. Even the volunteers and pro-bono lawyers are available anytime day or night. For these zealots it’s not about the money.”
“I understand. What else?”
“The Alliance was founded in 1994 by a group of national ministry leaders, broadcasters, a financial planner, and a pastor from Florida who propagated the worst myths of America’s Christian origins. Its first head was Alex Stanton, who served as general counsel and CEO. He did a lot of public speaking on the Alliance’s behalf. For years he was all over radio and TV, speaking across the country promoting their right-wing causes.”
“Of course,” John said sarcastically. “And I imagine he was doing a lot of fundraising while he was at it.”
“Don’t they always?” Sandra said. “They’ve had a lot of big donors paying the freight. But most of their support comes from small and medium-sized contributions. And they have supporters all over the country. True believers.”
John understood that legal work was incredibly expensive and without fundraising, charities and other non-profits could not exist. He would never say that out loud—publicly or privately.
“Stanton was a federal prosecutor at one time,” Bob continued. “In fact, he was director of the Commission on Pornography that Ronald Reagan set up back in the eighties. Some of you may remember that. They did a lot of mischief back then, and it took years to finally get things back to normal for First Amendment protection. When Sandra and I were going through newspaper clippings from that era, we were shocked to see how much trouble it caused. Fortunately, the commission doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Who’s running the Alliance now?” John asked.
“When Stanton retired, he was succeeded by Scott Freeman, who is another former DOJ lawyer and a member of the D.C. Bar.”
“Where did he go to school?” John asked.
Sandra answered the question. “University of Virginia. Both undergrad and law school.”
“As the group grew,” Bob continued, “they became a sort of legal clearing house and law school at the same time. They take on cases in three areas: First is what they call ‘religious freedom and equal access’; second is what they call ‘sanctity of life,’ or what we would call anti-choice, creating havoc with women’s health; and third is what they call ‘protecting marriage and family,’ which is really just another way of saying anti-equality and anti-LGBT.”
“When we started looking at what they actually do,” Sandra added, “it didn’t take us long to see what they’re up to. They promote bigotry in the name of religious freedom, and they want the courts to say fundamentalist preachers, priests, and Bible-thumpers, and even orthodox Jewish rabbis can say whatever they want from the pulpit without restraint.”
As Sandra spoke, she handed John a copy of her report showing the types and total numbers of mailings sent out by the Alliance. On a separate sheet she had listed several kinds of legal alerts sent daily over the Internet from the firm’s national headquarters, along with a list of some of the other Christian ministries that were set up as Internal Revenue code 501(c)(3) law firms to handle public interest legal defense cases—firms that worked with the Alliance or received grants and funding from them at one time or another.
Scanning the page, John saw the names of dozens of tax-exempt organizations that were sending out millions of pages of questionable information every day of the year. Almost all were Christian ministries. The list sent a chill down his spine. John pushed the report to one side. “Bob, can any of these outfits besides the Alliance mount a serious defense if we go after them?”
“Not if we could just take them on one at a time. But the Alliance always works together. Even when they squabble internally, they keep working together. A few of these groups have their own lawyers on staff. Several have law firms on retainer. All of them have access to the Alliance or one of a half-dozen religiously oriented public interest law firms that take on religious liberty cases.”
“Don’t…” John paused and lowered his voice. “Don’t use that term. That’s their term. You mean religious bigotry cases.”
“Understood. The problem is that Alliance lawyers are everywhere. They have as many as four hundred cases in litigation around the country at any given time, most handled by their allied attorneys, who are everywhere. We came across one document that said they have commitments for as many as two hundred million dollars’ worth of volunteer pro-bono legal services.”
“If that isn’t bad enough, John,” Sandra put in, “they’ve put more than three thousand pro-bono lawyers and law students through their various training programs.
They call the law school component the ‘Madison Scholars Academy’ and its graduates ‘Madisonians.’ The Alliance lawyer training sessions they hold each year bring in lawyers from every state in the union, as well as territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, and Samoa.”
“They’re even from the European Union, Asia, and Latin America,” Bob added.
John decided not to tell the group he knew someone who had gone through a summer of the Chicago law student brainwashing. He saw no reason to need to bring up Matt Branson’s name.
“The graduates of these programs are in the courts, law firms, and government offices in every state. They’ve been in the White House, and are now in the legal counsel’s office, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee staff. Two won seats in Congress. Some are at DOJ.”
“There aren’t any Alliance people on the staffs of the members of Congress we’ve been working with,” Sandra said, “at least, not as far as I’m aware. But we know some of their people have been pushing for a congressional inquiry to look into our operations, and they’ve been supplying information to our opponents on the Hill.”
“I find that hard to believe. Are you sure about that?”
The newest member of the team, Mike Alden, raised his hand and said, “Sir, I can tell you that there are Madisonians in some of the biggest law firms in this city. They have people in the Defense Department and the Judge Advocate General Corps, in all branches of service. They’re the ones propping up that Catholic general who’s running the Marine Corps. In fact, there are at least six Madison graduates here in this building. There are probably more.”
Joel Thevis interrupted to say, “Bob, are you suggesting that some of these people are involved in cases we’re handling now?”
John stiffened. It was one thing to know that Matt had gone through the program, but to hear that he wasn’t the lone Madison Scholars Academy graduate in the DOJ unsettled him. “They have informants in this building? Are you kidding me?”
“I wouldn’t kid you, sir,” Alden said. “I know some of them from college and law school. They were top students and seem to get top jobs everywhere. I see them around the building all the time.”
Bob Maas continued quickly, “I agree, John, it is unbelievable. We’ll look into it. Maybe Alden can help with that. Wait until you hear this: Sandra learned that a couple of their people are working for the major news networks in New York, and one is a producer at Fox News. At least four of them have been appointed as federal judges, and have issued rulings in direct opposition to the anti-discrimination laws you put through.”
Pointing to information on the video monitor showing the number of Alliance-connected judges, lead attorney Joel Thevis said, “I can confirm that, John. We know about one judge in Oklahoma who’s been causing a stir. He wrote an angry letter to the American Bar Association saying he’s upset that the ABA has been promoting, as he put it, the ‘homosexual agenda.’”
“Homosexual agenda?” John said. “Is he talking about equality and fair treatment for the most oppressed minority in this country? I can’t believe that. Who is this guy?”
“Judge Dossett, in Oklahoma City. I was told he’s an Alliance ally.”
“What did the ABA have to say about that?”
“Of course they objected,” Joel answered. “They put the word out on their website that any attorney litigating cases on behalf of individuals in the LGBT community needs to stay away from this guy because he can’t hear their cases impartially. Believe me, the ABA chapter in that state—and all the attorneys we know in that part of the country—are watching this guy.”
Looking back and forth between Joel and Agent Maas, John said, “There was a rule passed by the bar association in San Francisco a few years ago that said judges may not hold memberships in any organization that promotes discrimination. It said that no responsible officer of the court should be a member of the Boy Scouts or serve as a Scout leader, or anything of that sort. It’s been a problem for a long time. The California’s Bar Association made it clear that any judge who’s involved with organizations known to be anti-equality, anti-choice, or anti-LGBT either needs to cut those ties or get off the bench. Why can’t they have something like that in Oklahoma?”
Joel responded, “They’re working on it, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.”
“Any lawyer who belongs to any group that calls homosexual behavior a sin, or holds a 3,000-year-old view on marriage,” Mike Alden chimed in, “should have his license revoked. Those people don’t need to be in our profession.”
“The problem,” Joel continued, “is that we don’t have a lot of friends in the South, and it will take a while to force the bar associations in those places to go along with us. Just because it worked in San Francisco, John, doesn’t mean it’s going to fly in Oklahoma.”
John glanced at Joel. Once again his lead attorney seemed to be making excuses for their delays in progress.
Bob Maas closed his laptop and turned up the lights in the room. Before anyone could speak, he said, “Sir, there’s one more thing. As a byproduct of our research, we discovered that among the approximately one thousand federal judges in this country, as many as two hundred of them have indicated on anonymous questionnaires that they accept the traditional beliefs of their various religions as being true.”
“They what?”
“Basically, John,” Bob said, “as many as a fifth of all the judges appointed by President Blaine and his predecessors are unenlightened Bible-thumpers still hanging on to their backward religious beliefs. I’m sure some of them are from the more enlightened varieties who believe in diversity and tolerance and affirm our values. Unfortunately, there are still some Protestants, evangelicals, and conservative Roman Catholics who refuse to change, who still clinging to their guns, religion, and a theology from the Middle Ages. There are even a few observant Jews who adhere to the teachings of Moses and the Prophets.”
Reneé X leaned forward. “John, many of these people openly say that they still believe in the old ways. Privately, some of the judges Joel mentioned would say they believe that some people are sinners. You know that belief in moral absolutes has got to affect their objectivity. And that’s why we’ve got to get these people off the bench.”
“Reneé is right,” Bob said. “The Congress has the authority to remove these guys by impeachment, and I think that would be the right thing to do. It wouldn’t reflect on us, and it sure would be helpful if someone like Mike Alden, here, or one of the young lawyers could get us the names of those judges. If there are Alliance people on the bench in this country, we need to know who they are, and where they are.”
Looking at the newest member of the legal team, John said, “Can you do that, Mike?”
“Yes, sir. I believe I can. Give me a few days. I’ll get as many names as possible.”
John smiled. “That’s great, Alden. Do it. But don’t count on those cowards on Capitol Hill to take on sitting judges. We’ll have to look at other ideas.”
Alden wasn’t done. Raising his hand like a schoolboy, he said, “Sir, with your permission, I would like to suggest that we also begin an investigation to find out where all the other Madisonians are working now. We need to know who they are, where they’re employed, and where they stand on our issues. Once we know who’s standing with us, we can do whatever it takes to weed the rest of them out.”
John thought of Matt but kept it to himself. “Absolutely. Do it. I want the names of every one of those graduates working in this building. I want to know who they are, who they work for, and what they’re doing here. I want to know where they live, where they shop, who they hang out with. Can you do it?”
Alden hesitated. “There’s just one thing. If I do the kind of research I’ll need to do to get that information, there’s a good chance word will get out about what we’re up to. They’ll know what I’m doing.”
“Good. They need to know we’re onto them, and they’re not getting away with anything. We’re for truth
and justice, and this isn’t something that has to be done secretly. We have nothing to hide. On the other hand, we don’t want to be so open about it that they’ll be able to hide evidence if they’re imposing their faith in their job. If shaking the trees gets us what we want, shake it. But get me whatever you can find, Mike.”
John looked at his lead attorney. “Am I right, Joel?”
“As always, John, as always.”
John sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “When Mike’s finished his investigation, every one of those bloodsuckers on the public payroll will be identified so the whole world can see what we’re up against. And if they’re doing what we think they’re doing, they’ll learn what happens to people who promote hate and bigotry in this country while living on the taxpayer’s dollar.”
Since arriving at DTED two months earlier, Mike Alden hadn’t done much. John only picked him for the team because Senator Heywood had been a friend of Alden’s father at Yale and recommended him. When Donna Lewis checked into his background and found out the kid had graduated from a Catholic law school in Indiana, John wasn’t so sure Alden was the right person for the job.
But so far the kid was looking pretty good. John thought this new assignment would be a good way of testing him. Either the kid would prove he was up to the challenge, or he would prove he wasn’t, in which case John’s friend Heywood would have some explaining to do.
John told Andrea to make sure the kid knew how to get messages directly to him, bypassing Joel Thevis. He didn’t want to take any chances that Alden’s report might be shared with outsiders.
To John, caution was better than trust.