by Bobby Akart
Cipollone called the partners into an emergency meeting to lay out the facts. They created a legal strategy, and then Cipollone, along with Hayden, met at the White House with the president, his chief of staff, and his oldest daughter.
Since the enactment of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment following the death of President John F. Kennedy, the amendment was only invoked three times. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan sent a letter to then Vice President George H. W. Bush to perform his duties while he underwent surgery to remove cancerous polyps from his colon.
President George W. Bush invoked the Twenty-Fifth Amendment twice during his presidency as a result of colon-related procedures. In both cases, Vice President Dick Cheney acted as president during those brief colonoscopies.
There had never been a discussion of using the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to remove a sitting president as a means of changing the occupant of the White House, until now.
Cipollone was personally outraged at the thought of removing the president for the publicly stated reason that the cabinet disapproved of his leadership style, which was deemed impetuous, adversarial, petty, and ineffective. To the senior partner and head of the president’s legal team, such action could precipitate a constitutional crisis. Yet this issue was what the legal minds at Stein, Mitchell faced.
The firm quickly drafted a letter in response and it was delivered to Congress. Rather than litigating the matter in the court of public opinion or provide details of their legal position in the letter, they simply denied the charge with three simple words—no inability exists.
The procedural move would result in the matter being sent to Congress for a series of hearings and votes, during which time the vice president and the cabinet members would state their case. They never got the chance.
What happened next would go down in American history. The day after the president’s response letter was acknowledged as received, he called an emergency meeting of his cabinet at the White House. Some refused to attend, but twelve members, plus the vice president, were in attendance.
The president, flanked by Cipollone and his chief of staff, calmly said the words that had made him famous during his long-running reality television show, The Apprentice. One by one, he said, “You’re fired!”
It was labeled in the media as the bloodletting, a word that typically was used in conjunction with the surgical removal of a patient’s blood to prevent or cure illnesses and disease. In this case, the patient, the president’s administration, was bitterly divided and in need of change. When the brief, eight-minute meeting was over, only four loyal members of his cabinet remained, and the rest were escorted out of the White House by the Secret Service.
That was when the legal battle began.
The matter was now before the Supreme Court to determine whether the president had the authority to fire most of his cabinet and, as a result, circumvent the Twenty-Fifth Amendment as invoked by the prior members of the cabinet.
Hayden was tasked with writing the supplemental brief requested by the Court. She drew upon her knowledge of the justices and their individual points of view. Case precedent didn’t help one side or the other, as this was clearly a matter of first impression.
After the president appointed new members to his cabinet and submitted the name of a new vice president to replace the one who had led the charge against him, the dynamics changed. Hayden argued that the proceedings should be stopped because the fired cabinet members no longer fit the Twenty-Fifth Amendment’s requirements for principal officers who could discharge the president. Only the new cabinet members and the vice president had standing to bring such a declaration, and they were handpicked loyalists to the president.
It was an interesting legal maneuver that had not been anticipated by the fired group, but it still would require litigation. The president’s goal was to make it to Inauguration Day without the matter being resolved, at which time he felt cooler heads would prevail.
Hayden and her firm believed the president had an absolute right to clean house, as it were. This narrow issue would be litigated first, and the briefs were to be filed by New Year’s Eve. Next Friday, the Court, while in conference, would take up the writs of certiorari filed on both sides, to take up the rulings of the DC Circuit. While the Court was not under an obligation to hear those cases, it usually did if it was necessary to harmonize conflicting opinions within the Circuits, or if it was a matter of national significance, which this naturally was.
The Court had requested a supplemental brief on the matter dealing with the specifics of Hayden’s argument that the president had unfettered authority to remove any member of his cabinet, with or without cause. Her opponents argued that the president was effectively deemed incapacitated at the time the cabinet invoked the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, thereby rendering his powers limited until a full hearing in Congress.
Against that backdrop, while the rest of her firm shared New Year’s Eve libations in the large conference room, Hayden toiled over the fate of a president.
Chapter 15
Atlanta International Airport
Delta Flight 322
Either you control destiny, or destiny controls you. His father-in-law’s deep, gravelly voice echoed in his ears as he gazed at the holiday passengers scurrying back and forth in front of him. Cort was in a trance, one that had overtaken him several hours ago in Washington and left him realizing he had very little recollection of departing a snowy Reagan National Airport only to arrive at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta a couple of hours later.
A continuous barrage of announcements from airport personnel tried to invade his head as he recalled his father-in-law’s words, which consumed him by the power of their meaning—if he only knew what they meant.
“If you are in the gate area and an originating passenger of Delta Flight 322 connecting from Philadelphia to Mobile, we ask that you retake your original seats on board the aircraft now. We apologize for the delay, but we are going to begin boarding the flight to make a determination on our standby passengers. Thank you.”
Cort leaned back in his seat to narrowly avoid a teenage boy who was engaging in horseplay with a younger girl, most likely his sister. They’d joined a number of passengers who’d departed the Delta flight from Philadelphia, and he hoped that provided a seat for him.
His mind drifted back to the old man’s bedside. His condition had unexpectedly deteriorated in the last sixty days. It was if the life was being sucked out of him. Yet he was completely lucid, if not philosophical, as he prepared to die.
To his right, two men were talking loudly in the nearby bar, obviously enjoying their New Year’s Eve libations and relishing the upcoming demise of the President of the United States. A young couple carried their children just in front of him, rushing past in a frantic attempt to meet a flight connection. The airport was a sea of bodies on the night most people should be celebrating an upcoming new year. Even though many were not.
“Paging the following Mobile passengers—Disney, party of two, Cortland, and Hamilton. Please see the Delta agent at gate D29.”
He closed his eyes and fought to remove the words from his head, but they grew louder and more ominous with every attempt. Like a bad song that played over and over, begging to be displaced by a catchier tune, his father-in-law’s words rang inside, growing larger until he could visualize them pulsating in his mind.
Either you control your destiny, or destiny controls you.
The old man was usually more direct. He was not one to mince words, sugarcoat bad situations, or speak in cryptic phrases. What did he mean?
The two men in the bar continued their ribbing of one another over the politic story of the day, or the new century, for that matter. They brushed past, smelling of alcohol and reeking of BS.
“Final call for Mobile standby passenger Cortland, Michael Cortland. Please see the Delta agent at gate D29.”
Oh, crap!
Cort awakened from his daze. Hearing his name repeated brought him back to the present. He shot
out of the padded seat, bumped into another business traveler, who barely noticed, and pushed his way through other standby passengers crowded around the gate agent with hopeful faces.
“Excuse me. Excuse me,” he said politely as he wedged his way through two broad-shouldered men in suits. He reached the gate agent and introduced himself. “Sorry, I didn’t, um, I’m Michael Cortland. Here’s my identification.”
Out of habit, Cort, who had been given the nickname by his father at an early age, produced his Alabama driver’s license and his Capitol Hill credentials identifying him as the chief of staff to Alabama Senator Hugh McNeil.
The gate agent smiled and entered some information into the computer terminal. As she did, she hummed the tune to “Auld Lang Syne” and then added the only words most people knew.
For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne. We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
Within seconds, she was reaching below the counter, and the sound of the printer spitting out his boarding pass could be heard. With a weary smile, she stamped the boarding pass, handed him his two IDs, and wished him a good flight.
Cort paused for a moment and then said, “You know, I think I will take a cup of kindness. We all should. Happy New Year to you!”
The puzzled gate agent returned the good wishes, and Cort was off to take Delta Flight 322 home to his family.
He walked down the jet bridge as the last passenger to be boarded. A slightly irritated, but attractive gate agent stood with her arms crossed, awaiting his arrival. A couple of ground personnel chatted by the jet bridge instruments, wrapped in scarves and knit hats as they endured the cold front that had swept across the eastern part of the country, bringing snow and freezing temps into parts of the south.
Cort glanced out the small jet bridge window before he stepped on board, noticing deicing trucks stationed next to the wing of the McDonnell Douglas MD-88 aircraft. He shrugged. He expected to see deicing taking place in the northeast, but not in Atlanta.
He ducked to avoid bumping the top of his six-foot-five frame, a height he had reached in high school that enabled him to go to Yale on a basketball scholarship. Cort was extremely intelligent and had maintained a near-perfect GPA throughout high school. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have the pedigree to make his way into a prestigious Ivy League school like Yale, but his basketball talents caught the eye of their recruiters. His personality and boy-next-door charm made him a perfect fit for their program.
He walked through first class, where the passengers were scrolling through their phones and sipping on cocktails in real glasses. Cort managed a chuckle when he thought of the plastic cup of Coke and one-ounce bag of peanuts that was in store for him.
In the last row of first class sat a man who was famous in Alabama and now throughout America. Johnson Pratt, incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, lived on a farm just north of Mobile. His name and face were in the news on a daily, if not hourly, basis over the last eight weeks since the election was held. If there was ever a big man on campus in Washington, the nearly three-hundred-pound Pratt was the one.
Cort paused to wish Pratt a happy New Year, and the congressman cordially responded. The two men had worked with one another on a recent budget battle to prevent the closure of the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Redstone Arsenal housed several government agencies at the sprawling Huntsville base, including the Department of Defense, the ARMY, NASA, and Department of Justice facilities.
Although Pratt was on opposite ends of the political divide from Cort and his boss, one that had grown into a contentious chasm in recent years, the two legislators were able to find common ground for the good of their state.
He made his way to his seat and turned sideways to avoid contact with a buxom flight attendant who came up the aisle toward him. She paused and leaned dangerously close to Cort. In a heavy Southern accent, not unlike his wife’s, she advised that because he was the last passenger to board, he could take the first open seat. He smiled and nodded, choosing to run rather than converse with the attractive woman.
An aisle seat was the first available opportunity for Cort to get settled. As he slid in, he noticed the two men sitting in the exit row in front of him. They were the same two guys from the bar who were boozing it up and talking loudly. They brought the smell of the bar with them.
Cort pushed his soft-sided leather briefcase under the seat and adjusted his long legs to fit into the tight space that was customary on domestic flights in recent years as the big carriers tried to compete with low-cost, budget airlines. Cort furrowed his brow and mumbled to himself. Flying sucked anyway but was much worse when you were seven inches taller than the average American male.
Two elderly women sat in the seats to his left, both of whom appeared to be uncomfortable with the prospect of flying. Or perhaps something was weighing heavily on their minds.
“Good evening, ladies,” greeted Cort, attempting to break the ice and let them know he was nothing like the men sitting in front of them.
The woman closest to the window smiled and turned away, placing her fingers under her nose to mask the smell of the passengers in front of them. The other woman replied politely with a simple hello.
The airplane shook slightly as the Jetway pushed away from the door. The final bags were loaded beneath the plane, and the deicing trucks drove to another job. Delta 322 began to roll backwards as the flight attendants began their duties.
The lead attendant cued the microphone and spoke to the passengers. “On behalf of the flight crew, I’d like to welcome you aboard Delta flight three-two-two, nonstop service from Atlanta to Mobile, Alabama. If you were expecting to fly to New York for the New Year’s activities, well, I’m sorry for your luck. You can enjoy it on TV in Mobile.”
The joke drew a smattering of laughter from the passengers but drew a snide remark from one of the men in front of them.
“Yeah, you know what Delta stands for, right?” He slurred his words as he answered his question, which was his intention anyway. “Don’t even leave the airport. Get it?”
His buddy laughed uproariously as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, although the acronym joke had been around for many decades. Cort was sure most everyone was familiar with the saying and ignored its meaning.
He was wrong.
Chapter 16
Atlanta Hartsfield Airport
Atlanta, Georgia
Will gathered the kids’ luggage and made small talk as they exited the south terminal of the airport. Will reminded them that he had to work tonight, but he had a real treat in store for them at the concert. Beyoncé and Jay-Z were two of the most successful performers in music, although Beyoncé was not one of his personal favorites due to her continued attacks on law enforcement in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Will would love to challenge her to put on a beat cop’s uniform for the evening and deal with the violent crime and drug-related offenses in Fairhill, Tioga/Nicetown, and the Hunting Park neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Nobody understood the challenges cops faced until they wore that uniform. Monday morning quarterbacking was unfair to the officers who risked their lives on every tour of duty. Nonetheless, she was a great talent, and he hoped the kids would enjoy seeing her perform live.
All of these thoughts pervaded his mind as the three of them came upon an unruly group of black teens who were horsing around near the narrow entrance to the parking garage. Will subconsciously squeezed Skylar’s hand and tugged her back somewhat as he slowed his pace.
Ethan, who kept walking before noticing Will’s abrupt change in speed, stopped and addressed his father sarcastically. “Whadya gonna do, Dad? Say time to go, savages?”
Ethan’s words stung Will to the core, immediately conjuring up that fateful night at Fairhill Square in North Philadelphia. Philly SWAT had received a call of a large disturbance at the inner-city park, with shots fired.
On a Monday night in Fairhill, the city’s most violent neig
hborhood, a barrage of bullets rang out within the park. The shooting occurred just as darkness set in, but the park was still full of children enjoying the last week of their summer break before school started.
Recently, the Philadelphia Police Department had seen a spike in homicides and rapes in Fairhill, and the Philadelphia Inquirer had led the charge in pressuring the force to be more responsive to violent criminal activity.
Philly SWAT arrived in force to the call amid reports that three dozen shots had been fired in the melee. Two men were reported dead, and several others, including children, had been wounded. Tensions were high when the teams arrived to get control of the situation.
Will and his team were the first to appear on the scene and were attempting to take charge when several local residents began scolding them for their slow response time, which had been close to fifteen minutes after the first call had come into 9-1-1.
The team began to forcibly push the young black men out of the park and away from the active-shooter scene for their own protection, and to preserve the crime scene for investigators. Tensions flared as some accused Philly SWAT of using excessive force in their efforts to control the crowd.
Vulgarities were hurled in their direction, in addition to rocks and bottles. At one point during the melee, out of frustration, Will yelled, “Come on! It’s time to go. Quit acting like a bunch of savages. You need to get to safety and go home!”
Twenty-two words. One of which caused a firestorm for the department, and Will’s family.
Savages.
Will didn’t consider himself to be a racist. Three members of his unit were black. They were brothers-in-arms who unquestionably had each other’s backs in all manner of dangerous situations. Within Philly SWAT, nobody looked at one another through the prism of race. They were a team. Will prided himself on being color-blind.
However, when his words were heard by the youths, they became angry and began misquoting Will to others gathered around. They quickly changed the word savages to the n-word, a hateful term that wasn’t even in his vocabulary. During the intense investigation, his body-cam footage later proved Will’s account as being accurate, but it didn’t matter. Savages was good enough for the mob, which quickly undertook to destroy his life.