by Paul Batista
“How did you meet him?”
“My husband, Jimmy, when he was a Senator from Wyoming, needed a seasoned insider to manage his campaign.”
“You heard Hughes testify to the jury?”
“I listened to him talk to the jury.”
“Did he ever work for you?”
“He did. He was the manager of one of my campaigns. He also managed one of my husband’s campaigns. I helped my husband hire him for that.”
“Let’s focus on his work for you, Senator. Your last campaign for the Senate was a year or so ago, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And obviously,” Raquel said, smiling, “you won?”
“I did.”
“And Gordon Hughes managed that campaign?”
“That was the one.”
“Generally, what did he do as the campaign manager?”
“Scheduling my appearances was part of it. Supervising the campaign staff. There were at least twenty-five people on the staff on a full-time basis. Hughes is a native, I think, of Iowa. He wasn’t particularly familiar with New York State. There were people on the staff who were native New Yorkers from all parts of the state—Buffalo, St. Lawrence, Rochester, Syracuse. I wanted a concentration of offices and volunteers in areas of the state that were poor, underserved, and neglected. Hughes, with the assistance of a diverse staff, was able to bring me to places where Democrats had not done at all well before. We knew we would win New York City and the suburbs. I didn’t want to be the Senator from New York City. I wanted to be the Senator of New York State, from the St. Lawrence Waterway to Long Island Sound.”
“What happened to Hughes after the campaign was over?”
“I’m not sure. People like Gordon Hughes can be kind of sketchy. They have a skill, some of them are famous, some are in demand, some fall into neglect. They go from place to place. Some just do other things. For example, Senator Sanders’ campaign manager ran a baseball card trading shop in Vermont just before he took over Bernie’s entire campaign.”
“When Hughes ran your Senate campaign, did he have any role in raising or managing money?”
“Not really. We had a treasurer. We had a website and we were so fortunate that funds—and I’m talking about $35, $30, even $10 contributions—just came in from thousands and thousands of people who could afford those amounts and who were committed to the same issues I was. And, taken together, they became large amounts. And there were also funds left over from my first campaign. So, no, Hughes didn’t really have anything to do with talking to big donors or raising money. The funds were there.”
“And then there came a time when you hired him again?”
“Several months ago, he was put on the payroll of a committee that friends and supporters of mine had formed. These were people who intensely thought I might want to think about running for President in the next presidential cycle. Although I wasn’t so certain of that myself, I didn’t want to close the door completely.”
“What was the committee’s name?”
“At the time I reached out to Hughes, the committee had some haphazard name such as Angelina’s Committee. Not Angie’s List. I knew people wanted me to consider running. As I’ve just said, I wasn’t sure. But people I liked and admired were pulling themselves together, money for campaign funds was gathering, and I believed I needed to do something.”
“And what did you do?”
“Among other things, I hired Gordon Hughes.”
“Why Hughes?”
“The question at that early stage was why not? He had worked on my campaigns. He told me he had learned a great deal about PACs and super PACS, which barely existed when Jimmy ran for President and which really weren’t much of a factor in my Senate races because I was fortunate enough to raise enough funds from small donors through the website. And another thing: I had heard he had failed at a casino business. That he was in debt and not earning a living. He had a young wife and five children.”
“How much of that influenced your decision?”
“Not that significantly. But I was aware of it. I had trusted him and felt a sense of loyalty to him. Trust and loyalty, Ms. Rematti. Those are virtues I learned early on, from my daddy and others in the Louisiana bayous.”
“And let me ask you this, Senator: Do you trust Gordon Hughes today?”
“Gordon Hughes is a liar. He’s utterly untrustworthy.”
“And loyalty?”
“Gordon Hughes’ loyalty is only to himself. His wife left him. His children don’t hear from him even though he has every right to stay in touch with them.”
“You heard Gordon Hughes mention the name Dr. Joseph Chuang. Do you know any such person?”
“Not the one Gordon Hughes referred to, if in fact, there is such a person.”
“Had you ever heard that name?”
“As a Senator from New York, I represent all New Yorkers, including Chinese Americans. I know our Chinese citizens sometimes like to Americanize their first names to names like Joseph. I know there is a dentist with a storefront office on Canal Street, in Chinatown, Dr. Joseph Chuang. He was kind enough to organize some small get-to-know-your-Senator meetings for me.”
“Do you know a Dr. Joseph Chuang who works for the Chinese government-owned Sino Oil Company?”
“No.”
“You heard Hughes testify that Dr. Joseph Chuang of Sino Oil brought him $2 million in cash in San Francisco?”
“I heard that at this trial.”
“And never before?”
“Never. The Joseph Chuang I know, the dentist, eats in a small Chinese restaurant on Canal Street in Chinatown where the highest-priced dishes cost nine dollars. I’ve had food there, too. For a Southern girl I’ve had to eat all kinds of food that at sixteen I never imagined even existed.”
“And you heard Hughes mention that he took hours to count the $2 million in cash he says his Dr. Chuang gave him, correct?”
“I heard that. His Dr. Chuang must also have given him a pocket calculator or an abacus. I don’t know how anyone counts $2 million in dollar bills in his head.”
“Have you ever heard the name Oscar Caliente?”
“Not until that name was mentioned here by Mr. Decker.”
“The name Caliente means nothing to you?”
“Nothing. Again, I had not heard it until this trial. I don’t even know that a man named Oscar Caliente exists. I assume somewhere in the world there are men with that name, but I never heard it before.”
“Had you ever, Senator, heard of the Sinaloa cartel?”
“Certainly. As a Senator, I try to stay informed of everything that might hurt the nation’s and this state’s well-being. I knew it was a drug cartel. But no one ever mentioned the name Oscar Caliente to me in connection with Sinaloa or anything else.”
“And Mr. Hughes didn’t?”
“No.”
“Did you ever tell Hughes to give you $75,000 in cash?”
“No.”
“Listen to me carefully, Senator: Did you ever tell Gordon Hughes at any time to give you cash?”
“I heard him tell the jurors that happened, and often. He was lying. Gordon Hughes never bought me a cup of coffee.” Like Hughes, she looked at the jurors when she answered questions. “Let me be clear. I hired Gordon Hughes early on for the reasons I mentioned. He had a skill, I thought, in organizing people. He was familiar, or so he told me, with the leaders and local opinion-makers in many states throughout the country. He told me he knew experts on super PACs, although he wasn’t, he said, an expert himself. My initial reluctance about running for President was, I think, a feeling that I’d done that with Jimmy and it wasn’t fun. But then I gradually began to look on it as a duty I had.
“So, knowing that Hughes had only a limited set of skills, I hired a staff of fund-raisers, treasurers, law firms in most states, and experts in something that was new and exotic to me: PACs and then things called super PACs as they became known after a Supreme Court deci
sion, Citizens United. When Jimmy ran for President, I’m not even sure we heard those expressions.”
Hunter Decker—as Raquel noticed from the periphery of her view while she concentrated on the judge, the jury, and her client—was visibly struggling with the urge to stand and say, “Move to strike.” But he continued to sit still.
Raquel knew she had to draw Angelina Baldesteri to the now. She asked, “Did you ever have an intimate relationship with Gordon Hughes?”
“No, I didn’t”
“Did he ever tell you that foreign money was being used in your campaign?”
“No. And no one else ever said that either. And no foreign money has ever come into my campaign as far as I know. I have never even used the phone or a face-to-face meeting to ask anyone—anyone—not Mark Zuckerberg, not Melinda and Bill Gates, not Mike Bloomberg, not Alex Rodriguez, not Vladimir Putin, not anyone—for money for my campaign.”
“Do you know Robert Calvaro?”
“I do.”
“Who is he?”
“He is, he has told me, a native of South America who was born into a wealthy family and came as a teenager to an exclusive New England prep school, went to Yale, became a United States citizen, and returned to Argentina. He and other people I trust have told me Mr. Calvaro made a fortune in the oil business. He came back to the U.S. and set up what is called a hedge fund. Ten years ago. The hedge fund, he said, has only U.S. investors and trades only in U.S. assets.”
“How long ago did you meet Mr. Calvaro?”
With an almost puzzled expression, Angelina continued to look at the jurors. “A year ago? Nine months ago?”
“Why did you meet him?”
“To the best of my recollection, I was introduced to Robert Calvaro by one of the lawyers I had hired to make sure that nothing that I did, or that was done in my name or on my behalf, violated any of the rules about super PACs or campaign financing.”
“And you met Mr. Calvaro?”
“I did.”
“Where?”
“He had long been a member of the New York Athletic Club. We had lunch there.”
“What did you talk to him about?”
“He said he was the lead partner in something called the Fund for America, which was the name of his hedge fund. He described that the billions of dollars of his own money and his investors’ money he controlled through his hedge fund he wanted to concentrate, and did, in fact, concentrate, on projects that I as a Senator advocated.”
“Such as?”
“Solar power. Reversing climate change. Desalinating ocean water. Wind turbines. Other progressive businesses. Microloans for small underfunded businesses in disadvantaged communities. Real-world methods of developing religious conciliation.”
“Did you say anything?”
“Not a great deal. My priorities were clear to him.”
“What else did Mr. Calvaro say?”
“He said he had taken the liberty of formally establishing a super PAC called, I think he said, America Renewed, and that he intended to use that super PAC to the maximum extent he could to lend support to the issues important to him that any candidate, presumably a Democrat, who, if elected President, could advance. In other words, the priorities he and I had.”
“And you said?”
“That I appreciated his views, his vision, but that I felt very useful as a Senator. I was not at all sure I wanted to be a presidential candidate. He should, I said, talk to other people as well.”
“And?”
“Mr. Calvaro said he had and would. But that the only name that kept being raised was mine.”
“Did he speak with an accent?”
Calmly, Angelina said, “I don’t want to offend anyone. I heard all the jurors speak during jury selection. It was a rainbow of voices. New York voices. I know at times I have that slight Southern accent I absorbed when I was growing up in Jefferson Parish in Louisiana.” She smiled. “I can hear it even now, as I speak.
“But I came north as a young woman to go to college in New England. Many of the young men I met had those privileged prep school accents, and Robert Calvaro had gone to St. Paul’s in New Hampshire, I think, the most old-fashioned of the New England prep schools. And then he went to Yale. His voice had that kind of elite New England accent.” She paused again. “But obviously his first language was Spanish.”
“And you knew that because you knew he was born in Argentina?”
“No. I knew that because toward the end of our lunch, which was a very comfortable one—he was a gentleman; I have to confess I have a weak spot for gentlemen; my husband Jimmy was a gentleman—I began speaking to him in Spanish. I learned the rudiments of Spanish in college and when I decided, after my husband died, to live in New York, I learned to speak Spanish well. So we spoke in Spanish for a while.”
“What did he say at that point?”
“Surprisingly, he asked me if I wanted to play squash. The New York Athletic Club has the best squash courts in America.”
“Do you know how to play?”
“I do, but not well. He had learned at prep school and Yale. I told him it would be for me like getting into the ring with Mike Tyson at his prime. He asked me if it would be okay for him to contact me again. We were just being playful in that part of the conversation.”
“Did you leave with an impression of Robert Calvaro?”
“I enjoyed his company. But I enjoy almost everybody’s company, or at least I try to.”
“Was Mr. Calvaro a United States citizen?”
“He brought that up. He said he was a naturalized United States citizen. He even enjoyed displaying pictures on his cell phone of the day when he was sworn in in this courthouse, as it has turned out, as a citizen along with one hundred thirty-six other people. He said it was the proudest day of his life.”
Raquel suppressed the reaction that this was yet another lie from Angelina Baldesteri. She couldn’t think of anyone the Senator liked or enjoyed. She never once showed any interest in the personal or emotional lives of the four to five young aides who constantly trailed her.
“What,” Raquel asked, “happened next?”
“As far as Mr. Calvaro was concerned?”
“That’s right.”
“I am a careful person, Ms. Rematti. I used—and my lawyers told me it was perfectly legal and prudent—leftover campaign funds to hire three independent private investigators to check Mr. Calvaro out, thoroughly.”
“Did you get answers?”
“I did. They all gave me reports. Everything Mr. Calvaro told me was true.”
The mesmerized courtroom was suddenly disrupted. “Objection,” Hunter Decker said, “absolute hearsay.”
“Overruled.”
Decker made a gambit to have Naomi Goldstein reconsider. “Total hearsay,” he said.
“Sit down, Mr. Decker. You heard my ruling.”
Unfazed, Raquel continued. “You saw Government Exhibit 673, Ms. Baldesteri?”
“Yes. You mean that picture?”
“Your hand is on Mr. Calvaro’s shoulder in that photo, correct?”
“It is.”
“And what was happening?”
“We talked a little. It was after I announced my candidacy. Mr. Calvaro had kept his promises. Not everybody who wants access to me does that—by which I mean, makes promises and then follows through on them. In Mr. Calvaro’s case, the super PAC America Renewed put funds into those segments and internal committees of my campaign that focused on issues such as education for the poor, underpaid labor, scientific research on stem cells, peace initiatives in Syria and Kurdistan.”
“Did any of that money go to you?”
“No, absolutely not. The America Renewed super PAC paid airlines for flights, paid staff salaries of people who worked twenty-four seven and three hundred sixty-five days a year for my committee, but those payments were used to advance issues, not me.” She stopped, and then resumed. “You know, Ms. Rematti, there are people who, to put i
t quite simply, hate me. Some of these haters hold very high offices. Many of them are richer than Midas. There are media outlets that watch, and distort, everything I do and say. So, I surround myself with careful staff members—accountants, lawyers, advisors—who watch and vet every dime.”
Decker stood. “Move to strike all of that, Your Honor. Totally self-serving and utterly irrelevant.”
Naomi Goldstein adjusted the reading lamp near her face. There was a moment of real hesitation and then she said, to Raquel’s surprise, “Sustained. The jury will ignore every word of that answer that begins when the witness speaks of how she is hated.”
Adjusting rapidly, Raquel said, “Your campaign hired independent accountants?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mr. Calvaro tell you whom to hire?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Did he tell you what airlines to use?”
“Never.”
“Did Mr. Calvaro tell your campaign what hotels to use?”
“No.”
“What advertising to purchase?”
“No.”
“Which consultants and employees to hire?”
“No.”
Slowly Raquel shifted ground. “Let’s go back to the famous Government Exhibit 673, where your hand is on Mr. Calvaro’s shoulder. Are you back there with me?”
“Sure.”
“Do you remember saying anything to him?”
“I do.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘Thank you for keeping your promises.’”
“And he said?”
“He said, ‘I always do, Senator, I always do.’”
“How often have you seen him since then?”
“I can’t recall.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“I can’t recall.”
“Do you sign quarterly reports of income and expenses for your presidential committee?”
“I do. That’s what the law requires.”
“And above your signature the printed words say you are telling the truth in all the figures on the thirty pages and thousands of numbers on the reports, is that right?”
“Yes, Ms. Rematti. I don’t have the ability to understand thousands of numbers. I do sign them. The reality is I have to rely on what people I trust put on the forms. I’m only human, Ms. Rematti. Just human.”