Why We Lie

by Amy Impellizzeri

  (By the way, for those interested in the legal mumbo jumbo, amicus briefs are basically supporting briefs from other parties who don’t have skin in this particular game, but could be affected by the case on appeal.)

  Birch says he is very gratified by the win on appeal, which upheld the federal judge’s 2015 decision to impose substantial fines against Innovative Media, the parent company responsible for the controversial app, LessThan. The fines were levied against Innovative Media for being in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (lovingly referred to around here as “COPPA”). COPPA has some mighty restrictions about how much information can be collected and shared by an app that is targeted to children under the age of 13—something Innovative Media claimed it did not do. Because Innovative Media claimed that its website is strictly a “teens-only” app, with particular focus on helping high school age kids get into college, they argued there was no problem with collecting very specific personal information from its purchasers, including school information and the like.

  Birch disagreed, and at oral argument, said the app was “practically targeted at youths from the womb. LessThan’s ‘Disney-like’ themes, fonts, music and animation only served to reinforce this point.”

  According to Innovative Media, at stake is a substantial fine with about seven zero’s in it, as well as a slippery slope of government intrusion.

  On the other side of the appeal, at stake is Counselor Jude Birch’s reputation—which some already say is earning him attention in the political arena. Ironically, Birch started his legal career by interning in-house at Treese, Inc., the famous (infamous?) conglomerate started by Dominic Treese—a well-known and hefty investor in Innovative Media.

  It seems Birch is comfortable breaking ties with his one-time mentor. Something that seems to be on trend in this town lately. (Hell, even Treese’s own daughter broke ties with the construction giant, abandoning her trust fund to start her new venture, Appletreese Foundation.)

  I’ve got my eye on this colorful cast of characters. Stay tuned.

  Chapter 10

  Shortly after we started seeing each other in 2015, fresh off Jude’s Innovative Media victory at the trial level (it would be another 18 months or so before the appeal was upheld), he started traveling to law schools in and around the beltway, to give a primer on the case. It was originally supposed to be a “law school” circuit, but Jude was so charismatic and dynamic, that word got out, and he started getting invited to high schools and even local elementary schools. He would warn the kids about giving too much away to the internet. He became a pseudo-motivational speaker in D.C. and even beyond, some of his speeches going viral on YouTube thanks to the lax cell phone policies in a few of the schools he was invited to.

  His most popular talk, entitled “Why You Matter,” was actually a commencement speech at his own high school alma mater in D.C. that had gone viral with four million views in just under a month. By late 2017 Jude was a hometown hero—a prominent member of the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia who was an advocate for entrepreneurs, D.C.’s statehood, eradicating homelessness, and rational gun control, and who, apparently by accident, I eventually learned, because his boss was too busy working on immigration cases, was still the lead counsel of record on one of the most high-profile internet privacy cases of recent years. Jude had become something of an anomaly in Washington D.C. A political insider who was beloved both within and outside of D.C.

  And me? Well, I was starting to wrap my head around a future in D.C. politics. After all, Jude was certainly cut out for that life and I loved him. So for many reasons, the answer was just that easy.

  And so because of that, I simply ignored all the other reasons.

  It wasn’t that surprising to me that by the time the decision became ours to make about whether Jude should begin a bona fide campaign, the decision was a relatively quick one. It was much more surprising—when I stopped to think about it, which I rarely did—how successful Appletreese Foundation was becoming, and how big a part of all that I was.

  In fact, in late 2017, when we first heard the musings that, due to population boons inside Washington D.C., a new Congressional at-large delegate position was going to be created for the first time in American history, and a Special Election would be held for the position in Fall of 2018, Jude and I were at an awards dinner in Georgetown. Appletreese was the recipient of a humanitarian award and I was accepting on the Foundation’s behalf. I was gearing up to speak when someone leaned across me at the table and stage whispered to Jude, “Have you heard the big news? They’re certifying a new delegate seat. Might be the perfect chance for a young man with political aspirations to get his feet good and wet in this city.”

  I was right at that moment being introduced by the Georgetown President, so when Jude looked at me and said, “Wow. You hear that? Sounds official, now. What do you think? What if I actually pursued it?” I had whispered “Go for it!” more out of expediency and nerves than true commitment to the decision.

  But that had apparently been all he needed to hear. We’d never talked about it in what ifs or maybes again after that night. On the way home that night, Jude was on the phone in the car with Huck and Finn, future campaign advisors extraordinaire, fully believing—or at least saying he did—that I had given him my full blessing on a night that was supposed to be mine.

  While he animatedly discussed campaign logistics, I held my heavy crystal humanitarian award, and when Jude asked me, “You don’t mind if we go straight home instead of out for a celebratory drink like we planned, do you? I have some work to do. Phone calls to make?” I shook my head. “Of course not, Jude.”

  “Thanks to you, Sweetheart,” he’d tapped my knee that was propping up my brand new crystal hardware. “I would never have the guts to do this, but for you, Baby.”

  I had stifled that little queasiness that tried to make its way up as I realized that Jude hadn’t congratulated me on the award or complimented my acceptance speech. He’d given me credit instead for a decision to run for the At-Large seat. All the credit. I was supposed to be comforted by that fact, I supposed.

  Still, there was a little piece of me that wondered if Jude was hellbent on giving me all the credit for the decision, wouldn’t there be the possibility … if anything went wrong … that he’d also want to give me all of the blame?

  We kept our separate residences during Jude’s rise to fame, but not for Jude’s lack of trying. Sol had graduated and moved out while I was still working on my application for Appletreese Foundation, an application that I actually submitted under my new name of Aby Boyle. Actually, Sol had left town altogether to work for Teach America, and we hadn’t kept in touch. She didn’t even know that I’d gotten the fellowship with Appletreese. If she read about it, she’d perhaps wondered fleetingly who in the hell Aby Boyle was, and perhaps she’d be sorry that Aby had swooped in and stolen the position out from under Chelsea Boyle. Ditto for Professor Tarragon.

  I’d kept the apartment I’d once shared with Sol, but since I’d gotten the position at Appletreese Foundation soon after Sol left, there was no need for me to advertise for my own felony-free non-smoking roommate.

  I kept my driver’s license and lease in my actual name. Since Jude and Philomena Treese had no reason to look at either one, I was able to transition to Aby Boyle out in the world. The bookkeeper at Appletreese had looked at my social security card and driver’s license to get my paperwork in order when I started work, but she didn’t make a big deal of the fact that my checks were to be made payable to Chelsea Boyle, but my business cards were to be ordered with Aby Boyle on them.

  “Aby’s my middle name,” I told her. “But it’s the only name I go by anymore.” She was overworked and tired, running the books for a non-profit on a shoestring budget. She nodded at my explanation. She didn’t care. Mena had hired me. Mena had vouched for me. It was Mena’s company. That was enough.

  Jude was always asking me to give up
my apartment and move in with him, but I held tightly to my own space. Shortly after that Georgetown awards dinner, when Jude claimed I helped him decide to join the political fray, Jude also bought a Brookland craftsman house for nearly $700,000. It was turnkey, and he asked me to move in and help him decorate it. “It’s time. Come on. Let’s move in together.” It was my last holdout—my last vestige of protection—keeping my own space. Jude didn’t understand how monumental it was that I agreed to give that up and move in with him. It meant that someday I’d have to tell him who I really was. And what I’d done to get there.

  “A brand new life.” That’s what Jude had promised as he carried me across the threshold on the day of closing on the craftsman. I had enjoyed the romance of the act, but hated the words that accompanied it and what they meant.

  After all, I had a “brand new life.” I didn’t need yet another one.

  It hadn’t mattered to me in the beginning that our relationship had started with lies. When guilt crept in, I pushed it back out with the truth: All relationships are built with lies, some big, some small.

  I like your friends. I’ll never be jealous. I love to go to concerts, watch football, give up my side of the bed.

  All relationships start with lies.

  Especially the lies we tell ourselves.

  When I ran away from my old life, I was trying so hard to stop lying that I avoided relationships altogether.

  But falling in love with Jude changed everything and so as the years went by, I wished for a world where there’d be no more lies.

  But you know what they say.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  The Washington Truth, dated April 1, 2018

  Excerpt from the Op Ed piece, by Nate Essuzare

  …As Jude Birch puts the pieces in motion to run for the At-Large position, some have argued it should not exactly be a coveted position. The fact remains that it is a non-voting position with very little actual current power. Others argue that if Jude could secure the pioneering position, and maybe even succeed in his quest to obtain statehood for D.C., the power shift would be great indeed. After all, the D.C. delegate cannot vote on final legislation, but he can sponsor legislation, propose amendments to legislation and even vote on those amendments. Many speculate that it could be a stepping stone to a long, illustrious career in politics in much more prominent positions—including a Supreme Court nod or a Vice-Presidential bid down the road, and then, well, who knows?

  Given this projected trajectory, what do we think about putting a young man in power who hasn’t exactly proven himself yet?

  Or has he already proven himself in ways the public doesn’t know about?

  What will we learn about Jude Birch as this campaign proceeds?

  Chapter 11

  Here’s the truth.

  It drove me crazy that Laila Rogers was one of Jude’s first phone calls that night after the Georgetown Awards dinner, along with Huck and Finn. He told her he wanted a meeting. To talk about becoming his campaign manager.

  “I know her from the early days of practicing law, Sweetheart. I trust her,” he said on that occasion and on several ones afterward.

  But dear God, the way she made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, I didn’t know if he was right to trust her. And I even wondered if maybe he was lying about trusting her.

  I sure didn’t.

  It was Laila who got to be Jude’s liaison to the world whenever anything good happened with the campaign or otherwise. In fact, it was Laila who wrote the press release about Jude’s landmark internet privacy case being upheld on appeal. It turned out to be a very big deal, for the campaign that we were still putting together at the time (months before the official announcement at the Freedom Art Loft space), and for Jude personally. As he explained to me, it would now become “precedent” in other internet privacy litigation—a rapidly growing field in the law.

  “Meaning what exactly, Jude?”

  “Meaning other parties can use it when they are trying to win their own cases. They can point to this case, and say, Dear Court, it’s already been decided. You have to decide this way, too.”

  “Hunh, sounds like a lazy person’s way of getting out of work, if you ask me.”

  Jude had laughed then, and said I had a way of keeping him humble, and happy. And that made me happy, too.

  And I grabbed onto that word “precedent,” which seemed to mean something I could actually relate to, namely—if I say it’s true, it’s true.

  In campaign meetings, I struggled against any reaction to Laila that might be viewed as intimidation, even though Laila was, of course, intimidating. Laila used ridiculous words like “moreover” and “nevertheless” and “whomever” and she winked at whomever was speaking, as long as he was male. At first I thought it was a tic, but eventually I came to realize it was an intentional and cultivated gesture meant to put male speakers off-balance while at the same time rewarding them for saying interesting things. Laila had never once winked at me. And I know for a fact I said lots of interesting things. She always wore black, and she smelled distinctly of almonds. People were often complimenting her perfume, but I found her scent cloying.

  “I absolutely love your perceptive eye, Aby,” Laila replied– with no wink—to my comment a few months in, that the campaign seemed to be focusing on the wrong demographics, bringing in donors and fundraisers who actually lived outside of D.C. city limits, like the affluent Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

  “I’m just concerned that it’s time to refocus on how and when a white lawyer with some degree of privilege named Jude Birch is actually going to switch gears and speak to the issues important to the economically and racially diverse voters actually living in D.C.,” I had said moments before Laila responded with the “perceptive eye” comment and moved on to a discussion of the catering for the next campaign event. I was dismissed.

  But then, Laila suggested, “You know, Jude. We are going to need to start working on your education narrative. We’re going to really step it up and add some details to the website about your commitment to improving the inner city schools.”

  Jude nodded violently as if that was the most brilliant thing he’d heard all day. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to remind him the issue pivot was my idea. “Good. You agree with me. I’ll work on the education narrative. That’s right up my alley.” Laila looked at me blankly. I stepped further into her trap. “Because of my work with the Appletreese Foundation, obviously.”

  “Whoa.” Laila actually put a hand out in front of her like I was physically charging at her or something. Which for the record, I was not.

  “We need to be very careful, Aby, to separate Appletreese from Jude’s campaign. Let’s not forget, Appletreese launched on the back of seed money from Innovative Media.”

  Innovative Media.

  Laila threw that name around like kryptonite whenever we were all together. And it seemed to really work on Jude.

  “Listen to this,” Laila put her hand up yet again and proceeded to read from a recent issue of The Washington Truth.

  The Washington Truth, dated June 15, 2018,

  Excerpt from the Op Ed piece, by Nate Essuzare

  …Jude’s adversary in the Special Election is one Kylie Rutter, a candidate who is openly backed by Innovative Media, a developer of one of the most downloaded social media apps in the last three years, and sworn enemy of Jude Birch, who won a landmark case resulting in an eight-figure fine against the company for failing to comply with COPPA rules. LessThan has substantially revamped its information collection practices, and it continues to be extremely popular with children and teens (and adults!) alike.

  LessThan reports over 100 million installs in 2017 alone, the year the fine was upheld by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and is used by tens of millions of teens to measure themselves and friends against celebs and the “popular kids”—ostensibly to improve their appearance and grades and social status. It even boasts the ability to
enhance college applications with concrete improvement suggestions that will give an edge against the very real competition of the college application pool.

  In reality, however, many claim that LessThan has been responsible for dozens of cyber-bullying related suicides in 2016 and 2017, and breaking the spirits of millions more.

  In 2016 and 2017, Innovative Media spent millions supporting the campaigns of several politicians across the country. And, given their investment in ads supporting Kylie Rutter’s campaign, they clearly view the new seat in D.C. as an important one. With the COPPA case resolved on appeal, and not in their favor, some have asked why Innovative Media continues in such a public spotlight. But insiders say Innovative Media is working hard to ensure tech development-friendly legislation. With Net Neutrality under fire by the FCC, Innovative Media is worried that their particular form of controversial, but highly profitable app, LessThan, could be on the chopping block in the near future, and they are highly interested in making sure bought politicians are in positions of power. Put simply, they have the money to keep paying off their fines. But the money evaporates if their app is actually taken off the market.

  On the other side of the ballot, Jude Birch has not yet articulated a clear position on Net Neutrality, but he has repeatedly noted his disdain for the concept of LessThan, including in the lengthy court battle he waged against their parent from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

  Of course, it is impossible to ignore that Birch started out as a lawyer working inhouse for one of Innovative Media’s biggest investors, Dominic Treese. And similarly hard to ignore that Birch’s girlfriend, Aby Boyle, helps run a Foundation headed up by Treese’s daughter, and which was practically launched with Innovative Media money.

  The webs in D.C. are tangled ones, and though Jude Birch runs on a platform that promises to untangle those webs and keep everything open and transparent, there are some of us who have, from the beginning, questioned what that really means.