The Confirmation (9 page)

Keith Golden slid into the chair at the head of the long table in the stately conference room just off his private office on the fifth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Center, the massive building at Pennsylvania Avenue and Tenth Street that served as headquarters for the Department of Justice. As attorney general, he presided over the largest law enforcement agency in the world, a sprawling, global behemoth that included the FBI, the federal prison system, one million inmates, 124,000 employees, and agents all over the world. With Peter Corbin Franklin's stroke, his priority had become singular: identify and recommend a Supreme Court nominee to the president.

Golden's inner circle was solidly and reflexively conservative, an insular collection of ideologues and loyalists who shared his commitment to reshaping the federal judiciary, most of whom had been with him for years. To them Franklin's stroke was a personal tragedy but also the opportunity of their careers. They had no intention of blowing it. Golden leaned forward, placing his hands palms down on the table, immediately getting down to business. “Charlie Hector called. The president wants to meet with me and Battaglia no later than the day after tomorrow to discuss judicial nominees.”

Art Morris, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel and was one of Golden's closest aides, raised his eyebrows and let out a long sigh. “That's a tall order.”

“We've got biographical backgrounders on the top candidates,” reported his chief of staff, a longtime aide in the Senate who had followed him to Justice. “We did that during the transition. But a thorough vetting yet of all their articles, speeches, and legal opinions will take weeks.”

“We don't have weeks. We have two days,” shot back Golden. “I want a fifteen- to twenty-page memo on each of them, with a two-page executive summary so the president doesn't have to read the entire document.” He took a swig from his Diet Coke. “I want analysis of every word they have ever spoken or written. Every case they've ever been involved in. I don't want to leave a stone unturned.”

“What about candidates with a thin paper trail?” asked Morris.

“Don't sugarcoat it,” Golden answered firmly. “We stress to the president that if someone has left no footprints in the snow, there's usually a reason.” He tapped the table with his knuckles. “No surprises.”

“In other words, no Souters,” chuckled his chief of staff.

“No more Souters,” repeated Golden, referring to former Justice David Souter, appointed by George H. W. Bush and viewed as a stealth nominee who ended up greatly disappointing conservatives. “Not on my watch.” He paused. “Charlie said the president wants a close look at women and Hispanic nominees.”

“We have five or six,” said Morris. “The best by far is Marco Diaz.”

“He hasn't been on the DC Circuit long,” noted Golden.

“Nineteen months. But he's terrific. It would be nice to send the second Hispanic Supreme Court nominee in history and watch Stanley and Penneymounter flail around.”

“I like it. What about women?” asked Golden

“We have two solid candidates and one not so solid,” said Morris. “The best, at least in terms of optics, is Yolanda Majette, an African-American woman who is chief justice of the California Supreme Court. Her father was the former state chair of the NAACP.”

Golden's eyes lit up. “Did Long appoint her?”

“No, but he will know her. She's stellar.”

“We're getting press calls asking if we're preparing to transmit names to the White House,” reported the chief of staff.

“Tell them it's business as usual,” said Golden. He raised his voice and craned his neck as if to imitate a press spokesperson. “Reviewing judicial candidates is standard at the start of every administration. There is no connection whatsoever to Franklin's medical condition.”

“But we can always hope,” joked Morris.

“Ross Lombardy called,” said the chief of staff, changing subjects. “He wants to give us some names.”

“Get them from Andy's legal eagle, not Lombardy.” Golden's eyes widened and his face lit up. “By the way, Andy got in my face at the inaugural—backstage at the Faith and Family celebration—and told me that God had told him there would be a vacancy very soon.” He shook his head in wonder, chuckling. “I don't know if he's a prophet or clairvoyant.”

“Don't you know Stanton's got a direct pipeline to God?” laughed Morris. “Either that, or Mars.”

Golden rose from his chair, signaling the meeting was over. “Gentlemen, organize your team and make assignments.” He smiled wryly. “I recommend you order in some pizza because I suspect you'll be pulling some all-nighters.”

CHRISTY LOVE PUT DOWN her ever-present can of Diet Dr. Pepper and rapped on the table. The casual conversations wafting through the room abruptly stopped. The lawyers—she called them her hired guns—sat around the conference table, yellow legal pads open, pens poised, earnest expressions on every face. The communications and political staff lined the wall in chairs. They were puffed up like blowfish, ready to attack. The tension in the room was thick. Everyone's adrenal glands were wide open.

“Okay, folks, this is the real deal,” Love announced grandiloquently, hands on hips. “This is not a drill. Justice Franklin is in our thoughts, and we hope he pulls through. He's tough, and he's gotten through worse than this before. But should there be a vacancy, as much as we hope there won't be, we have to be prepared for the mother of all confirmation battles.” She looked around the table. “Is the press release out yet?”

“Done. We shot that out fifteen minutes after the AP bulletin on Franklin,” answered the communications director, beaming. “We've got more than two hundred press calls. You have interviews lined up with NBC, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC.”

“CNN is setting up in your office now,” Love's assistant reported.

“Good,” said Love. “The message is: we hope there won't be a vacancy, but if there is, we're ready. The stakes could not be higher, and if the Long administration tries to play politics with the Supreme Court, we will oppose them with every resource at our disposal.”

“We're locked and loaded,” said one of the lawyers.

Christy shot him a withering look. “Off message. This is Pro-Choice PAC, not the NRA, for crying out loud!” The room broke into nervous laughter at Christy's trademark cutting wit.

“The Faith and Family Federation issued a release saying that Franklin was in their prayers,” offered someone in the back of the room, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Gag me,” said Love. “Stanton makes me want to puke.” She turned to her lead staff attorney. “Do we have the legal research on all the likely candidates?”

“We do,” the counsel reported to the group. “We have dossiers on all of the candidates. We're more ready than we've ever been.”

Love nodded approvingly. “People, there's no margin for error,” she warned. “Bob Long won the White House with the religious right and angry white males. It's payback time.” She paused, surveying every face. “We're the only thing standing between the American people and the shredding of the Constitution.” Her eyes sparkled with intensity. She clapped her hands together twice. “Let's get to work and fight for women's rights like our whole lives depended on it. Because they do.”

The room broke into loud applause. Someone let out a shrill whistle. Love was head coach, field general, and attack dog all rolled into one: a Doberman in designer heels. She and her team had drawn a line in the sand: they would stop Bob Long from putting a right-wing extremist on the Supreme Court or die trying.

THE MEDICAL TEAM AT George Washington University gathered in a small office steps, from the ICU, studying pictures from the MRI and the CT scan of Peter Corbin Franklin. Twenty minutes earlier they had finished three hours of emergency surgery on the justice, during which the surgeons inserted a stent at the base of his brain stem to relieve pressure caused by the bleeding in his skull. The lead surgeon pointed to various regions of the brain with his index finger as they talked in hushed voices. On the positive side, there was no sign of a tumor or growth in the brain. But the shaded areas on the MRI were the telltale signs of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. The bleeding in the brain had done extensive tissue damage, and the GWU hospital surgical team knew it was irreversible.

“He has massive intraparenchymal bleeding,” the lead doctor said.

“Do you think it affects the medulla?” asked a member of the surgical team.

“Yes. We don't know if it caused damage to the vagus nerve. The immediate objective is to stop the bleeding. We won't know his true condition until he stabilizes. Then we'll see if he can breathe without assistance.”

“It looks like classic CAA,” said a GWU professor of medicine who was consulting with the surgical team. One of the surgeons arched his eyebrows in curiosity. “Cerebral amyloid angiopathy,” the professor continued. “It's a weakening of the blood vessels in the brain that makes the victim especially prone to cranial bleeding.”

The lead surgeon nodded. That ruled out blood thinning medication, which made recovery even more unlikely. The realization deepened the already sober and determined mood in the cramped office.

“He may not regain consciousness,” said another doctor. “If he does, it's questionable whether he'll be fully cognizant.”

The lead doctor frowned to signal his disapproval. The rest of the trauma team greeted this statement with silence. The reality of Franklin's precarious condition was something only to be spoken of in hushed whispers.

A male nurse wearing a green smock stuck his head in the door. “Doctor, phone call,” he said to the lead surgeon. “It's the White House.”

“The White House? What in the world would they want from me?”

“I don't know, sir. It's the operator. Line two.”

The lead doctor looked at his colleagues, shrugged his shoulders, and picked up the phone. The voice on the other end said, “Doctor, thank you for taking my call. This is Charlie Hector, calling from the White House.”

“I know who you are,” the doctor replied coldly. “What can I do for you, Mr. Hector?”

“We're getting press inquiries about Justice Franklin's medical condition. Obviously, I don't want to pry or violate the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship. But we are trying to be responsive to the media, so I was wondering if you could provide us with any guidance in a general way on the Justice's condition. Or I can just keep this conversation confidential.”

“I'm afraid I can't tell you anything at this time,” the doctor said, swatting aside Hector's empty caveats.

“Well,” said Hector haltingly. “In that case, do you have any plans to hold a news conference or issue a statement? An awful lot of rumors are flying around on the Internet. It might help.”

“Mr. Hector, my only focus is on taking care of Justice Franklin,” said the doctor, his voice distant. “I don't have anything to report at this time. When we do, we'll inform the public, and you'll find out when everyone else does.”

“I know you'll handle it in a thoroughly professional way,” said Hector, his voice hollow.

The doctor hung up the phone with a thud. He turned to his colleagues. “I can't believe the chutzpah of this White House,” he said through clenched teeth. “It's just beyond the pale.”

“Who was that?”

“Charlie Hector doing his best imitation of the Grim Reaper.”

“We need to release a statement and throw a wet blanket on the death watch,” urged one of the doctors. “Things are spinning out of control. There are two dozen camera crews outside the emergency room entrance.”

“We have to tell the truth, but it needs to be positive enough to force the White House and the media to back off,” said the lead physician. The doctors appointed a committee of two to work with the hospital's public relations officer to draft a statement. The two doctors who drew the short straw headed down the hall toward an elevator.

The lead surgeon padded back into the ICU, still wearing his green surgical gown, and stopped at the foot of the bed of Peter Corbin Franklin. He stood there silently, staring. Franklin's frail body was twisted at an impossible angle, legs pulled up to his abdomen, his right hand involuntarily forming a claw. Tubes came from every part of his body, extending from his nose, chest, and mouth. The repetitive beep of an EKG echoed in the background. Franklin's pale, drawn face resembled a death mask. His mouth agape in a silent scream, he wore a stricken expression, black eyes unseeing. Even if he lived, he would never again be the brilliant legal mind with a rapier wit that had once enraptured audiences and intimidated lawyers at the Supreme Court. Worst of all, Franklin was now a pawn in a larger political chess game. They wouldn't let the poor man die in peace.

SEVEN