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Chapter One: Shooting the Wounded

"And Congress's image has suffered because, members think, journalistic ethics and standards are not as good as they used to be."
-- House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt in The New Yorker, 12 September 1994

"Congress is not corrupt. Congress is not on the take. Congress is incompetent. "
-- Senator Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.)

"Is Congress for sale? Hell, I'd be happy if the sons of bitches would just stay rented."
-- Roadtrip, early 1995

NATIONAL AIRPORT fell rapidly behind the window of my cab as we crossed the 14th Street Bridge in late September 1992. I looked up at the pigeon-infested monuments on the other side. I sighed. Back again.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1992, a few weeks before: "Hey buddy," the voice on the other end from across the country said with its dangerous chuckle. "What's going on?"

"Stew!" Calls from my friend we'll call "Slick, the Washington, D.C. producer of the top-rated tabloid television show Inside Edition, were always welcome. I had worked with him on a story in May about congressional perks, and he was a superb source for the more shadowy aspects of life in the nation's capital. A former investigative reporter for Jack Anderson, Slick has fabulous connections that are exceeded only by his taste for extreme downhill skiing. Slick is analytical sharp, great with people, and motivated, pushed by a populist outrage against official corruption in all its various and manifold forms. I often told him his was wasting his time in journalism and ought to go into politics himself.

"Are you up for a big one?" he asked.

I laughed. Inside Edition is the syndicated world's number one show with huge budgets and an audience of fourteen million people. A big one by their standards could be an adventure of truly epic proportions.

"Let's hear it." I said.

Slick went straight to the point. "You know all these Senate and House members that either got beat or decided to retire because of scandals? The word on the street is that these guys are willing to do anything to get another job and stay in town."

"Anything?"

"Anything we ask them to do, natch."

"Natch," I said as a grin quickly worked its way across my face.

"The old bait and dangle, buddy," he continued, 'the old bait and dangle. A classic sting. We ask them to do something really outrageous in terms of violating the public trust, offer them a job in return, and see what happens."

"Use a P.O. box," I suggested. "Otherwise they'll be breaking down your door, and we'll need to sell popcorn and tickets."

"Better than that," he replied, and gave me the pitch. "Posing as lobbyists, perhaps under assumed names, we approach retiring congressmen in an attempt to have them place bogus bill in the hopper or submit some inane comment for the Congressional Record. Inside Edition will set up telephone answering services to handle our East and West Coast offices. Letterhead, stationary, maybe even promotional pens will be manufactured for the purpose of the sting."

I was rubbing by chin and already thinking of the possibilities. The audience size and makeup were appealing because we could reach the average person on the street and tell them something important about the way Washington really works: that entrenched corruption has become not special but ordinary.

Hmmm. It was also a chance to slap around the elitism and snobbery of the chattering classes of the Beltway and their smarmy groveling at the feet of those in power. (Their argument: Anyone not as corrupt as they are has no legitimate right to an opinion.) Being able to show Washington political culture at its rawest, most honest level, unfiltered by those who make their living collecting the bones thrown to them by the big boys - wow. I thought, something like that doesn't come around often.

I was also trying to figure how in the world I was going to start the search for the soul of Washington that Roadtrip and Datahead had instigated. This seemed as good a starting point as any.

Besides, as Roadtrip pointed out longingly, when I called him, it sounded like one hell of an adventure. "The opportunity to accompany a national television show exposing congressional corruption would be too great to resist," he said.

"Okay," I said, "you do it."

"Hell, I make my living off that kind of corruption," he laughed.

"No," I replied, "You are that corruption."

I agreed to let him know when to stay out of the way. "By the way," Roadtrip added, "your friend Slick is right on the mark. Keep pushing. You never know what you'll find." Our conversation ended. Roadtrip likes to live in a lot of different universes. I live in one of them. We have known each other for a very long time and have slain many demons together, and we have a deep understanding not to betray.

Then I got nervous. Could we really do this Inside Edition deal - could we actually pull it off? I'd just written as book titled "Hill Rat" that kicked the stuffing out of the Democrats on Capital Hill, and I had appeared on quite a few shows. You had to consider the odds of being recognized, the role of accident, and a host of other factors that can impede an undercover job.

I took comfort in the fact that Hunter S. Thompson once said that television was a long cheap plastic tunnel where the evil run free and the good die like dogs. Hell, I figured, looking back over my years as a Capitol Hill press secretary, I guess that means I have half a chance.

"Let's do it," Slick urged in his next phone call.

" Let's do it," I replied.

In for a dollar, in for a dime.

Sigh. So many politicians, so little time...

By the third week in September, Slick was moving along with the sting and wanted me to come to Washington. Things were jelling, and I was getting amped for the scam and worrying about what could go wrong. Politics is a lot like surfing: it has a real hard impact zone. That's where the fifteen-foot bad boys at Pipeline take you within an inch of your life on the razor edge of the reef, wave after wave after wave. We were going to play in Washington's Pipeline, and it wasn't a game for children. Sneak into town, set the big boys up, snatch the prize, ride the wave, and get the hell out of the way before the whole thing comes crashing down on top of us.

THE CAB TOOK ME to Slick's office on Capital Hill. It was great to see him again. He was wiry and intense with red hair, freckles, glasses, in his mid-thirties, very soft-spoken, easy to work with. We went over the plan, worked on getting our stories straight under our new identities, and agreed to meet the next morning.

The first thing they did was to "gray me up" because I had appeared on their show four months before, and Slick was worried the members might recognize me. Makeup artist Kim Foley added gray coloring to my hair and eyebrows and aged be to from mid-forties to early fifties. They filmed the makeup session itself, which meant Kim and I had to do take after take with a lot of gray gunk.

To fit us into Washington's political culture, Slick had set up a fictional trade association called the National Association of Bolt Distributors, which purported to represent importers and distributors of bolts and fasteners. According to the scenario, the association was very concerned about a government crackdown on counterfeit bolts, which in real life was an enormous problem and the subject of ongoing federal criminal investigations.

(Note: This becomes highly significant at thirty-three thousand feet in a jetliner whose engines are attached to its wings by these bolts. A bad bolt here is generally bad news all around. A two-scotch flier myself, I took the matter personally.)

So that no eyebrows would be raised, we would play it safe and use Washington's standard money-for-influence pitch: offer retiring members of Congress the prospect of employment, and then give them the opportunity to use the powers of their office to earn that employment via a statement in the Congressional Record, a floor speech, or other types of official intervention.

It wouldn't be difficult. Slick had found a real proposed federal regulation that would make it tougher to sell counterfeit and substandard bolts in the United States. "The object," Slick explained, "is to get the corrupt members to react."

We had a plan, Now we needed the talent. Slick brought in a veteran reporter named Matt Meagher, who using his own name would pose as an importer. Matt had set up a front office with a telephone for "New England Mechanical Trader's Inc." in Wobern, Massachusetts, in case anyone called to check on our bona fides. As Slick's plan read, "Matt should act like he knows little if anything about how Washington works, including asking the congressman if he can't just write a bill to logjam all this stuff. He vehemently opposes this regulation because it will be expensive as hell to test bolts and certify them as adequate before he sells them."

I had a role in the script, too, and it read like a bad novel: "going under the name Don Lee, John is our executive headhunter from the firm of Lee, Harris, and Carlson. Don Lee recently set up a temporary Washington office to help Matt find a lobbyist in Washington. When Matt asked a question like "Can't you just write a bill?" Don talks him down to earth and suggests that the congressman merely enters comments in the Congressional Record or perhaps file comments on the proposed regulation. Matt met Don because their wives went to school together. Don's business partner, Mr. Harris [Slick], works out of the West Coast mostly, and his other partner, Carlson, is dead."

The undercover taping was to take place in public places only, such as restaurants. Matt would be hardwired with a tape recorder inside his jacket pocket and the microphone hidden in tie tack or breast pocket (FCC rules precluded the use of a wireless mike).

What were our odds for success?

Well, it wasn't like we had invented the whole scenario out of thin air. The Washington Post had just carried a story headlined, "On Capitol Hill, the Search for a Soft Landing." It had detailed the scramble for jobs by retiring House and Senate members --and how difficult it was becoming this year. Datahead had passed on some recent field data from races all over the country, and it looked as though the ranks of the already announced retirees were about to receive some involuntary increases. The used-member market had cooled off considerably in light of an expected oversupply, so we figured we had a least an even chance.

Letters were messengered on our headhunter stationery on September 23 to all retiring members; we didn't want to target any of them unfairly. The letter contained typical Washington pitch ("Congratulations upon the eve of completing a successful 102nd Congress. And special congratulations, too, for completing a rich and distinguished career. History will have its eye on your contributions to our nation's well-being...") We dangled the prospect of a job, and said we would call soon.

The first bite displayed Washington's morals at their finest. Robert Hartwell, administrative assistant to retiring Rep. Richard Schulze (R-PA), called to inform us that he had intercepted the letter, knew from his heart that the congressman wasn't up for the job, and in the same breath offered his own services instead. We all laughed when we heard the tape and arranged to meet him promptly.

As a staffer, Hartwell was not a big enough target on his own to warrant a wake-up call on national television. But we figured he would be a good dry run, so we agreed to meet him at a downtown restaurant.

The mechanics went flawlessly. Steve, our undercover camera operator, set up shop unnoticed at a table across the room, his camera hidden in a briefcase. He quickly zeroed in on us and Hartwell, who had us feeling sorry for him right off the bat because he was so pathetic an disgusting at the same time. Dressed for success in a sharp pin-striped suit, white shirt, power tie, and an attitude to match, he kept reminding us that we should hire him because "staffers do all the work, not the members. They write the laws, do the Congressional Record statements, issues the press releases, all that stuff." He was more than happy to put his influence and contacts to work for the right price, but to his credit he pointed out that he could not do anything until he left congressional service.

I watched him strut his Hill Rat stuff and thought, you're so common, so credentialed, so Washington. Ethics in Powertown creates a marquis of Queensberry fantasy. You can sell out, but it must be at precisely the right time, under the right circumstances and only according to the rules.

(And cash in he did: Hartwell is now the director of political affairs and senior lobbyist at the American Health Care Association.)

Small fish aside, the major target soon materialized: U.S. Rep. Bob Davis, one of the House of Representatives' more prominent bottomfeeders. He leaped on the offer like a hound in heat. Davis had announced his retirement shortly after being exposed as one of the House's top overdrafters of checks in the now-infamous House bank. He had become briefly famous several years before when his then-wife Marry posed in a see-though black body suit for Time magazine to prove that not all congressional wives were frumpy. Davis was no stranger to the money-for-influence game. In his previous election, he had shaken down the political action committee crowd for a cool $242,224.

I spoke with him several times on the telephone before our meeting, which was a dinner at the Prime Rib restaurant on K Street, a favorite lobbyist watering hole. Davis had been panting on receipt of the letter and bombarded us with telephone calls to get in on the action. Yes we were serious, I kept saying. Yes, the money is a s good as we mentioned. Yes, we wanted some help, and soon.

In preparation for the meeting, I found myself in a room at the Hyatt, surveying a scene right out of I-Spy . Steve sat on the bed, surrounded by open aluminum suitcases full off video surveillance equipment. Matt Meagher was cursing softly in the bathroom and trying to get a good fit for his taping equipment. Slick and I were rehearsing our background stories, our patter, our rap, and trying to assuage Matt's nervousness. "I've done the mob before," Matt kept saying, "I'm not scared of the mob. But these politicians are fucking crazy."

We gathered at the Prime Rib, a place in which the average American will never find her- or himself. the accent is heavy and dark, with lots of ebony and brass. It is a carnivore's lair and not just because of the beef on the menu. the joint teems with lobbyists, members, would-be and actual power brokers, and influence peddlers of all stripes and kinds. Its clientele is overwhelmingly white, middle-aged, blonde-accompanied, overweight and overlawyered.

I met Mr. Davis as he entered the establishment. "Hey, Congressman, Donald Lee," I said introducing myself.. I was somewhat nervous - would he recognize me? Was the graying-up realistic? Were Slick and I completely out of our minds?

We sat down and ordered drinks. I explained our headhunting firm, and Matt described in detail the burdensome regulations with which bolt dealers must contend.

Congressman Davis soon dominated the conversation, going on an on about how he had already figured out a way around the ethics laws and who he could talk to even though he couldn't lobby his former colleagues for a year after leaving Congress. "[House Majority Whip and fellow Michiganer] Dave Bonior has already agreed to help me," he bragged. Davis also made some great comments about PAC's, the role of campaign contributions, the purchase of access, and what it took to succeed in Washington.

The congressman's love of the culture of influence was matched by boorish table manners. He became more excited as the talk progressed, eating and talking at the same time (he knew the menu at the Prime Rib so well that he had decided upon the pork chop before arriving). You could almost see the drool of greed begin to form at the edges of his mouth. We had offered him a fantastic job - great pay, benefits, travel, the whole works, -- and he was beside himself with desire. For one of the largest congressional check-overdrafters in the House, it was unparalleled. Davis represented Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and he candidly told us that after fourteen years in Washington, there was damn little that interested him back home.

Then trouble struck.

The maitre d' walked up the table, stiffly and unannounced, and handed Davis a note. Davis appeared to have trouble reading it. He kept staring at the note, looking and blinking. He would not make eye contact with us.

Matt took it out of his hand.,

"What's it say?" Davis asked.

Matt appeared floored for an instant. The note read: "Rep Davis -- the couple across the room with the gift box on the table have you a secret camera. Be careful"

"What's it say?" Davis asked again. Matt is flailing at this point. His eyes dart. He doesn't reply. Davis asks yet again. Finally Matt blurts, "It's says, uh, the couple across the room...uh... wants to buy you a bottle of champagne!"

Matt, stressed and furious, approached Steve's table. "What the fuck's going on?" he whispered.

Steve, the surveillance expert, was at the table with Slick's wife who posed as Steve's date. The camera was hidden in gift box on the table. Steve said something to Matt I couldn't hear.

"Get the fuck out of there!" Matt hissed to them, and returned to our table.

Rep. Davis suddenly grabbed the note from Matt. He read it aloud.

His face went ashen. He was silent. "His whole life passed in front of him," Slick chortled later. "He was that close to losing it."

"Oh," Davis said finally,. "Oh. It must be some kind of joke. My wife is in the other room at a reception. I bet she did it." And with that he abruptly left the table to look for her.

I felt a rising sense of UH-OH, kind of like when the cockpit voice prompter is a commercial airliner announces "terrain" the instant before a crash, as Matt told us quickly what was going down, Our voices cut back and forth: "What are we going to do -- hold tight -- blow this joint--"

Davis returned and said he couldn't find her. We stared to wind things down quickly. We gulped our drinks. A lobbyist appeared and said hello to Davis. He was a former staffer for Davis, and he was trying to pull Davis away from our table - physically pulling him, grabbing his coat sleeve and tugging.

Then a waiter appeared and asked us about the "strange couple" across the room. Matt said loudly that yes, they were strange, but now they were gone.

Yeah, the waiter replied, and then added something about a hidden camera on their table.

Matt, Slick and I exchanged quick glances. Time to boogie.

:"Congressman," I said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, "I think we've made great progress here. We're interested, and I hope your are. Let's sleep on it and talk tomorrow."

Fine, Davis said, Looking dazed. When he turned his back to the table I snatched the note and stuffed it into my pocket.

As we reached the foyer of the restaurant, Matt and I overheard the hat check woman saying that the manager had called the police. By this time, a crowd of drunken lobbyists had formed around us giving us the eye and muttering into their gins. I started mentally to calculate which suit I was going to deck first if push came to shove. We didn't know how much they knew, and we weren't going to stick around to find out.

We elbowed our way outside through the glares. I hurriedly shook Davis's hand and said I'd call him tomorrow.

Wasting no time, I grabbed the keys and the valet as Matt and I raced across K Street and into my rental car. Slick jumped in the door. We roared down an alley just as flashing police car lights appeared down the block. I don't remember much about the conversation over the next few minutes. but it was 99 percent profanity.

We regrouped at the Hyatt bar. The waitress approached. "Liquor,": I ordered with more than a slight air of desperation, "strong and fast,": To release the stress, we all started laughing belly laughs at our close call, even though we knew the entire project was doomed.

Matt then proceeded to tell us that the thought the lobbyist who stopped by the table early into the dinner might have heard him rewinding his tape recorder in the men's room.

"What gave it away?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it was the sound of Davis's voice coming our of the crapper," Matt snapped, then laughed nervously again.

"I don't think so." Steve said with more than a slight degree of guilt in his voice.

We asked how he knew.

Well, Steve explained slowly, he couldn't get the camera to aim properly.

What did hi mean?

"Which word didn't you understand? I couldn't get the fucking camera to aim properly."

"So what did you do?" I presses.

Well, he replied sheepishly, he got up and took forks off an entire row of tables and stuck them under the gift box that hid the camera -- just to get a better angle, of course.

We collectively put our faces in our hands, but couldn't stop laughing. Time for reinforcements. "More drinks," I yelled at the waitress, "and fast again."

"And who would be sitting right next to us while all this is going on." Steve continued plaintively, nearly in tears and unable to understand why the rest of us are laughing so hard our sides hurt "but two Republican political assholes, who watched the whole thing unwind in front of them."

"And then sent the note via the maitre d', " Slick said with dismay.

"And then sent the note via the maitre d'," Steve repeated.

"FUUU-AACK," Matt groaned. Then he chuckled. "And can you believe that waiter" I gave the son of a bitch a $100 tip and he still screwed us by calling the cops."

"Typical Washington," I cracked. "Take your money first, and then stick it to you."

"And now Davis has the fucking note," Matt lamented.

"No he doesn't," I replied, handing it to him. "Here's one for your scrapbook."

Reality hit with the third round of drinks. Hell, we figured, the whole thing had been blown completely. Matt was getting nervous about dealing with politicians again and was threatening to get the hell out of Dodge. I mentally rechecked my plane schedule.

The next morning arrived with equal astonishment.

Despite having been told exactly what was going on, despite seeing his professional life flash before his very eyes the night before, Representative Davis left a voice mail message that he had gone ahead and "taken the initiative" to set up a meeting for us with the attorney and regulator who was writing the bolt regulations standards at the National Institute of Standards, and even more, offered to set up a meeting with Vice-President Dan Quayle's Council on Competitiveness.

"Taken the initiative!" I shrieked Slick.

"So Davis is so high on greed," Slick shook his head with amazement, "that he has consciously willed reality away."

Cool. One down and in the can.

"Plus we have another problem," Slick added.

"What that?"

"Matt's split. He left town already."

"What?!"

"Yeah, it's that politician thing again, I think. Don't worry. I'll work on him. He'll be there when it counts."

"Okay," I replied, relieved. "I'll keep stringing along Davis, but we've got another live one on the phone.

South Carolina Rep. Robin Tallon had been right behind Davis in taking the bait. Tallon, however, had loftier ambitions, with an eye on the expected retirement of Ernest Hollings and a wide-open Senate race in 1996. The association position we offered him would be a perfect launching pad: keep his fingers in the Washington game, make some good bucks for a couple of years, stay in touch with the political money boys, then move back home to join the fray.

And if for some reason Hollings didn't retire, well, hell, a quarter mil a year plus perks seemed like a pretty good thing to old Robin for schlepping nuts an bolts.

Tallon was a Southern good old boy. He spoke with a heavy Southern drawl and had the reputation of being clever, but no rocket scientist.

"On the other hand,": Roadtrip reminded me, "he raised a couple hundred grand in PAC contributions, so his circuits must have clicked somewhere." Tallon had married his secretary in the South Carolina legislature, and the two were regulars at the Democratic Club, the main watering hole for House Democrats.

(My former boss, Rep. Ronald Coleman, had also married his secretary from the Texas legislature, dumped her, then one-upped Tallon by marrying the bartender at the Democratic Club, thus ensuring himself, in the words of our staff director, of a virtually nonstop supply of free liquor.)

Beyond Davis, though, we had another problem - time. The congressional session was almost over, and members were already beginning to head home. We traded calls with Tallon's office until we finally arranged for a brunch meeting the day before the session was expected to end.

Tallon was all grins and mush-mouth as we sat down to talk business. He was charming, witty, smooth - the complete antithesis of the bumbling Davis. Tallon also told us in non-nonsense terms that if our association ever wanted power and influence in Washington, we needed to set up a political action committee and start handing out money.

"Money is the mother's milk of politics," Tallon crooned over his orange juice.

Matt, who had returned , gave him our standard pitch, and we immediately became nervous. Tallon, unbeknownst to us, had been involved in the construction industry in the past and had a good working knowledge of international trade - not to mention nuts and bolts. He was careful, we noticed, to remember our references and contacts, and seemed interested to the point, in our judgment, of being at least as helpful as Davis.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn our that way. Tallon returned to his office and started checking out Matt's references immediately,. The first one was a real company in Massachusetts, where the secretary was supposed to answer, "New England Mechanical Traders."

Tallon dialed the number.

Inside Edition, the secretary crooned, completely confusing instructions.

Tallon freaked our and scrambled, working the phones in a frenzy, calling the headhunter's office repeatedly with demands to talk to Donald Lee (who by this time was safely in Oregon, the sting postponed because Congress had left town.) Having no success, he called Inside Edition and learned that a Matt Meagher actually was there.

Then someone - maybe Tallon, maybe a leak in our Hill intelligence network somewhere - tipped off the Capital Hill newspaper Roll Call and a skewed version of the blown sting turned into headlines for weeks and created wild speculation about the identity of Donald Lee.

"There's a fucking lynch mob out for this guy," Roadtrip called from just off the House floor, yukking it up at my expense. "The gossip in the cloakroom is wild - some of these guys are thinking it might even be a former member or the FBI. They're still scared shitless about ABSCAM, and that was fifteen years ago. Anybody who's ever had an enemy is looking over their shoulder and blaming them for it, right or wrong."

"Mostly wrong," I said.

"Maybe not," Roadtrip replied. "Truth in this town is representational, not specific. If somebody fucked you in the past, this isn't a bad reason to nail them back."

You gotta love this town.

"By the way. I told Datahead everything," Roadtrip continued. "He thinks it's a boot. We agree that your quest has had a most excellent beginning."

"I'll wait for the check," I said, and we hung up.