Jack McCoy strode manfully into Arthur Branch’s office as he always did when he had won a case and believed that justice had been served. Branch eyed him warily.
“You got a guilty verdict in the ‘Moped’ Lestrada case,” Branch evenly stated. “Good work.”
“Thanks, Arthur,” McCoy responded. “Justice must be seen to be done without favour or –”
“Now, we’re going to let him go.”
McCoy did the double take that he always did when he was thrown a curve. “What?”
“You heard me,” Branch, whose presence could be even more commanding than McCoy’s, said. “The President is going to pardon him. We’re letting him go.”
“Why would he do that?” McCoy fumed. “Lestrada lied repeatedly to a grand jury about his role in outing the identity of a CIA agent.”
“The problem,” Branch explained, “is that the trial wasn’t about the outing of the CIA agent, so you didn’t prove that it happened. Where is the underlying crime, here? I don’t see any, and neither does the President.”
“Maybe we would have been able to determine the underlying crime if Lestrada hadn’t lied to the grand jury!”
“Well, we’ll never know, will we? In the meantime, no underlying crime has been proven, here.”
McCoy took a moment to choose his words carefully. Then, he let loose with his most indignant tones: “Arthur, that’s ridiculous. Clinton was impeached because he lied to a grand jury. I seem to recall that all of your friends in the Republican Party – including many in the current administration – made long-winded, sanctimonious speeches about respect for the judicial system. None of them were talking about ‘underlying crimes,’ mostly because Clinton lied about a sexual infidelity, which is not a crime.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“The actor who plays me wasn’t thinking of running for President when Clinton was impeached.”
McCoy did one of his patented double takes. Then, he opened his mouth to respond. Then, he closed it and did another double take. A double double take! This was getting serious.
“What’s really going on, here, Arthur?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t pardon a felon on some spurious legal principle that you just made up. Why would the President pardon Lestrada?”
“He was a good friend of the administration, Jack, and his years of loyalty and devotion should be rewarded.”
“You mean the administration is afraid he’ll make a deal to tell the truth about who really authorized the outing of the CIA agent to get time off his jail sentence.”
“Well, loyalty and devotion only take you so far,” Branch mused.
“So, there’s to be one law for friends of the administration,” McCoy angrily asked, “and one for everybody else? That’s not right, Arthur. I’ll fight it.”
“I figured you would, Jack.”
“By now, I would have expected you would know me well enou –”
“You’re fired.”
McCoy considered dipping into his bag of double takes, but he had already gone to that well a couple of times, and he had never attempted a triple double take before. Instead, he increased the indignant anger in his voice. “On what grounds?” he bellowed.
“Poor performance,” Branch responded with equanimity.
“That’s ridiculous! I’ve been here 14 years, and I’ve only lost six cases! My record would be the envy of any real life prosecutor, and you know it!”
“True. But the public doesn’t know that. By the time reality had caught up with the story, they might be outraged for a day or two, but your firing would be a fait accomplish, and the public’s attention would quickly move on to other, more important matters.”
“So, you’re willing to completely politicize the DA’s office?”
“Don’t be naïve, Jack. Politics always came with the job.”
“You were supposed to insulate us from that so we could actually do our job of making the justice system work.”
“Tell you what, Jack,” Branch’s even voice took on just the slightest edge. “I’ll let you keep working in my office, even let you bitch about the injustice of letting Lestrada go – you prosecuted him, people would expect nothing less of you, after all – if you’ll agree to prosecute a case I’m interested in.”
“What case?” McCoy asked shortly.
“Brian Behan”
“The documentary filmmaker?”
“That’s right. Seems he took a couple of folks to Cuba to prove some childish point about the American health care system for his latest film. Trading with Cuba was illegal, last time I checked, so –”
Shaking his head, McCoy stated, “My resignation letter will be on your desk in the morning.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“That’s nothing. I’ll feel sorry if the actor who plays you wins the Presidency.”