Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 241 - 124: An Egg with No Cracks

"He’s playing both sides."

Karen nodded, agreeing with Leo’s analysis.

"And that’s the problem, Leo. We know he’s putting on an act. You know it, I know it, but the voters don’t."

Karen’s fingers tapped on the tabletop.

"To an ordinary steelworker, all they see are clips of Senator Warren shouting himself hoarse to protect their factories. They see photos of Warren slamming his fist on the table at a hearing, fighting for bailout funds for plants on the brink of closure."

"Looking at the legislative paper trail, Warren looks like the last guardian of Pennsylvania’s industry. He’s packaged himself as a tragic hero who went down fighting."

"If we jump out now and accuse him of selling out the workers, all he has to do is throw these voting records in our faces. Then, we’ll be the ones who look like liars, not him."

"We can’t attack him on policy." Karen made her final judgment. "He’s like a seamless egg. He’s played within the rules and washed himself cleaner than a blank sheet of paper."

The conference room fell silent.

They had their cannons ready, their ammunition prepared, only to find the enemy hiding in a fortress built entirely of morality and law.

Leo flipped through the records.

Russell Warren had handled countless bills in the Senate, yet he hadn’t left a single obvious handle to grab onto.

He was like a ball coated in grease; no matter which angle you tried to grab it from, it would slip away.

This was the terrifying thing about seasoned politicians.

They leave no trace.

Leo tossed the files back on the table, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

’Mr. President,’ Leo asked in his mind, ’have you ever met someone like this? Someone who has perfected hypocrisy to such an extreme that they can even deceive the historical record?’

"Someone like this?"

Roosevelt let out a scornful huff.

"Washington is crawling with people like this. They’re a specialty of Capitol Hill, the ultimate masters of survival who have evolved under this system."

"They know how to appear tough when they have to compromise, and how to appear merciful when they have to be cruel."

"They use voting records to build monuments to themselves and amendments to whitewash their actions."

Roosevelt looked at Leo.

"Leo, you’re making a mistake."

"You and your team, you’ve all been fooled by these papers."

"You’re looking for the truth in these documents, like searching for water in a desert. You think that if you just comb through every voting record, you’ll find evidence of him selling out interests."

"Too naive."

"The real deals are never written into the minutes of Congress. The real betrayals don’t happen in front of a ballot box under the glare of flashbulbs."

"Stop looking at the papers, Leo. The papers are full of lies."

"Go look at the people."

Leo asked in his mind, ’People? What people?’

"The people who surround him."

"A senator doesn’t fight alone. He’s the core of a vast ecosystem."

"His chief of staff, his policy advisors, his legislative aides, his campaign manager."

"And the Lobbying Groups that flock around him, the old friends who are constantly seen in his office."

"Go investigate these people."

Roosevelt’s voice became clearer.

"Go find out where his former chief of staff is working now. Are they on the board of some energy giant?"

"Where did his legislative aide go after leaving his office? Did they go to a top lobbying firm on K Street?"

"Those friends who are always hosting fundraising dinners for him, what kind of Federation contracts have they landed?"

"This is Washington’s famous revolving door."

"It doesn’t matter if Warren votes ’no’ in the Senate. As long as his former chief of staff is sitting in the office of the beneficiary company counting money, that’s enough."

"The transfer of benefits is never a straight line. It’s a web. It’s hidden. It’s accomplished through countless exchanges of favors and positions."

"He can wash his own hands clean, but he can’t wash the hands of everyone around him."

"Because greed has inertia."

"The people who follow him are in it for money and power. Warren has to feed them. He has to leave a channel open for them to get their piece of the pie."

"Those channels... those are his cracks."

Roosevelt’s words cut through the fog in front of Leo.

He snapped his eyes open.

In the conference room, Karen and Ethan were still staring worriedly at the pile of documents, trying to find even the smallest logical loophole.

"Stop looking."

Leo spoke up.

Karen looked up. "What?"

"I said, stop looking at the voting records." Leo stood up, pushed the thick stack of files on the table aside, and cleared a space on the tabletop.

"That’s all stuff he *wants* us to see."

Leo picked up a marker and wrote "Russell Warren" on the whiteboard.

Then, he drew several empty circles around the name.

"We need to change our approach."

Leo looked at his team.

"We’re going to investigate people."

"Karen, I need you to use all your connections in Washington."

"We need a list of all of Warren’s former chiefs of staff, legislative directors, and senior policy advisors."

"We need to know where they are now, who they work for, and what their annual salary is."

"Ethan, you look into Warren’s family. His wife, his kids, his siblings. We need to know the financial flows of any foundations, consulting firms, or even charities under their names."

"Sarah, have your people keep an eye on the PR departments of the local major energy companies. See if any familiar names pop up on their executive lists."

Leo’s gaze turned cold.

"He’s packaged himself as a saint, completely Teflon."

"But he still has to eat, and so do the people around him."

"Since he’s legally seamless, we’ll investigate his dinner table."

"I refuse to believe that every single person around him is as clean as he is."

"We just need to catch one."

Leo drew a heavy arrow on the whiteboard, pointing to Warren’s name.

"Just one piece of evidence that he used his influence to enrich a crony."

"And that golden statue of the ’guardian of the workers’ will crumble."

As Karen listened to Leo’s plan, her eyes gradually lit up.

’This is the real Washington playbook.’

No longer getting bogged down in the rights and wrongs of policy, but directly attacking the chain of benefit transfers.

"I get it." Karen closed her laptop. "Investigating cronyism happens to be my specialty."

"Give me two days."

Karen stood up and picked up her briefcase.

"I’ll turn his entire social circle upside down."

"If his dog so much as stole a bone from the neighbor, I’ll find out about it."

Leo nodded.

"Go."

"Find that crack."

"And then, we’ll stuff it with dynamite."

Outside, the rain had stopped.

Russell Warren thought he had hidden himself well.

But under the sun of power, if you have a body, you will cast a shadow.

And Leo was now going to step on that shadow.