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WASHINGTON, DC
IN HER LARGE and well-decorated office in the Longworth House Office Building, Gwen Washington, speaker of the House of Representatives and a congresswoman from the 43rd Congressional District in California, is staring hard at her three visitors this morning, feeling her mouth go dry with fear and anxiety.
With her are Roget Blaine, her lead attorney; Tiana Grace, her chief of staff; and Shania Greer, her press secretary. All smart, good-looking, well dressed, and, like her, tough Black women in a tough world.
Her office has a dramatic view of the Mall and the Washington Monument, then the rectangular shape of the reflecting pool, and at the end of that—hard to see in the day’s haze—the Lincoln Memorial. Nearly two centuries ago the figure in that memorial freed her great-great-grandfather from a Virginia plantation not more than a hundred miles away.
Good job, Abe,she thinks. No matter the setbacks, the challenges, the failures that take place every day, looking at the Lincoln Memorial always sends a jolt up Gwen’s spine, makes her buck up and get to the job at hand, to honor her great-great-grandfather and so many others.
She has a healthy self-confidence and ego, deservedly so, having pulled and dragged herself from the poor streets of Berkeley to studying hard and getting grants and scholarships, and getting into Yale, and then coming back, working her way through California politics.
Yet in keeping her eye on the prize, she’s never forgotten her roots, never forgot her friends and classmates who didn’t have either her luck or drive, and she’s made sure that a fair amount of federal scholarship funds and grants get back to her district.
But it’s the gentle sound of file folders and papers being placed on her desk that frightens her so, papers and file folders that may do what racist politicians, a biased news media, and even members of her party who dislike someone so powerful and “uppity” have wanted to do to her for years.
Force her out of office.
“How bad is it?” she asks.
“Pretty bad,” her lead attorney, Roget Blaine, says.
Gwen shakes her head. “Ten minutes ago, I was on the phone with President Barrett, him supporting keeping Juneteenth a federal holiday, and promising to give a push to that Department of Justice grant program for better police training, so our folks aren’t gunned down in the street. He even said he’d work with us on the economic power zones for the inner cities, so we get more there than liquor stores and bodegas. And now … now, all this progress and working with the president, it’s all threatened, is that what you’re telling me, Roget?”
Her three closest advisers look at her in silence, three Black women carefully made-up and coiffed, wearing power suits and bright jewelry and fine shoes, marking them as part of Gwen Washington’s Posse, the gals that got stuff done up on the Hill. There are plenty of photos of her posse up on the wall, along with other photos as well, of W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Adam Clayton Powell, Rosa Parks, MLK Jr., Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Obama, and so many others who had made her path possible.
And on her desk, in a prominent position, a large portrait of her husband, Hal, dead these past two years, so many hours in the last year of their marriage spent flying red-eye from DC to SF, trying to ease his suffering as pancreatic cancer ate him from the inside.
“Yes, ma’am,” her attorney says. “It can all come tumbling down.”
“Tell me,” she says. “Bad news never ages well.”
And she looks one more time out the window, feeling like she’s on the edge of falling into a deep hole, failing her people from then, and her people now.
So much to do and so little time to do it.
Less than two hours later, after going through reams of documents, including deeds, government grant paperwork, checking account statements, and property listings, Gwen Washington, speaker of the House, feels a migraine headache coming on. When Roget Blaine finishes the briefing, Gwen sits back and takes a heavy drink of water.
Roget says, “Madam Speaker, as your attorney I’m sorry to advise you that what we have here—in scores of documents contained in the thumb drive dropped off anonymously at your Berkeley office—is enough evidence to show that you and your late husband were involved in a yearslong effort to channel government grants and funds to shell companies owned by the two of you, as well as him getting to the head of the line for his bank—Municipal Financial of Berkeley—to get a federal bailout a week before it was going to be seized by the FDIC.”
She taps a thick finger on another folder. “Then there’s a host of other petty complaints. You loudly demanding a room upgrade while visiting Las Vegas. Kickbacks to those office supply stores providing stock to your regional offices. Snapping at tourists getting in your way as you tried to board a member’s elevator on the Hill. Among other things.”
Tiana Grace, her chief of staff, says, “Madam Speaker, we need to get ahead of this story before it gets out.”
A vise seems to be slowly constricting around her heart. “But … none of it’s true! It’s bullshit! I made it clear to him, from day one when I got into politics, that our lives couldn’t mingle. He went his way, I went mine, and there’s no way on God’s green Earth did I do anything illegal.” She gestures to the pile of documents. “It’s a setup. Forgeries. Clever shit indeed but it’s all shit. Russians, Chinese, who knows who’s behind it.”
Her attorney says, “I’m afraid that doesn’t matter at the moment, Madam Speaker. It’ll be the first impressions. The news will get out in the near future, and with Majority Leader Deering snapping at your heels … he will want to drag it out as long as possible, to weaken you, perhaps even get you to resign in disgrace. It’s going to be hard to prove a negative.”
Gwen thinks of the thousands of people she’s helped over the years with scholarships, grants, how she served as a role model to those who thought the world was set against them from the day they were born.
Was she going to allow herself to be used to disappoint them and add to the deep political cynicism that’s for years afflicted DC?
No.
Not this time.
Gwen says, “Not going to happen. And we’re not going to allow this … crap, to get out in the news. I don’t want a whisper of this leaving this office or getting to Congressman Deering.”
Her press secretary, Shania Greer, iPhone in hand, quietly says, “Majority Leader Fritz Deering is going to demand a full investigation.”