Executive orders - Tom Clancy [133]
Excuse me, Mr. Vice President, but that really doesn't answer my question.
Barry, Ryan was never Vice President, because I never resigned. The post was never vacant, and the Constitution allows only one Vice President. He never even took the oath associated with the office.
But-
You think I want to do this? I don't have a choice. How can we rebuild the Congress and the executive branch with amateurs? Last night Mr. Ryan told the governors of the states to send him people with no experience in government. How can laws be drafted by people who don't know how?
Barry, I've never committed public suicide before. It's like being one of the people, one of the senators at the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson. I'm looking down into my open political grave, but I have to place the country first. I have to. The camera zoomed in on his face, and the anguish there was manifest. One could almost see tears in his eyes as his voice proclaimed his selfless patriotism.
He always was good on TV, van Damm noted.
I do have trouble believing all this, Ryan said after a moment.
Believe it, Arnie told him. Mr. Martin? We could use some legal guidance.
First of all, get someone over to State and check the Secretary's office out.
FBI? van Damm asked.
Yes. Martin nodded. You won't find anything, but that's how it has to start. Next, check phone logs and notes. Next, we start interviewing people. That's going to be a problem. Secretary Hanson's dead, along with his wife, and President and Mrs. Durling, of course. Those are the people most likely to have knowledge on the facts of the issue. I would expect that we will develop very little hard evidence, and not very much useful circumstantial evidence.
Roger told me that- Martin cut him off.
Hearsay. You're telling me that someone said to you what he was told by somebody else-not much use in any court of law.
Go on, Arnie said.
Sir, there really is no constitutional or statutory law on this question.
And there's no Supreme Court to rule on the issue, Ryan pointed out. To that pregnant pause, he added: What if he's telling the truth?
Mr. President, whether or not he's telling the truth is really beside the point, Martin replied. Unless we can prove that he's lying, which is unlikely, then he has a case of sorts. By the way, on the issue of the Supreme Court, assuming that you get a new Senate and make your nominations, all of the new Justices would ordinarily have to recuse themselves because you selected them. That probably leaves no legal solution possible.
But if there's no law on this issue? the President-was he?-asked.
Exactly. This is a beauty, Martin said quietly, trying to think. Okay, a President or Vice President stops holding office when he or she resigns. Resignation happens when the office holder conveys the instrument of resignation-a letter suffices-to the proper official. But the man who accepted the instrument is dead, and we will doubtless find that the instrument is missing. Secretary Hanson probably called the President to inform him of the resignation-
He did, van Damm confirmed.
But President Durling is also dead. His testimony would have had evidentiary value, but that isn't going to happen, either. That puts us back to square one. Martin didn't like what he was doing, and he was having enough trouble trying to talk and think about the law at the same time. This was like a chessboard with no squares, just the pieces arrayed at random.
But-
The phone logs will show there was a call, fine. Secretary Hanson might have said that the letter was poorly worded and would be fixed the following day. This is politics, not law. So long as Durling was President, Kealty had to leave, because-
Of the sexual harassment investigation. Arnie was getting it now.
You got it. His TV statement even covered that, and he did a nice job of neutralizing the issue, didn't he?
We're back to where we started, Ryan observed.
Yes, Mr. President. That elicited a wry smile.
Nice to know