Shadow Empire

Chapter 1110 If there are no flaws, then create some flaws.

In life, we will always face one or more such opportunities to make choices that we are not really willing to make.

Perhaps thinking about how he could one day avenge his wife and children, the bearded chief's mood improved slightly. "I know the Perez family has a warehouse in the suburbs."

"Go on."

The bearded bureau chief lit another cigarette; for him now, cigarettes were the only thing that could comfort him.

He took a deep breath, the thick smoke filling his lungs and permeating every lung cell, giving him a sense of security that felt full within him.

With each exhale, the smoke vanished in an instant, leaving him with a sense of emptiness that made him eagerly anticipate the next puff.

"The Perez family's main business consists of two parts: alcohol and their maple leaf grass. I believe you are quite familiar with their business."

"You burned down their farm before."

The burning of the farm and the roasting of the Perez family's direct descendants had a tremendous impact on the entire federal underworld. It can be said that this was a super storm released by the Lance Loves Group!
Although every year, some small gangs ignore the demands of the five major families of the Federation, and may even confront them.

However, these confrontations are always very weak, and they always end with these small gangs compromising or even being wiped out.

There may be occasional disturbances, but these disturbances can be suppressed.

The storm caused by the Lance family was different; important farms and crops were burned, and important family members were said to have been tied up and roasted.

Everyone was stunned. They were all waiting for the obvious ending of this story, but instead, they were presented with a science fiction story.

Although the science fiction story was upgraded to "2.0" and "3.0" in the following years, "1.0" was still more shocking in terms of influence!
So it's not surprising that the bearded bureau chief had heard of this.

Lance hummed in agreement. "So you think I should destroy this warehouse?"

"How much pain would destroying this warehouse bring them?"

The bearded bureau chief chuckled dryly, his voice filled with hatred, "It will make them feel a lot of pain!"

After considering for a moment, Lance said, "Give me the address and the situation there, and I'll think about it and see how to proceed."

They then ended the call, and Lance, holding the address, called Hyram and asked him to investigate.

Now, Lance's main focus is on the Liberal Party candidates that his subordinates have investigated.

The results of the Liberal Party's primary candidate election will be announced in August, and there's not much time left. Fortunately, the results of their investigation have already been presented to Lance.

There are seven documents in total.

"They have so many nominated candidates?" Lance looked at the documents and curled his lip. Clearly, they all wanted to take advantage of the situation.

Without waiting for anyone else to answer, he selected the file of Senator Cleveland and the guy he mentioned who had a high probability of winning within the Liberal Party, and began to look through it.

This guy named Edwin Porter is a very typical Liberal, and to put it more bluntly, one of his ancestors appeared in that painting.

This destined him to possess from birth something that most people could never have in their entire lives—"the foundation for realizing free will."

When the Liberal Social Party split, he chose to remain within the party, having previously served as Speaker of the State Legislative Assembly and Governor, but never as a Senator.

Because of his past experience as governor, his "historical record" in quid pro quo surpasses that of the other nominees.

Capitalists and politicians value his "ability to generate returns" and "honesty," and his past as governor has given him a wide network of connections, giving him plenty of leverage.

Looking at the document, which wasn't very detailed and contained some typos, Lance glanced up at the gentlemen in the room. "This is why I said you need to study it. I've already seen several spelling errors, and this is only the first page."

Allen sat on the sofa, smoking a cigarette and laughing as he said, "Actually, we could hire some college students; it's much simpler than becoming college students ourselves."

Lance didn't refute his point of view; in fact, he seemed to agree with it somewhat. "But you need to get this college student to be loyal to you and to our organization."

He skipped the topic and continued looking at the document in his hand. Porter had many problems, but to say how fatal they were, or how many could cause fatal damage to his political life, was hard to find.

They even found records of his past as a call boy, and even found the prostitutes who had served Potter, but what good was that?
They had no more direct evidence. Throughout the entire transaction, they were put into a car where they couldn't see outside, and then taken to a building.

After they finished serving Porter, they were taken away like this. Throughout the entire process, they could only contact Porter during the service. Porter was not involved in other matters, such as how to pay commissions or who would handle things with them.

These issues cannot defeat Porter because there is no actual evidence. Even if the Supreme Court judges side with Senator Cleveland, these allegations can only be used as a reference, not as facts to be judged.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s anything too wrong.” Lance quickly finished reading the file and then casually tossed it on the table. “No one in his family has ever had an abortion. From what you’ve found out, it’s too clean.”

"But this very cleanliness also means that there is something deeper that we haven't been able to uncover. However, I believe that even if we try our best to dig, it will be very difficult to find it."

"He must have hidden it very well."

Lance put down Porter's file and then looked at the files of the other nominated candidates. The quality of these files was actually about the same, but two of them were slightly worse.

After reviewing all the files, he collected them, gave everyone a break, and then took them to Senator Cleveland's office.

Senator Cleveland has indeed been less busy lately, but he has had more social engagements because the upcoming election will bring a major reshuffle of congressional seats. He cannot guarantee that they will still hold important positions and retain the "veto power" after the reshuffle.

Everyone is socializing frantically, hoping to glean even the slightest insight into the "future" from each other.

Some people were gathering intelligence from each other, some were building relationships, and others were making frantic deals in the final moments of their power!

The entire political arena was filled with a strange atmosphere, somewhat brutal and not so artistic.

When Lance met Senator Cleveland, he still smelled of alcohol. It was just past lunchtime, and in the Union, alcohol is not typically consumed at lunch; it is reserved for dinner.

Because dinner is a very important and formal choice in the social system of the Commonwealth, unlike breakfast and lunch, which are just perfunctory, it has a stronger sense of ritual.

The fact that alcohol is allowed at lunchtime indicates that this is a politically charged lunch, with a little alcohol used to warm up the atmosphere and enhance rapport among the guests.

The senator scratched the hair behind his ear and ripped his tie as he lay back on the sofa, looking somewhat disheveled.

“This is what my people found out. You should take a look,” Lance said, sitting opposite him and handing him the file folder.

Senator Cleveland glanced at him and then asked his butler to bring him a hot towel. After applying the hot towel to his face for a while, he seemed to feel more refreshed.

"Let me see," he said, opening the file folder and taking out some items, specifically picking out Potter's file to look at.

As he watched, he said, "Porter is doing very well within the Liberal Party right now. He may have already reached some agreements with certain people. If there are no surprises, he will most likely win and be officially nominated as the Liberal Party's presidential candidate."

"So... I'll take a look first."

He reads documents very quickly, which is probably related to his job; he's become accustomed to quickly browsing through documents and finding everything he needs.

He finished reading the file in just ten minutes and tossed it back onto the coffee table. “It’s pretty much the same information I got from other sources. He doesn’t have any major health problems, and even if he does have some minor ones, they won’t be enough to pull him out of this mess.”

"Actually, I had thought of this a long time ago, but I was still naively hoping that they might have overlooked something."

He lit a cigarette, saying that smoking after drinking alcohol brings a more wonderful experience. "In order for him to win the election, his team and supporters will definitely help him clean up all the stains in his past life. It seems that it is not feasible to control his term of office in this way."

Senator Cleveland took two more puffs of his cigarette, during which time he glanced at Lance twice.

"I have already investigated the matter concerning you."

"The person behind Roland (FBI Director) is Porter, and a few people on Porter's side."

“I’ve heard that they are very confident of winning this election, so they are looking for another chance to win. Degangsterism is one of their core campaign slogans, and you will soon see this in their campaign speeches and propaganda.”

"This is the campaign content that Porter's team crafted for him: lower taxes for ordinary people, increase their disposable income, de-gangsterize, create jobs, and implement other reforms."

“We…some friends were chatting and talking about how there might be bigger, more ambitious plans within the Liberal Party that they are trying to use this victory and re-election to ensure that the president’s successor comes from the Liberal Party again.”

"This would give them at least twelve years, and possibly as many as sixteen years, to rule, and use that long period of time to turn the tide against them."

He was referring to some of the conflicts and contradictions between the Liberal Party and the Socialist Party. After all, they were once one entity, but later split into two political groups, with the Socialist Party maximizing its influence by firmly controlling the ruling power.

Now, they want to do the same thing the Socialist Party did before, so they have drawn up a long-term governing platform to gain more voter support.

In subsequent political choices, public opinion will shift in a direction that favors them.

Lance had a general idea of ​​what was going on. In the end, gangs were just a bargaining chip placed on the table by top politicians, a gambling table for the lower classes. Their chips were policies, while the chips of the lower classes were themselves, that is, public opinion.

These offers are clearly very attractive, and Lance himself agrees, believing that societal development will eventually make de-gangsterization a norm.

Cognition and acceptance are two different things. It's like he knows it will be like this, but if the stick falls on him, he will still resist.

“Would things be better if we got rid of Porter?” Lance asked.

Senator Cleveland's eyes subtly shifted; he felt he had concealed it well. "Yes, some policies spearheaded by him might not have garnered the same level of attention. You know, doing something and going all out to do something are completely different in terms of the beginning, the process, and the result."

“If it were someone else, they might also support de-gangsterization, but they are more concerned about reforms in the economic field.”

"I can't say it will absolutely not happen, or it will definitely happen. This is a series of platforms proposed by the Liberal Party Committee. Even if the weight of a certain point is reduced, it is still within the platform."

After listening to him for a moment, Lance replied, "So even if it's not Porter, it won't really change the overall political direction?"

Senator Cleveland did not deny the claim, saying, "Unless, four years from now, we manage to pull the president off that carriage and then climb back up ourselves!"

Lance rubbed the ruby ​​ring on his finger. "I have two ideas that might give you some inspiration."

Senator Cleveland nodded. "Go ahead,"

"First, take him down."

Senator Cleveland stared at Lance with a "you're fucking kidding me" look on his face, his mouth agape. But slowly, his gaping mouth closed, and his expression changed from shock and disbelief to a furrowed brow as he pondered.

“It’s always easier to deal with troublemakers physically than to solve the trouble,” Lance added.

"Since they have a 'perfect' candidate, then we'll smash that perfect candidate. Now they don't have that much time to pick and craft a new perfect candidate."

Senator Cleveland raised his hand, as if considering whether it was really necessary to do so.

But Lance knew this was just an illusion, because just now, the senator had been using language and suggestion to lead him to make this choice.

Lance has only said what he wanted to say himself. Notice his seemingly struggling and conflicted thoughts?
Everyone is just acting. Even though there's no director, we can't just ignore the script and do whatever we want.

Senators in Cleveland were indeed thinking the same way. When they elected Porter, they wanted him to be in office without any flaws, or at least not to be dragged down from his position because of his own problems.

There's a saying that's very true: once a person's social status and class reach a certain level, secular laws will no longer apply to them.

Neither murder, corruption, nor even more heinous crimes can serve as grounds or excuses for his trial.

The only thing that can judge him is factional strife and political infighting!

Only when more people, who are at the same level as him, reach a consensus, will they bring "divine punishment" upon him!
The Liberal Party will definitely protect him to the death, so there's no question of divine retribution. Therefore, eliminating him before he takes that step and replacing him with a less reliable candidate might be more helpful for their later plans.

But now, he wanted to hear what Lance's second plan was.

"anything else?"

"The second option is that he has no problems, but we create problems for him."

"What if his family members committed crimes, but he protected them?"

Senator Cleveland considered for a moment and said cautiously, "It depends on what crimes his family members have committed."

"For example... murder?"

“His son killed a prostitute while drunk, and as a father, Potter didn’t want anything to happen to his son, so he used his power and influence to cover it up.”

"Or perhaps his wife used his influence to commit fraud, and he used his influence to cover it up after it came to light."

"Or... he has connections with foreigners, and a huge international scandal has been exposed?"

Upon hearing Lance's points, Senator Cleveland gasped. "You can do all of that?"

Lance smiled, offering neither a yes nor a no answer, but the confident smile on his face suggested he was quite certain he could do it.

Senator Cleveland was getting restless. "If you can do these things... then he's the best candidate!"

"But you have to promise you can do it!"

Lance nodded and said, "During the election, in order to maintain stability, he will definitely try to cover up these problems, at least one of them."

"As for the other two, we can do it after he wins the election, and it will be much easier to do it then than now."

Senator Cleveland was so bothered by his words that he changed some of the decisions he had made earlier. He stood up and paced back and forth a few times. "Do as you say, as soon as possible!"

"I'll have the governor put in a good word and give you some more leeway to do this well, understand?"

(End of this chapter)