Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt-Chapter 48 - 39: Public Opinion Bombshell

The next morning, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office issued an official statement.

The statement announced that, at the request of Federation Senator Daniel Sanders and considering the case’s potential threat to the security of federal funds, the State Attorney General’s Office would dispatch an experienced assistant attorney general to form and lead a special task force. The team would travel to Pittsburgh to independently investigate the fire at the City Revitalization Committee’s construction site.

The Mayor of Pittsburgh, Martin Carter Wright, only learned of this news from his press secretary during his routine morning briefing. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

After hearing the news, the color instantly drained from his face.

He felt a wave of panic.

He never expected that Leo Wallace, a good-for-nothing lowlife in his eyes, actually had the power to reach all the way to the state level and bring in a big gun like the State Attorney General.

He immediately ended the meeting, returned to his office, closed the door, and dialed a number on an encrypted phone.

On the other end of the line was a man with a rough-sounding voice.

"Hello?"

"It’s me," Carter Wright said in a hushed voice. "Something’s come up. The state is sending people to investigate. You need to get out of Pittsburgh immediately, as far away as possible! Don’t contact me again for any reason until this blows over!"

He hung up the phone, feeling his back drenched in a cold sweat.

Meanwhile, Leo’s "Workplace Safety Education Week" event was in full swing at the construction site.

With the media broadcasting the entire thing live, the event turned into a show.

The government officials sent by the Mayor to cause trouble had no choice but to put on a show for the cameras, conducting various safety training sessions for the workers and meticulously inspecting the site’s facilities.

In the end, pressed by reporters, they could only reluctantly admit that the construction site’s safety measures were largely up to code.

Leo’s reputation didn’t fall—it rose.

In the eyes of the citizens, he had become a young leader who was brave enough to take responsibility, bold enough to face problems head-on, and capable of turning a bad situation into a good one.

The investigation team from the state demonstrated an extremely high level of professionalism and efficiency.

Completely unhindered by any of Pittsburgh’s local powers, they directly took over all case files and re-examined all the evidence from the scene.

Soon, they found a blurry image of the arson suspect in the surveillance footage of a privately-owned, 24-hour convenience store near the construction site.

The footage showed that an hour before the fire, a man wearing a baseball cap and carrying a gas can had entered the site.

By tracking the unlicensed old van the suspect was driving, the investigation team quickly identified him.

He was a minor hoodlum in Pittsburgh South District with a long criminal record.

The most crucial discovery came from investigating the hoodlum’s call records.

Investigators found that around the time of the arson, he had several long conversations with a specific number.

And the registered owner of that number was none other than the Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office, Martin Carter Wright’s chief of staff—Mark Jennings.

The night before the state prosecutor was scheduled to formally question Jennings, Mayor Carter Wright got a tip-off from a mole he had planted within the State Government.

He knew he had been pushed to the brink.

So he made a swift decision: sacrifice Jennings to save himself.

Early the next morning, he held another emergency press conference.

This time, the expression on his face was even more grief-stricken than the last, and he even choked up several times during his speech.

"My fellow citizens, I stand before you today with a heart full of immense grief and shame."

"According to information I have just received, my own chief of staff, Mr. Mark Jennings, may have—out of dissatisfaction with some of the aggressive methods of Mr. Wallace, the head of our city’s Revitalization Committee—taken some extremely irrational and unacceptable personal actions."

"I am shocked and heartbroken by this! I will not tolerate such a person on my team!"

In front of all the media, he solemnly announced,

"I am immediately relieving Mark Jennings of all his duties in the city government! Furthermore, on behalf of the Pittsburgh City Government, I pledge our full cooperation with the State Attorney General’s Office’s ongoing investigation. No matter who is involved, we will show no leniency!"

Mark Jennings watched the press conference on a live broadcast from his own office.

Only then did he realize that his boss had completely abandoned him.

That afternoon, investigators from the State Attorney’s Office took Jennings into custody.

In the interrogation room, to protect the Mayor and to secure a better plea deal for himself, Jennings took all the blame.

He confessed that he had planned the arson alone, with the sole purpose of undermining Leo Wallace.

The entire case, he claimed, had nothing to do with Mayor Carter Wright.

In the end, the sensational construction site arson case was closed, with the official conclusion being that "the mayor’s senior aide privately planned and hired an arsonist to undermine a political rival."

Although Mayor Carter Wright successfully "cleared his name" and distanced himself from the case,

his political credibility and leadership ability suffered a devastating blow.

Everyone knew what was really going on behind the scenes.

A mayor who can’t even control his own chief of staff—what ability does he have to run this city?