Maybe if we brought it down to a smaller scale it'd be easier to understand.

Say if it came out that the mayor of, say, Cleveland, wanted his allies to get elected to the PTA, say. And so he calls his close ally the chief of police and says, "Hey, Jim, I want you to get your detectives to dig up a whole bunch of dirt on these other PTA wannabes".

Jim says "Sure, boss", and lumbers out to make it happen. So Jim goes back to the station and says, "here, I want you guys to cook up a whole bunch of unfounded charges against these damn PTA wannabes, so our guys can run the PTA."

So the detectives all start poking around. They don't find anything for real, so some of them just make up a whole bunch of stuff... Lies, really. It doesnt need to stick, there just has to be an ongoing investigation happening while all the parents and stuff are voting.

Well, good for them. Jim's happy, the mayor's happy, terrific.

But some of the detectives, in fact some of the best detectives go, "Sheesh, man, I can't just use my gig here and this whole office to frame some yokel who just wants to be Treasurer for the PTA. No, I'm not gonna do it, and my record's really good, in fact Time Magazine just called me the best detective in the history of the human race, so, no I'm standing on principle and I'm not gonna frame these guys."

So Jim says, "Well guess what, pal? You're fired!"

Detective: "Why?"

Jim: "Cos youre incompetent, you're just a lousy detective. Don't like you, never did, and you smell, besides."

Detective: "But three months ago, you thought I was awesome!, and Time Magazine just named me The Greatest Detective Ever, Living or Dead! See I got the magazine cover right here on the wall"

Jim: "Well, youre gonna have to find another wall to hang it on, cause youre fired."

So they frame all the PTA wannabes and stack the PTA with their own people who cause all kinds of trouble cos they dont know their ass from a hole in the ground, they dont like kids, they dont like teachers, they have lousy accounting practises, everything gets all screwed up, and then people start asking questions about all those investigations, and whatever happened with them, and the fired detective says.

"Yeah, I got fired cos I didnt want to frame these people."

And people look into it, and sure enough, there's an email trail wide enough for a half-blind rhinosceros to follow, even if he's been drinking raw turpentine, and it leads right to the mayor's right hand man.

So the City Council says, "Uh, Mayor, what's the deal with all this?"

And the Mayor goes, "Well, my boy'll tell you whatever the hell you want, but he cant be punished if he lies, and by the way there can't be a record of anything he says, and if you force it, I'm gonna fuck you right up."

So the City Council goes "Oh Yeah?"

to be continued