The Cromwell Lesson
(Holbein portrait of Thomas Cromwell)
In the end, all those years of loyalty to the mad king’s demands for unquestioned subservience and bloody retribution against his perceived enemies did not matter for Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell lost his head anyway when Henry VIII grew tired of his long-time minister whose advice he no longer trusted. The beheading of Cromwell should be a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks that serving a despotic personality loyally is protection against the rages and rash orders. Read Hilary Mantel’s marvelous Wolf Hall trilogy if you are unfamiliar with the reference. (Yes, there is an excellent video version, too, but gosh darn it, if you want to save your head, READ!)
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for D.C., is no Thomas Cromwell, to be sure, and as of this writing she still has her head, and even her job. I do wonder why she did not quit her job immediately upon admitting that (a) her office bungled the prosecution of an innocent man for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, and (b) her boss, the current president, immediately took to social media to blast her, writing, “I 100% disagree with Jeanine Pirro” in the matter of the Department of Justice dropping the vandalism charges against David Hearn. The current administration always seems to be breaking with traditional ways of communicating, and so it is stunning, but not surprising, for the boss to criticize his subordinate so publicly and vehemently.
From the start, the case was an over-reach, a prosecution that appeared to be an effort to salve the president’s ire over the fact that his much-ballyhooed renovation of the reflecting pool was a bust. Rather than admitting that the renovation was botched, he needed scapegoats, and Judge Jeanine (her identity when she was a television personality) trumped-up the bogus charges while serving up the head of David Hearn, a famous Olympic kayaker who happened to be passing by the reflecting pool one day in full bicycle regalia and he stopped to inspect the pool whose liner was already detached and floating around. Such a juicy arrest and prosecution, a genuine Olympic hero committing vandalism! But…. not. As the Department of Justice motion withdrawing the indictment states, the damage to the reflecting pool was not a result of vandalism, but, instead, “…a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool…”
Many pundits are salivating over the political implications of this case, and legal mavens are examining the entrails of yet one more indictment gone wrong under the dubious leadership of Ms. Pirro. It’s clear this is yet one more case in a long line of cases over the last two years that should never have landed in court. Vindictive prosecutions have no place in the American system of justice.
But the real lesson we students of law, leadership and public service —- and especially all cabinet members and aides to the current regime — need to take from this tawdry episode (among many) is the Cromwell Lesson: if you abandon your moral judgment and, instead, devote your career to taking actions to feed the demands of a boss who seems to have no moral compass, at some point the lies and deception and concessions and sheer vituperative behavior will catch up with you, and, like Cromwell, you will find yourself standing at the gallows wondering how it all went so wrong. Better to quit the first time the boss tells you to do something that is clearly against all reason, all facts and moral reasoning; leave with at least your soul intact, and, one hopes, your body as well. You can always get another job; your head, along with your reputation, is hard to replace.
