4: Paragraph 27 During the 1990 campaign, Carper's opponents showed me his campaign-contribution reports from that period, and they reflected two equal contributions from Hutton; I don't remember now — the amount I think I recall them being was $20,000, but that may have been the total. They told me that when they asked Carper about them, he said the second one was a clerical error, that Hutton had made only one contribution, and he'd later given it back, but when he paid it back it got added to the report instead of subtracted. That, of course, raises the questions of why he gave it back and why he can't tell the difference between adding and subtracting that much money in his checking account records, but with what we know about House banking now and his three bad checks, it's remotely possible.
4: Paragraph 28 But Carper sent me a letter dated 17 February 1987 in which he referred to Phipps as his "friend and supporter," and I know Ellis identified Phipps to Fomon as the bagman who was controlling Carper for Hutton, so I'm left wondering whether Carper is a fool, who didn't know he was being controlled by Phipps, or a liar, who didn't know I knew it.
4: Paragraph 29 Remembering the definition of "honest politician" as one who, once he's bought, stays bought, Carper seems to be an honest politician, and the facts that he's a Democrat and Hutton is a Republican bastion merely reflect the reality that in Delaware party labels don't count for anything, and the Establishment is the only party that does count.
4: Paragraph 30 By February 1986 I was in the position Tom Lehrer described as that of a Christian Scientist with appendicitis: I couldn't afford to quit Hutton Trust until I found another job, and I couldn't get another job because I'd been working for Hutton Trust; if I stayed I might end up in trouble when the authorities found out what Hutton Trust had been doing, and if I left they would certainly blame the illegalities on me when they got caught — I was, after all, the one who'd been sending memos describing them to our directors and lawyers, so I was the only one on record as knowing what was happening.
4: Paragraph 31 By January Abbes was trying to get me to quit, and he started removing my titles and duties, and under the corporate bylaws he didn't have the authority to do that without a vote of the board of directors. In February I gave Hutton's inside lawyers an ultimatum offering them their choice of three alternatives: One, Hutton could straighten out Hutton Trust and let us start handling the trusts the way we were supposed to, so no one would get into trouble with the authorities. Two, Hutton could pay me $500,000 and give me a release, saying I wasn't responsible for what had been going on there, and I'd resign and stop talking to the press and anybody else except under subpoena; I thought that was enough to support me until I lived down having worked at Hutton Trust and found another job. Three, I'd sue Hutton and get the court to rule I wasn't responsible for the illegalities at Hutton Trust.
4: Paragraph 32 Then at the beginning of March the bank examiners showed up for their annual audit. On Wednesday, 5 March, John Smith, who was the examiner heading the audit and one I knew from earlier audits, told me they'd want to talk to me the next day; about 2:30 the next afternoon, he phoned me to come to our glass-walled conference room, and I went. I'd hardly sat down and given my name and job title when Hitchcock, who was skittering up and down the hall watching what was going on in the conference room, stuck his head in the door and asked me to step out in the hall; he told me I was not allowed to talk to the examiners without him, and he was too busy to be present that day — yeah, too busy not letting anyone talk to the examiners. I asked if I should tell them, and he said he would, so I went down the hall to my office.
4: Paragraph 33 A few minutes later Smith walked into my office, handed me a slip of paper with a Dover phone number, and told me to call the bank commissioner's office and make an appointment, because they had to talk to me, especially in light of what had just happened. As luck would have it, I was scheduled to be in Dover the next day to be sworn into the bar, so I called and made an appointment for the afternoon of Friday, 7 March.
4: Paragraph 34 By then it was after 3:00 o'clock. The examiners packed up and left about 4:00 o'clock, and a few minutes later Hitchcock phoned and asked me to come to Abbes's office; I knew Abbes was going to fire me, and he did, telling me to pack up and be out by the close of business that day.
4: Paragraph 35 When Butler had left Hutton Trust — by which I mean the day he actually left, although he'd been given notice a month or more before — he'd had a falling out with Lockwood, and Lockwood had made a scene, shouting in the hall and ordering Butler off the premises immediately; it had upset everyone, and then we'd held up Butler's last paycheck, and he'd gone to the state labor board and to a lawyer, and it'd been a mess, both legally and from the employee relations standpoint. I'd always teased Abbes that when it came time to fire me, I expected him to handle it better than that, and he did.
4: Paragraph 36 With the help of my secretary and tax clerk, I packed up my stuff, then I went home and telephoned the 'Wall Street Journal' to tell them what had happened. They ran several stories about it over the next weeks, and the local newspaper picked it up, as did the national wire services. Judge Oberdorfer had put Commissioner Malarkey's 1985 audit report in the court record, so it was a public record then, and I gave copies to the reporters who asked for it; they wouldn't have printed my allegations about the mishandling of trusts at Hutton if they hadn't seen the evidence, and that report was the most comprehensive part of the evidence.