Kessler’s office is in a building on Seventeenth Street with a bad elevator. She sat me down, and she read the letter, and then she did the thing that lawyers do where they take their glasses off to tell you something they don’t want you to be able to look away from.

“General, I’ve read the public docket on your case. I want to tell you two things and I want you to hear them in this order.

“One. You were right. About all of it. Your ex-husband committed wire fraud against a deployed officer’s protected account, forged an authorization, and stole classified architecture off a home server.

That is not in dispute and it never has been.”

“And two.”

“Two.” She put the glasses down. “You recused yourself from the Thorne Industries audit because you were married to the CEO. That was correct. That was the system working.