Transcripts For CSPAN QA With Brody Mullins 20170306

Street journal about the fall of a k street renegade. What was it about . About a top lobbyist a big u. S. Company, and how he essentially used his huge lavish lifestyle and spent a ton of money on cars and real estate how fast terrible end. Why did you get on this story . About thisrumors guys lifestyle for a wild area other newspapers or organizations could cover the story before i could. While andwe take a think broad investigative stories take longer. About a year later i started look into his life and into his campaign donation. Some video from 2012. And itrris is his name is 20 seconds. It is critical women on the west coast have an opportunity. We will see the Fourth Annual west coast event of the year. Evan morris. He was born in long island new york in queens, went to Union College, was a Political Science major. U. S. Ands of people in the came to washington, where he did some internships. Entered in 1996. It was a prime job. I think he was an all that she was in late all he was in awe. He prevented some of them in the white house. After graduating college he went , where a lot at gw of political wannabes go. Close to the center of power, political power. He landed his first lobbying job. Very democratic, very connected top democratic members of congress. From there he moved over and got a top lobbying job with a swiss drug company. Too long he was head of the office. Making lots of money, he had a huge budget, lots of perks. And he had connections. With two names in the story, how do they relate to . A swiss global pharmaceutical company. Investment in 2009, roesch and renamed it essentially they are the same company in the u. S. Back then. What got your attention on this in the first place . I heard rumors among lobbyists downtown about this who haderful lobbyist been seeming to live a lavish lifestyle. His time as a lobbyist, he belonged to eat golf courses, costs 100,000 to join. Francisco. San he was all over the place. Kept a separate set of golf clubs at each course. It isnt unusual for a , butngton lobbyist to have the amount of money he seemed to be spending was extraordinary. You said you heard about it over a year ago. I heard the story about a year ago and waited to what reporting was sure if there was a story. If a big washington lobbyist spending a lot of money, that stuff happens all the time, we had to figure out what made this different or a story for wall street journal. Brian kickback scheme, is that a fair way of characterizing this . Brody yes, that is when we started to think we had a story. He went from a guy who could have been making a sevenfigure salary from his company, couldve had a lot of stock options, couldve come from family money, spending money lavishly to once we heard there were potential kickbacks, then it seemed as if we might be onto a real story. Brian your story was the full page, which is not that usual for wall street journal. Brody not anymore. Brian this is one of the biggest u. S. Investigations since jack abramoff. Brody what they are trying to figure out who was involved in kicking money back to this lobbyist. In the course of 10 years as a top lobbyist, he had 100 individual lobbying firms that employ a total of 600800 individual lobbyists, so that was just on the contracts he had with publicly disclosed lobbyists. Then he had media consultants, ad buyers, campaign consultants, and all sorts of other vendors. What investigators are trying to figure out is who among those could have been steering some of the lobbyist Company Money back to himself . Brian how did he operate as a lobbyist . What kind of things did he do . Brody even at a young age he was an extremely successful and smart lobbyist. He had the ability to play the washington chess game and figure out what were the right moves to make. His first and perhaps biggest success was when a drug to treat the avian flu, which was going to be potentially a problem in the u. S. In 20042006, people had died overseas and people in the u. S. Were getting worried. He was able to start a campaign for promoting some of these stories and fears that americans have about the avian flu. From his point of view as a lobbyist, once voters were concerned, they started talking to members of congress. Then members of congress started getting concerned, and then the bush administration, with the help of congress, created a huge stockpile of vaccinations for the bird flu. The key part of the story is that evan Morriss Company made the single biggest treatment for, tamiflu. So his efforts on avian flu produced 2 million in sales for his company. Brian here is Chuck Schumer at a News Conference talking about tamiflu. We have a shortage of tamiflu. Every expert says that you should cover 2540 of the nation. The president wants to cover 15 at most. That is rolling the dice. [end of video clip] brian this is during george w. Bushs administration. Back to what you said earlier, there were stories coming out of europe about the avian flu and the need for tamiflu. It is hard to accuse senator schumer in this process, but when you see that, what is your reaction . Do you think that is what evan morris generated . Brody what evan morris was trying to do is take the fear of the avian flu that was coming from overseas and stoke them in the u. S. To get members of congress to react. It was a little bit of a perfect storm where a bunch of things had to break in his favor, but he hired media consultants, he did lots of polling, he went out there and he hired consultants around the country who could generate new stories, not wall street journal or the new york times, but smaller papers that would be easier to get a story into. Then somebody would read it and call their Congress Member about seeing the story. That would motivate the member of congress to try to act on their behalf. Brian what happened to the sale of tamiflu . Brody in the u. S. It shot through the roof. They had it couple different federal purchases of tamiflu. The first one was a little short of 1 billion. The federal government also decided it was wise to not just have a stockpile in washington, but they needed one in california as well. So they started a federal state joint program where the federal government would kick in more money to help states stockpile. Every state now has a separate stockpile of tamiflu. On top of that, tamiflu expires. Every few years you need to buy some tamiflu to keep up your stockpile. If there ever is an outbreak of avian flu or another flu strain, they do have the stockpile. It just turns out we never had the epidemic. Brian you tell me if this is right, i got on the roche website and i think i saw that they do 50 million of business a year. Is that right . 50 billion. Brody thats right. Sometimes they post their earnings in swiss francs, so the translation can get lost. They have hiv drugs, they have a very popular and successful Cancer Treatment drug. They have everything across the board. Brian heres some video from 2014. The reason for this is that Hillary Clinton is speaking at the biotechnology Innovation Convention in san diego. It is not long, but why was she there . How did evan morris plan this . Brody one of the things we have in the story is that because of his connection with the clintons, because of his white house internship, he was very interested in helping bill and Hillary Clinton in their political careers. He sought to raise money for the Clinton Foundation, he sought to raise money for Hillary Clintons president ial campaigns and her Previous Senate campaign. He was a big fan and wanted to be in their orbit. One thing he was able to do is in the brief time between Hillary Clinton leaving the state department and running for president , she accepted paid speeches which obviously were all over the most recent president ial campaign. One of the speeches that she accepted was for bio which is the trade association which represents genentech among others. Brian how much was she paid to go there . Brody it was 335,000 for a short speech. [begin video clip] sec. Clinton pharmaceutical Companies Moving out of the country is something i do not want to see. Simply because of some kind of taxes [applause] [end video clip] brian who would have been in the audience . Brody i believe there were thousands of employees at the pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology industry. Bio represents a growing number of Biotechnology Company that produced drugs. All across the board again. They are talking to some washington people, sales representatives, doctors, people up and down the supply chain. Brian who would have paid that money to have her there . Brody the fee was paid directly by bio, and they collect fees from its members, including genentech. The story is that evan morris as the top lobbyist for genentech was writing an annual check to bio just to be a member. Then some of that money would go to the annual convention, but would also go to hiring keynote speakers. Brian im looking at the digital version of your story which was different from the version i first read in wall street journal, the actual newspaper. Why is there a difference . Brody there is a difference in the online story and the story in the paper. The online story is not restricted by the amount of space we have in the newsprint. The more advertisers you have, the bigger the paper, the more space there is for stories. The internet has no such space constraints. Increasingly, stories that deserve more space than they are getting in the paper can run longer online. In our case, the story online was 4000 words and came out the day before the paper version. Which is also an interesting change. The paper version was around 3000 words. Brian so if somebody wants to look at the story, they can find it on february 13 instead of february 14 . Brody correct. If you just type in Brody Mullins or k street renegade it will come up. Brian how long have you been at the wall street journal . Brody 12 years. I write about businesses and lobbyiss and how they get their money. I try to follow how Companies Use money and lobbyists to change regulations to help their companies or hurt their competitors in many places. How companies and lobbyists spend money in elections to elect the people they want in power. Try and lift the curtain of the largely unseen world on how Companies Get their way. Brian let me read some of this back to you. Evan morris and his wife, a former schoolteacher, made more than 125,000 in personal Campaign Contributions from 2003 to 2015, the records show. The couple donated to nearly 50 lawmakers, almost all democrats. Mrs. Clinton was a top mr. Morris helped the biotech organization the higher mrs. Clinton to address the convention in 2014, and we talked about 335,000 she was paid. He arranged donations to the Clinton Foundation of between 110,000 and 275,000. Ofn you found that, first all, how did you find that stuff . All of that information is publicly available. The donations to the Clinton Foundation are made public on a voluntary basis by the Clinton Foundation. The speech money Hillary Clinton made was made public voluntarily by the clintons. The federal Election Commission and maintains records for Campaign Donations to federal candidates, and i think we had figures that evan moore spent on lobbying. And maintains records for Campaign Donations to federala lot of that is discd through the house and senate. Brian he organized for a democratic lawmaker at a golf club in new jersey. He invited donors to meet and take photos with mr. Clinton who just finished a round of golf. That was not public. That was something i bumped into in my own reporting. The point of that scene is to show not only did he say he knew the clintons, but he knew bill clinton well enough to be able to flag him down, to get the people he was golfing with and arrange for a quick photo op. How old would he have been roughly . Around 32. Ts say he ran the lobbying office. How many people were working for him . Timects at the end of his in 2015, he had well over 100 lobbyists working for him both within the company and contract lobbyists, people who work for their own lobbying firms. How much was his yearly budget . Budget was about 50 million in 2015. Brian so genentech wouldnt tell you that . Brody i spent many months talking to people who used to work with evan morris or continued to work with him. A lot of people give us different parts of the story that we had to piece together. Brian did you ever talk to evan morris . Brody no. Brian he lived in this area through the process. Where did he live . Brody he lived in a 1. 7 million house. People of his stature who have a job like that it is probably runofthemill. He put in 1 million into home renovations. He had multiple porches. He had a huge wine cellar. He had multiple porsches. Brian you said he bought a 2000 bottle of wine at some dinner . Brody yes, his favorite bottle of wine was at its cheapest 2000. Bottle of wine at some dinner . Brody yes, his favorite bottle of wine was at its cheapest 2000. That was one of his favorite wines. He was a wine connoisseur and collector. He had thousands of bottles of wine in his house. One of the anecdotes we have in the story is that one day he went to lunch with a fellow lobbyist and ordered a 2000 bottle of wine. When they finished that, the restaurant delivered another equal value bottle of wine for free. Brian when you started to do this article and you talked to genentech, what did they tell you they knew and did not know . Brody i want to stay away from the sausagemaking process on how the story was reported. We had conversations with genentech and they provided statements to us that we included in the story. Brian but they worried about this story . Brody yes, they were worried like any company would be worried about one of their employees. The guy was a Senior Vice President , not some noname lowlevel employee. The Vice President of their own company, who for years had been embezzling millions of dollars from the company and the company was more worried about their brands and their reputation even more than the money that was stolen. Brian if you go to a point where you take the tamiflu story, how much of what he generated and you say 1 billion in revenue, how much of his technique actually did that . Brody great question. It is very hard to figure out. One of the reasons it is hard to figure out is that the lobbyist evan morris liked to tell tall tales and in villages role in certain actions. For example, he would tell anyone how close he was with the clintons. He said he had Hillary Clintons cell phone number. I doubt that some of that is true. I think it is unfortunate, but like any good lobbyist in washington, when something goes your way, you take credit for it. He made a lot of the moves to help roche win the tamiflu business. I think some of it could have come from outside of his doing. Brian i want to go to the clip we saw earlier from evan morris back in 2012 at the woman of the year of event. What would his role have been in the Health Care Business Womens Association and the women of the year . Did genentech give money to this kind of thing . Brody it is hard to tell. But he would like to do using genentech money is hand out lots of money to charities and charitable foundations. The Leukemia Society or this organization. Part of that is what any big company does, particularly in a pharmaceutical or health care state. If you want to create allies and help get the support and research that they are doing. It all seems like sometimes he had an all tier your motive in giving money, and in the case of the california group, i cannot figure it out. He liked to be a player. He liked to throw a lot of money around. He liked to be interviewed on television. Brian lets go and see what he looks like and what he sounds like. [begin video clip] we are very happy at genentech that this is our fourth year hosting the event. We think it is critical that went in on the west coast get to attend. You know, not everyone has an opportunity to travel. We are proud to host the Fourth Annual west coast event for woman of the year. [end video clip] brian in your experience, how many people like him in a city Like Washington i dont mean they are breaking the law or anything or embezzling, but how many had this kind of money available to them to spend on charitable events and dinners and stuff like that . Brody certainly hundreds of them, maybe thousands. I would not think it is more than 10,000. But, you know, one of the things that has happened to washington in the past couple decades as the government has gotten so powerful and plays such an increasing role in the industry is that Companies Large and small need to come to washington to influence policy even if they are not actively pushing policy, Companies Need to know what washington is doing because it has a great impact on Business Decisions you will need to make in the corporate boardroom. Brian how much of the federal government has gotten involved in the story . Brody so far it is mainly the Health Care Regulatory agencies, fda which approves a bunch of drugs in the roche and genentech market, as well as rescinded approval for a drug. The health and Human Services department, in charge of tamiflu stockpile. Brian has there been a grand jury . Brody there is a grand jury looking into this. Brian still meeting . Brody yes. Brian how long has it been meeting . Brody it is still ongoing. Brian is the fbi involved . Brody yes. Brian is the Justice Department involved . Brody yes. Brian you said he exploded gaps in disclosure laws. Exploited gaps in disclosure laws. Brody this is interesting. It only happened because of the way lobbying in washington has changed. The lobbying laws require individuals who lobby to fill out quarterly forms that are made public saying, heres how much i spent on lobbying, here is my name, here is the issue that i worked on, these are the companies i represent worried it really only captures direct conversations. A lot of lobbying these days happens outside of washington. Again, back to the case of tamiflu, i am not sure if roche was beating down the doors of congress directly. They were going out to state regular constituents and voters in giving them away or and concerned about the potential problems of an avian flu epidemic. That indirectly influenced members of congress. Brian in your story, youre saying in 2004 roche had money 27 billion worth of business to treat hiv, anxiety, Breast Cancer, and avian flu. Evan morris was hired in 2005. He was six years out of college. Where did he get his College Degree . Brody Union College in new york. Brian go back to the story of avastin. Brody avastin was a very popular roche drug that treated all forms of cancer. I believe in late 2008 or 2009, the fda approved the use of avastin for Breast Cancer on an accelerated basis. The fda said this drug is potentially so good and so helpful that were going to approve it for use in Breast Cancer before it has gone through adequate testing. Once it is approved, the fda would work with the company to gather the data to get full approval. Brian it was used for colon cancer. Brody yes, all kinds of cancer. But this was particularly for Breast Cancer. What we are talking about only deals with the Breast Cancer application. Brian and this costs about 100,000 a year . Brody about 90,000 per treatment. Some people say it was incredibly effective and worth it. The fda continued to gather data and determined that it was not as effective as originally thought, and thought it could have severe side effects. So the fda went about rescinding its previous approval for it. At that point, the fda needed to go through a bureaucratic process of rescinding its approval. What evan morris and his lobbying team did was everything they could to slow that process down by going out and finding women who were using avastin for Breast Cancer and try to bring them to capitol hill to get members of congress on their side and weigh in with the fda. Brian in your article, you say that he launched the patient Care Action Network. Weve seen these things all the time. What was the patient Care Action Network . Brody this was one of those. It is sort of a seemingly goodsounding Public Interest nonprofit group. It was set up by evan morris and a few of his lobbying consultants. The idea was to corral doctors and physicians and patients and bring them all to one place to get them to urge the fda to keep the drug on the market for as long as possible. Brian is there any doubt in your mind that this money was being spent to influence politicians in either their involvement or putting legislation in and all that . You hear people talk about it. They give because they believe, or do they give because they think it is going to move mountains . Brody it is probably a combination. You might need one motto to sleep better at night. But anybody spending money in washington is spending money to affect public policy. Most of the time it is because of the bottom line. Brian you say that senator david fitter, who is no longer here, from louisiana, republican, came to the defense of avastin. Do you have any idea what the circumstances were . Brody he was in the process of running for governor of louisiana. He always wanted to be governor and at the time he was a senator. He had, like many other republican lawmakers, follow the conservative media and conservative blogs. Evan morris, through his consultants, was able to get stories out there that were read by the senators constituents who gave him a call and said, we what is going on with avastin . It is a drug that we need to use because it is helpful with Breast Cancer. At the same time, 2009, obama had been moving the Affordable Care act. Republicans were pushing against it by saying that drugs could be rationed, these socalled death panels. And he sort of seized on those two thoughts. That removing avastin from the market for Breast Cancer was akin to a death panel. It became a very popular talking point. For those who were on the roche side and against the fda. In the end, the process for removing avastin stretched to 1214 months. Evan morris took credit for it. He said that delay i orchestrated. He said he made the Company Another 1 billion in sales by keeping avastin on the market until the last possible moment. Brian and when did the fda rescind the use of avastin for Breast Cancer . Brody i dont have the numbers in front of me. It was november of 2011 i think. Maybe december. Brian what reason did they give . Brody they say the drugs effectiveness cannot be proven and could cause severe side effects. Brian is the fda subject to political influence . Brody the fda says that it is not. The fda is set up to be largely immune from political influence. Drug decisions are supposed to be judged purely on science by a team of scientists and doctors. This is something that could be changing. What happened here is that when evan morris made this Political Network of doctors and patients to talk to members of the congress, it made the fda go by the book. They could not cut corners, they could not slow things down. Could not immediately rescind it, because they had a whole bunch of members of congress who controlled their budget, breathing down their neck. They needed to make sure they did everything right. They dotted the is, they crossed the ts and for evan morris, that meant a delay. Brian did the senator get money from genentech or roche . Brody good question. I do not recall that he did. I do not believe he did. He definitely did not from the morrises, from evan morris. He probably got money from the Political Action committees of genentech. Brian so what is this thing called National Media . Who is the gentleman that runs it . James. Brody he runs a string of Media Consulting firms in washington. His prior job was with a Company Called National Media. National media is mainly a political ad buying company in washington. If you are a republican member of congress and you want to run ads for reelection, you go to National Media and they will buy, create, make the ads for you. They can put the ads on radio or broadcast television or whatever you want. James courtovich worked at National Media. One of his clients there was evan morris. Later, james transitioned out of National Media and started to other firms on his own. He continued to do business with evan morris. Brian what is his relationship with the federal government under this investigation . Brody the federal government has subpoenaed his records. They are examining his role and trying to figure out if he was involved in knowingly kicking money back illegally to evan morris. Brian how did the kickback scheme work from your investigation . Brody it is unclear. What we do know is that one of the things the fbi is looking at is payment that evan morris through genentech made to National Media or some of the companies that james worked for. From 20052015, the companies that employed James Courtovich received tens of millions of dollars worth of contracts from evan morris. During that same time, evan morris received, we believe, millions of dollars in payments from those companies. The lawyers for those Companies Say that they had an arrangement whereby evan morris would go around washington and write personal checks to charitable causes or political causes and then be reimbursed for those expenses by those companies. The Companies Say that the money that went from their Corporate Accounts to the personal account were reimbursement payments. For legitimate business expenses. Brian several things in the middle of all this and it is hard to keep track of. Im going to put up on the screen and you tell us where we messed this up because we did not talk about this. It is just a chart. The chart shows evan morris and genentech, 880,000. That leads to James Courtovich and sphere. That leads to 448,000. Im even confused reading it. The point is that there was a way that evan morris got money through this process. Explain that. Brody there are multiple cases, we do not know how many, in which the companies that employ James Courtovich would write checks to evan morriss personal bank account. About the time that one of the firms would receive a contract from genentech, we have been told that approximately half of the money would end up back in evan morriss personal bank account. The Jim Courtovich company said that would be a form of reimbursement. Brian a couple things. You have an invoice from the American Enterprise institute. 446,800. What was that for . Brody good example. The company says that they wrote a check to reimburse evan morris for a donation or expenses he had with the American Enterprise institute, a wellknown think tank. We acquired a copy of the invoice that we were told evan morris gave to the courtovich company saying that evan morris had given 448,000 to aei. We then said, is this a real invoice . They came back to us and said that invoice had been doctored. Some of the information was correct, but the number of 448,000 was well more than what morris had indeed given. Brian another example was the invoice that said, the cost of renting space as you said in your article, for the democratic attorney general group. How did that work . Brody another interesting case. In 2012, National Media wrote a check to a company that makes highend luxury, custommade boats. They are all mahogany boats, they are beautiful. The company well, National Media said they sent the check to the boat company because evan morris had sent them an invoice for an event he was holding for the democratic attorney generals group. The total cost of the event was around 300,000. Evan morris said it covered water taxes, catering, lunches and renting their showroom, open bar, all sorts of expenses. National media said they got the invoice and wrote the check to the boat company. We called the boat company and the boat company said they had never had an event for the Democratic Attorney Generals Association. Just as importantly, the Democratic Attorney Generals Association said we do not know this guy evan morris and did not have an event at the boat company. This event did not take place. The kicker is that the check to the boat company that evan morris requested through National Media was for 330,000. Evan morris owned a custom motorboat from that company that cost 330,000. Brian let me ask it this way. As you look back on the story, what happened that they caught evan morris in this process . What was the trigger . Brody the trigger was, over time, his expenditures got increasingly lavish. People both inside his office and other colleagues and friends started to have suspicions about where this money was coming from. In may 2015, the company genentech got an anonymous letter from someone, we still do not know who, saying you should look into evan morris and his expenditures. The Company Started that investigation. In not too long, they had more questions about what was going on. Brian heres a conversation we had in 2010. Only seven years ago. Were talking about sources. Lets watch this. [begin video clip] brody almost every tip you get is from somebody who has an agenda. Very few people walk around and say, i have the story you should write. Everybody has an agenda, as long as you know what their agenda is a hand up as long as the facts are right, that is a story you can write about. Reporters need to be very careful about getting tips and not fully checking them out and writing stories that turn out not to be true. Everyone in this town wants something. [end video clip] brian everyone in this town wants something. Brody still true today, probably even more so. Back then we were talking just about lobbying. I think it has morphed into the media also. With the rise of blogs and conservative and liberal media, and even sometimes cable news. There are more ways for Interest Groups to push their agendas. The big win that evan morris had on tamiflu came from almost entirely blogs and media, very and even sometimes cable news. There are more ways for interest little on actually pushing members of congress or the administration. They worked the system from the outside. If you get 51 of americans to think one thing, you will have members of Congress Following them. Brian how many people at the wall street journal worked with you on this story . Brody i worked with a whole series of editors. And then another reporter who works with Law Enforcement for the wall street journal. He was helpful in guiding me through the whole process works. We have a whole team of fantastic editors led by matthew rose, who leads the Investigative Enterprise stories. The editor on this story was fantastic. Brian how many days did you work on this story . Brody i started in September Brian 2015 . Brody 2016. Remember, i waited a year before. I worked on it a couple of months and then trump was elected. That changed everyones priorities and game plans. Like everyone else, i was expecting Hillary Clinton to win and was going to keep moving along with the story. Instead, when trump won, the washington world and certainly washington journalism was turned upside down. I came back in january. Brian you started your story on the front page. In the first or second paragraph you started talking about a golf course here in the Washington Area and a bottle of wine. And a fundraising dinner or event with Terry Mcauliffe, the governor of virginia. A democrat and a close friend of the clintons. Tell the rest of the story. Brody in may 2015, the company genentech received an anonymous letter saying to look into evan morris and his expenditures. They started an investigation unbeknownst to evan morris. In early july 2015, on a monday or tuesday or wednesday, evan morris gets a call from genentechs top lawyer in San Francisco who says, im coming into town tomorrow, clear out your schedule. Morris, who had been pretty clearly stealing money from the company for as long as 10 years, became concerned about this meeting. That night, he happened to have a fundraising event at his home for a state senator in virginia, Terry Mcauliffe was one of the invited guests, and ended up going to the fundraiser. He had some conversations with evan. In one of the conversations, evan morris told Terry Mcauliffe that he wants to hold a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. The president ial campaign had just gotten underway. The next morning, evan morris drove to work. The meeting that he is scheduled with his outside counsel was at a law firm hired by the company. He went to that office. There he was expecting to meet with his companys lawyer but he met with lawyers from this other firm who started questioning some of his expenditures. Some of the big contracts he was giving to various firms, they were concerned, and started asking questions about. The meeting was expected to last all day, or certainly most of the day. After not too long, less than an hour, evan morris excused himself. He left the building, never saw the genentech lawyer who had flown in to see him. Im speculating, but i think that evan morris knew that he is been caught. I imagine his mind was racing, but he did not stay around to see where things were headed. Brian where did he go . Brody he drove out to his favorite golf course, robert trent jones, in virginia. A couple weeks later, that course was expected to host a big pga event, one of the premier golf events of the year. Evan morris had scored a spot in the proam, a couple of days before the actual tournament starts. Sponsors and local celebrities and folks can play in a Charity Tournament with some of the pga players themselves. He was scheduled to play in that, which is a big honor, a onceinalifetime opportunity. He had been practicing a lot at the golf course. That day he plays golf, his wife knew that he was worried about this meeting and was trying to get a hold of him to see how it went. He apparently said that he was in meetings for the rest of the day and did not let her know that the meetings had not gone well. Apparently he finished up his rounds of golf and within and showered and cleaned up. He went to one of the restaurants at the course. Brian to show how you wrote it, you said he showered and put on a blue blazer with the clubs insignia, ordered a steak dinner at the clubhouse, and bought a round of drinks for everyone in the restaurant. Brody right. It seems like he was trying to make a show. He wanted everyone to know that he was important. Somewhere around that same time, his wife got increasingly worried and tried to track him down. She called friends of his. She was able to get people to look for his car in genentechs parking lot downtown and could not find him. He was not returning her calls or messages. One of their mutual friends suggested to go look at his not find him. Debit card or credit card statements. She discovered that he had made a purchase at a gun store in leesburg, virginia. This is a guy from new york who had never touched a gun and did not own any guns. This is the first gun he had ever purchased. So, it was alarming to his wife. Brian you wrote, he asked for a bottle of his favorite wine. By the way, how did you find this out . Brody very difficult reporting. He is the primary source and is not around. There are email messages, text messages, phone calls, people who in the rest of the washington world when this happened were talking to each other. Emailing. So, there were some records out there about what had happened. We also have people who talk. After a year and a half, there were enough people who are willing to talk to me about this days events. Brian you wrote, around sunset, mr. Morris walked to a spot a few hundred yards from the clubhouse where members smoke cigars around a fire pit. He sat in an adirondack chair and drank. He texted his wife the Contact Information for his accountant, financial planner, and Life Insurance planner. He was 38yearsold at the time. Then what happened . Brody then he took out the revolver he had just purchased. He fired a test shot it seems. He took out a sign that said do not resuscitate. And he killed himself. Brian the last lines are around 10 00 p. M. A server from the club found the body. Did you talk to his wife . Brody no. Brian how many children did he have . Brody two young children. Brian did that end the investigation . This happened in 2015 . Brody that accelerated the investigation. The investigators for genentech when they met with him had just sort of discovered the tip of the iceberg. His reaction to them finding the tip of the iceberg indicated that there was an iceberg. Over the next year, genentech continued to acquire and unearth other financial records that painted a broader picture of this embezzlement scheme. At some point, i do not know when, the fbi began looking into it also. And the Justice Department, presumably because well, we know that evan morris is not paying taxes on this money. His company needed to figure out who owns all these purchases. Who owns the boat . Who owns the golf course membership . Who owns the houses and the porsches . The company had its forensic investigation into where the money went. Right now everyone is trying to sort out that issue. Brian Brody Mullins wrote this article in the middle of february. You can find it on the wall street journal website. The fall of a k street renegade. Thank you for telling us the story. Brody thanks for having me. 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