Blacklist Scandal

The Blacklist Scandal was a crisis involving the top ranked official of the Triumvirate, Ryan Bleitze, and his Majorate. Involving a list of people with orders to "seek a cause of removal", this highly treasonous scandal gripped the Triumvirate for the next month and played a very sharp role in the way the Triumvirate formed itself for the future.

Original copy of the blacklist:

 File:UNIVERSAL TRIUMVIRATE BLACKLIST OF THOSE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT.pdf
## Discovery and Investigation

On the morning of July the 8th, Carlson Tyler sent an email to Speaker of the Administration Luke Cannon regarding a strange blacklist which he had received. Not being active to tell Speaker Cannon where he had obtained the list, Cannon went forward with telling Lanclot Rice, Edward Stenbach, Theodore Crown, and Jackson Mearl. The quartet of men began working on finding out where the document came from, with the JCC being heavily involved. After researching the document, a day later Jackson Mearl decided to open a thread on the Executive Branch discussion, to ask Major Executive Bleitze of the origin of the document. Panicked, Bleitze closed the thread due to "concerns over the confidentiality of the document." After noticing the thread being closed, Mearl opened a new thread and asked that the Major Executive keep it open, and personally declassified the document to level one classified, meaning it would be view-able to all members of the Triumvirate. Even though the document was level one classified, the Executive Branch decided to keep the list under wraps, as to not create panic on the citizenry and allies. Due to the investigation of the JCC, they concluded that the document was not of foreign origin due to the amount of government officials who were not involved with the Desolaran Civil War. Major Executive Bleitze denied knowing the origin of the document, and claimed that it was created in order to sully his public appearance or be a political move to crush him since the election was beginning to gear up. With a motion to bring in testimony from Administrator Carlson Tyler, 5 votes had been cast in favor when Fenner Plecrov, the Head of Intelligence, appeared and gave testimony to his knowledge of the document. Fenner explained that he was given orders to look over the document and follow the instructions, but he himself did not create it. Going offline after the testimony, the Executive Branch hurried in Carlson Tyler to give answers while members looked to bring Fenner back online. Ronald Afferson, the Chief of Staff to Major Executive Bleitze, gave a statement to the Executive Branch claiming full responsibility for the creation of the document, and asked that they move on considering it had been disposed of. Furious, many members of the Executive Branch asked for the resignation of Bleitze and his Chief of Staff. Tyler, after giving his testimony stating that he had received the document from Afferson (confirming the story of the Chief of Staff), answered a few more questions before leaving. Plecrov had came online in the meantime though, and stated that he was told not to tell who gave him the orders on the threat he would be removed from the Triumvirate. After reassurance by multiple Executives, Fenner stated that Major Executive Bleitze gave him the orders to pursue removal of all people listed on the document, which gave a clear and definite connection to the Major Executive and the Blacklist.

## Impeachment and prosecution

Acting quickly on the information presented, Clark McDearny opened a thread to impeach Bleitze, whom had failed to give a statement to rebuttal what Fenner accused him of. With a surprisingly quick return of votes, within the night the vote become a 8-0-1 in favor of impeachment of the Major Executive. The first time impeachment had ever went to the Administrative Branch, the Speaker didn't have a chance to table the impeachment before Bleitze resigned at midnight in order to dodge becoming the first Major Executive to be impeached. At 12:01 AM, Edward Stenbach was sworn in as the 7th Major Executive of the Universal Triumvirate, ending the reign of the Bleitze Majorate and hustling in a new conservative Majorate under Stenbach. In the next few days, the Executive Branch voted for a replacement Minor Executive, which turned out to be Vulpes Arenas. Stenbach also released a State of the Union to reassure and calm the public masses of the events that had came to pass, and to set in motion his own agenda to end the Trimester. 9 days after the resignation of Bleitze, on July 17th, Edward Stenbach pursued a pardon for Ryan Bleitze in his involvement in the blacklist scandal. Met with staunch opposition by the Union Party, the pardon eventually passed the Executive branch with a vote of 6:4 in favor and was passed by the Administration. With Bleitze fully pardoned, it was time to turn attention to Afferson, who had not been mentioned in discussions of the ordeal after the fact. While many in the Executive Branch felt prosecuting Afferson in place of Bleitze was a good idea, it was decided not to pursue prosecution of the Chief of Staff and to take the morally high road by letting both individuals out with grace. As the events drew to a close in quick succession, the Stenbach Majorate began to take shape, and the short lived Bleitze Majorate came to an end.

## Aftermath

In the aftermath of the 10 day event, the Authority Party fell out of power, losing their Major Executive and Chief of Staff, and began a slump they would not pull out of until early 2015. Major Executive Stenbach became the incumbent Major Executive, and served for the next two months, beating Lanclot Rice in the election, and beating him again in December to continue serving for a total of 8 more months, 10 in total. Afferson, never being pursued for his involvement, eventually became a Supreme Court justice as a part of Major Executive Stenbach's and Speaker Cannon's 2015 Compact. The whole scandal brought the community closer together, and gave the entire Triumvirate a sense of patriotism and heightened nationalism for defending the constitution and the community.

***"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." - John Harington***