If Joe Gleeman didn't know that Johnson was about to introduce him to a little person, Johnson was sitting in the seat next to Lynch with a look on his face that said he had eaten SHIT.
He was a little disgusted, a little nauseated, a little remorseful, a little grumpy in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on, and full of disgust.
After all, how could a tax commissioner make some important connections for a little person like Lynch, not to mention that he had just given himself a slap in the face that had made the entire tax system less stable from top to bottom.
In particular, Michael had gotten wind of it last night at the state office, and the idea from the top was to dump Michael in light of the current public pressure.
The head of the state office also made it clear several times in conference calls where the top brass stood, that it wasn't the top brass who had to abandon their men when they ran into trouble, they never had and didn't want to.
The Federal Revenue Service, which fights head-on, even has an army, and has never known what it means to beg for mercy, but the problem is that when the bottom doesn't have its own asses clean and the top brass can't even come in and wipe their asses, don't blame the top brass for being hard hearted.
They'd already given Johnson some hints that they wanted Lynch out as a criminal as soon as possible - that's what the Sabine FTB itself had said, that there was a possibility that Lynch might be a criminal - and the one who had that thought was Michael.
Like Commissioner Johnson, he thought Lynch might be less than clean, but from the current perspective he clearly hadn't broken any laws, including his company's books, and they had checked the entire warehouse when they took Lynch away and hadn't found anything out of the ordinary.
The main reason why public sentiment is boiling now is that Lynch himself is innocent, coupled with the previous various law enforcement conflicts, mainly on the side of the Bureau of Investigation, as well as some people's pushing and pulling, just to make things into today's situation.
As long as Lynch became a criminal, the vast majority of the public will have no sense of empathy, although the Baylor Federation always boasts that it is a human rights country, but it is clear that people's attitude toward criminals seems to have nothing to do with human rights.
Attitude determines the trend of things and the future, for a criminal to seek justice, even if the stupid people will not do so.
However, a week has passed, Sabine Tax Bureau side of the joint FBI, the two strongest departments of the federal joint action, but did not find the slightest way to make Lynch's identity label into a "criminal" label.
This makes the top management of the tax bureau very angry, this little thing can not do the following people can not do what good?
Of course, it's not entirely the fault of the two organizations, the eyes of the community are now on Lynch, and any mistake in labeling him as a criminal could make the current situation even more passive.
So on the conference call it was pointed out that since you can't save Michael, you're going to let him go, and besides, the Sabine City Tax Collector's Office and Michael himself will have to take some of the blame.
One is the Sabine City Tax Office's low work capacity, and the other is that Michael himself has too many problems, bad temper, often storming out at work, no matter whether it's other people or his own people, as long as his temper reaches the point of immediate outbursts.
This public outcry also has something to do with himself, without any evidence to be able to testify against Lynch, he directly locked Lynch as a suspect and repeatedly hurt Lynch, resulting in such embarrassing consequences, he has to pay for his own behavior.
At the same time, the state office has said that they want the Sabine Department of Revenue's side to calm the victim down, and since they don't have the means to beat Lynch down with a stick, they'll stand shoulder to shoulder with him to at least get some image points back.
Cheek?
I'm sorry, but the IRS is an important federal agency, so what's personal honor or disgrace?
On top of that, there was a meeting at the top to push for a different narrative, and it just happened to coincide with the one Lynch was talking about earlier with Commissioner Johnson at the grill.
Since the middle and upper echelons had decided to let Michael take the fall, they were going to make sure that he did it tight, tailor made, and give him no chance to roll over, and if they couldn't even work with the bottom on this, it would be the entire Sabine Revenue leadership that would be left behind.
Things have come to this point, obviously, is no longer the local director of the Tax Bureau can influence the future direction, can only cooperate with the decision of the above, he gave Lynch a phone call in the morning, meaning that the recent period of time must be in the public opinion of him to cooperate with the Tax Bureau's next action.
At the same time also implied Lynch, the last time they were in the barbecue restaurant, he has already considered the matter, this is an instinctive behavior of profit, although I do not dominate the development of things, but if the outcome of the matter is favorable to himself, it will confuse his own value in the whole matter.
It's like when Michael heard about a promotion and started to get busy, if he succeeded, Director Johnson would definitely say that he contributed to his success.
Why turn it down when you can reap the extra benefits without compromising yourself?
On one such call, Lynch happened to mention that he wanted to meet with the head of a bank's loan department, any bank, as long as it was a bank.
And this was also as a quid pro quo for his next action to cooperate with the IRS, his original words were "I've had a full work schedule lately and I may not be able to take care of the media interviews, so if there are any synchronization errors, please be considerate!
When things came to this point, it could be said that Director Johnson was completely ruthless and could not be undone.
His private meeting with Lynch and the current internal trend gave him a wonderful feeling that he was "conspiring" with Lynch to harm Michael, a feeling that was not so obvious but was there, and that Lynch was one of his accomplices. The feeling that Lynch was one of his accomplices was not obvious, but it was there,
Under pressure from his superiors, the old director of the Sabine tax system, who was a good talker, reluctantly agreed to Lynch's request, which led to the noon meeting.
However, he had to say that he felt disgusted, not only Lynch was disgusted, but he himself was disgusted, he had thought that he might be a person who did not have too much ability, was not strong enough, but definitely stood firm, but he did not expect that he would actually be so "weak"!
"I won't say anything for you, that's what you said!" Looking at Lynch's natural calmness, Director Johnson couldn't help but speak sarcastically.
Lynch didn't take his sarcasm to heart, and even pulled a small note out of his pocket and pushed it through, tucking it into his napkin.
Johnson frowned slightly as he took the napkin and pulled out the note, on it were two lines of typewritten numbers, "What does that mean?"
Lynch smiled, "I've heard that the banks over in Lannilis are de-alphabetizing, they think that a combination of numbers and letters in their bank accounts would add too much work, I think the big six should consider doing the same."
The bank accounts of the six major banks in the Federation were all "customized accounts," most of which were a combination of numbers and letters, which actually added to the workload, slowed down the pace of work, and made it easy to make mistakes.
Director Johnson was about to ask what this meant when he suddenly clenched his fists; there was no doubt that this note, along with Lynch's words, confirmed that this was a Lannilis bank account.
Lannilis was a neutral country, known as a haven for tax evasion, of course, it was also filled with all kinds of financial criminal activities, and some cases would involve the Federation as well.
His gaze was fixed on Lynch, his expression somewhat grim, "This is a bribe, you're insulting me!"
Lynch shrugged, "You know what, no one can do it alone (no one can be independent of anything, not interfere with what's going on or be affected by it), and I didn't need you to do anything for me to harm the Federation's interests, it was just a gift between friends.
"Instead of that look you're giving me right now, I thought you could take this and try to find out how the money flows between the accounts and maybe find a little something on me or donate these things to someone who needs them, like Michael's wife."
"If he goes to prison, Michael's family is on the verge of breaking up, his wife has never worked a day in her life, his kids are getting out of prison next year, they need money and Michael can't give it to them ..."
"We all know that Michael is innocent ...", Lynch paused, he smiled immediately afterwards, "Of course I don't mean that I ... you know, I'm innocent too."
There was a breathtaking hint of something in the eyesight with which he looked at Chief Johnson that could see right through people.
Just as Chief Johnson was suffering from the guilt of his "betrayal", he had to do something, Lynch's words stimulated him and activated his inexplicable "sense of duty".
Since he couldn't change the situation to give Michael what he thought would be a just outcome in Commissioner Johnson's eyes, he had to take care of his family; after all, his wife and children needed money.
When a person is trying to smooth out his inner apology, he does a lot of stupid things.
It was during this brief silence that Joe Gleeman showed up early and there was no way that Chief Johnson could return the note to Lynch, he was sure that Joe Gleeman would know what it said if he even saw it for that long, he didn't dare take any chances.