Doesn't Hurt to Ask Read online

  This is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed.

  Copyright © 2020 by Trey Gowdy

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Forum, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  CROWN FORUM with colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Gowdy, Trey, author.

  Title: Doesn’t hurt to ask / Trey Gowdy.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Crown Forum, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020007613 (print) | LCCN 2020007614 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593138915 (Hardback) | ISBN 9780593138922 (Ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Persuasion (Psychology) | Interpersonal communication.

  Classification: LCC BF637.P4 G68 2020 (print) | LCC BF637.P4 (ebook) | DDC 153.8/52—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020007613

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020007614

  Ebook ISBN 9780593138922

  crownforum.com

  Cover photograph: Deborah Feingold

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction: From Courtroom to Congress

  Part 1: What You Need to Know Before You Open Your Mouth

  Chapter 1: There Is Such a Thing as a Stupid Question

  Chapter 2: The Subtle Art of Persuasion

  Chapter 3: Know the Objective, Know the Facts, Know Thyself!

  Chapter 4: Know Your Jury

  Chapter 5: The Burden of Proof Is in the Pudding

  Chapter 6: Once You Learn to Fake Sincerity, There Is Nothing You Can’t Do

  Part 2: The Act (and Art) of Persuasion

  Chapter 7: Corroborate vs. Contradict

  Chapter 8: Leading and Non-Leading the Way

  Chapter 9: Not That Kind of Impeachment

  Chapter 10: The Hitchhiker’s Guide

  Chapter 11: Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

  Chapter 12: A Word Is Worth a Thousand Words

  Chapter 13: Good Things Come in Small Repackaging

  Chapter 14: Wait, the Tables Have Been Turned

  Part 3: Go Forth and Conquer

  Chapter 15: Not-So-Great Expectations

  Chapter 16: How Do You Know If You’ve Got It?

  Chapter 17: My Closing Argument

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  FROM COURTROOM TO CONGRESS

  WHY I PERSUADE

  For sixteen years, I stood in front of countless groups of twelve people who were unsuccessful in getting out of jury duty. (Okay, maybe that isn’t fair. But admit it! You are hardly enthused when you get a summons in the mail.) However, in my experience, despite their hesitation most people wind up either enjoying their jury service or, at a minimum, appreciating the majesty of our justice system. The courthouse reflects real life, with all the pain and joy, the justice and injustice, and the raw emotions that come from trying to harness and adjudicate human nature. Your life most likely doesn’t involve a courthouse, but the “trials” are just as real. Those “trials” could be in business settings, community meetings, schools, or at home.

  After nearly a hundred jury trials in both federal and state court—ranging in cases from firearms violations to narcotics trafficking, kidnappings to carjackings, sexual assault to robbery, child abuse to murder—the courtroom has become the single most peaceful and comfortable place for me. I love the logic. I love the rules. I love the strategy. I love the need for quick thinking. I love the opportunity to seek truth. I love the entire human spectrum epitomized by people and procedures. But mostly, I love the courtroom because I love the art of persuasion, and I’ve dedicated myself to being as good at it as I possibly can be.

  I owe that to my mother. She did a lot of things workwise while I was growing up with my three sisters, but the job she enjoyed the most was being a victim advocate for the local solicitor’s office. Victim advocates advise the victims of crimes and their families on what their rights are as victims and demystify the criminal process. If needed or requested, victim advocates sit with the victim and their families through trials, pleas, and sentencing hearings.

  When I was home during the summers in college and law school, my mom would come in after work frustrated about our criminal justice system. She would openly wonder, “Why does a defendant, someone charged with a crime, get to hire any lawyer he or she wants, but the victim cannot? The victim is stuck with the prosecutor assigned to the case. Why can’t a victim go hire the best lawyer too?”

  That’s a good question, Mom. I know the textbook answer—the crime is really against the state, not against an individual—but textbook answers are of no solace to a victim being cross-examined by a skilled criminal defense attorney, while the perpetrator may or may not be cross-examined by a skilled prosecutor. You were right, Mom. Victims are entitled to a good lawyer. Victims are entitled to a lawyer who can set the stage with the right expectations in an opening statement. Victims are entitled to a lawyer who can connect with a jury both verbally and nonverbally. Victims are entitled to a lawyer who can use direct questions to skillfully elicit the testimony in a compelling, logical way. They are entitled to a lawyer who can cross-examine defendants effectively without looking down at their notes. They are entitled to a lawyer who can marry passion with reason in a closing argument and move a jury to consensus, even overcoming the highest evidentiary burden our culture recognizes, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. They are entitled to a lawyer who can anticipate what the defense attorney is going to do before they do it and have a plan to combat it. They are entitled to someone who knows the ins and outs of persuasion.

  Even outside of a courtroom setting, people want to be both effectively advocated for and effective advocates themselves. If there is a conversation at work about a promotion or a new line of business, you will want to be part of that conversation, and being part of that conversation may very well be in direct proportion to your effectiveness as a communicator. In fact, you want to be considered an indispensable part of that conversation.

  That is what I strove to be for those sixteen years in the courtroom—an advocate the victim would have picked if he or she could do what my mom wanted them to be able to do: pick any lawyer in the country to be their lawyer. The weight of being an effective advocate for a victim or a victim’s family was heavy. But that weight is no lighter in other realms of your own life. You too will need to successfully advocate about something or someone. You will need to persuade others to either come closer to your way of thinking on an issue or at least see why it is you believe what you believe. The courtroom was my job site but you have your own job site, and the need to competently process and communicate information toward a desired outcome is every bit as essential on your job site as it was on mine. The skill set needed is the same whether the issue is murder, marketing, or motherhood.

  I sometimes refer to “receiving line” jobs. Those are the jobs you want people to remember you for when you are gone. I’ve asked my wife to do two things if I die before she does: (1) wait until after my funeral to start dating, and (2) make sure our children remember that their father loved being a prosecutor more than any other job. It’s the
job I want to be remembered for, because it was the job with the most meaning, the highest sense of purpose, and the most challenging objective: to persuade within the rules of fairness and due process and to move the jury from not guilty to guilty using credibility, facts, reasoning, passion, logic, and an entire mosaic of words.

  You will have your own version of how this conversation will go as it relates to your own life—but it is never too soon to think about how you want to impact the world in which you live, work, and love.

  There is one more thing I hope my wife remembers:

  (3) Make sure those friends and family closest to us remember the last case I prosecuted and why I did it.

  If you ever visited my office in Washington, DC, and wondered who the little girl was in the picture beside my family’s picture, she was the last victim in the last criminal case I will ever try. She was the reason I stood in front of a jury one final time.

  Meah Weidner was a beautiful ten-year-old girl born with cerebral palsy. She was beaten and shaken to death by her mother’s boyfriend. The boyfriend was a firefighter and an EMT with no criminal record. He said her injuries were caused when she fell out of her wheelchair while having a seizure, and he claimed that he may have accidentally hurt her attempting CPR to save her life. But it was an accident, he contended, not a crime.

  I had one foot out of the door. I was already on my way to Congress. Swearing in was just a few weeks away. Surely someone else in the office could take this case. There were plenty of very good prosecutors in our office and someone else could do a good job for Meah. But I could not get my mother’s voice out of my head: “Why is it a defendant can hire the best lawyer money can buy, but the victim cannot?”

  It was a combination of my mother’s voice and what fatherhood does to a person that prompted me to take the file and take the case for myself. For the little girl who could no longer talk, I would talk. For the girl who couldn’t defend herself, I would defend her. For the girl confined to a wheelchair, I would pace back and forth in front of the jury, assigning the same value to her life that they would to their own children. I would persuade effectively on her behalf because it was just and it was right.

  It was a tough case convincing twelve people that a man with a good job and no criminal history could kill a defenseless child. But that is what happened. And I used logic, facts, and—most important—questions to do it.

  I asked questions of the jury. Sure, some were questions to get them the knowledge they needed to form an educated opinion. Some were questions that they and I already knew the answer to. But all questions were so that they could arrive at the truth of their own accord.

  Eventually, all twelve said “Guilty.” They convicted the man of killing Meah Weidner, and the judge sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. It was clear by the tone of the room and the speed with which the jury reached a verdict that they were moved by this young girl’s life. Moved to feel what I felt. Moved to assign the same value to Meah’s life they would assign to their own child’s or their own grandchild’s. Moved to do the right thing.

  Meah’s picture on my desk was a reminder of many things: the fragility of life, the innocence of the young, the power of standing up for others, and the need within each of us to advocate for something significant. And while using questions to move others is admittedly a unique way of persuading, I am convinced it is an indispensable part of persuasion at the highest level. Most people can attempt to persuade by saying what they believe and why, but can you persuade by asking the right questions, at the right time, in the right order? More important, can you, in essence, have the person with whom you are talking convince themselves?

  You do not need to be in a courtroom to advocate for others. You do not need to be in Congress to champion a cause. Opportunities to persuade abound. From the courtroom to the living room, from across the aisle to across the desk talking to a client, from convincing a jury to convincing your boss, each of us has opportunities, and occasionally obligations, to persuade.

  The most effective persuaders listen as much as they talk. The most effective persuaders ask as many questions as they answer. Asking questions is more than a grudging prerequisite to gaining information. Asking questions, in the right way and at the right time, may well prove to be the most effective tool you have when it comes to moving someone closer to understanding your position or simply moving others closer to one another.

  MAYBE CONGRESS? MAYBE NOT.

  Those sixteen years as a prosecuting attorney taught me how to be a lawyer. They also taught me about my fellow citizens and how to communicate with them, persuade them, and cajole them with positive proof, and how to deconstruct unreliable evidence. The courtroom is a kind of cultural and anthropological petri dish where all sides of the human spectrum are tested, analyzed, and tried. Which is why what works in a courtroom is precisely what works in real life.

  If you use the processes and procedures employed in our justice system in your living room or conference room, someone is likely to state the obvious: “This isn’t a courtroom.” The late Elijah Cummings, who was a phenomenal lawyer before his distinguished career in Congress, once gently chided me during a committee hearing, “Is this a courtroom?…Are we using the Federal Rules of Evidence here?” Former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, with whom I always had a pleasant relationship outside of the committee conference room, once answered a question by asking, “Is this a trial, is someone on trial here?” No. Committee hearings are not courtrooms, and they do not follow courtroom rules on evidence, procedure, or process. But maybe they should. The policies, precepts, procedures, and rules employed in our justice system are not inherently “right” simply because we use them in a courtroom. Those policies, precepts, procedures, and rules are used in courtrooms because they have stood the test of time, and we collectively accept them as being the best tools for elucidating the truth. In other words, something isn’t right because we use it in a courtroom—we use it in a courtroom because it is right. The rightness is what came first.

  Even though I loved justice, fairness, pursuing truth, and persuading juries, I left the courtroom because I could not answer my own questions about what happened outside the courtroom. I could not reconcile my spiritual beliefs with what I was witnessing daily. Man was consistently and increasingly inhumane toward his fellow man. Innocents suffered. People killed those they claimed to love. The vulnerable were victimized. There was gratuitous violence, depravity, and malice.

  In the real world, the vast majority of people are good, kind, law abiding, and willing to help others. But in the justice system that is not what you see, and eventually you get the population’s proportions misaligned. There are no trials for good, decent, or kind people in the courtroom. The trials are for those who murder, rape, and commit burglaries. When you’re interacting with these types on a day-to-day basis, you quickly acquire a disjointed view of mankind. When evil is all you see, you fall prey to believing it is all that exists.

  I remember that my growing skepticism was often met with the ol’ Christian adage (and loose biblical reference) “All things work together for good.” When you grow up in the buckle of the Bible Belt, you hear that phrase a lot.

  All things, huh? What about the children who had cigarettes extinguished on their faces? The children who were sexually assaulted? The innocent couple beaten to death with a hammer? The three-month-old sewn back together because her father raped her? What about Meah? Is that what you mean by “all things work together for good”?

  I was pretty good in a courtroom. I could convince twelve people beyond a reasonable doubt almost anytime I wanted and needed to convince them. For sixteen years, I could get twelve complete strangers to come together and reach unanimity. Persuading my fellow citizens or judges was never the hard part for me.

  What was hard was the drive home from the courtroom each evening
after work where the answers began to be outpaced by the questions. At the end of the day, watching the daylight lose its battle with darkness, I struggled to unsee the images from crime scene photos. Lying awake in bed while my family was fast asleep, I struggled to separate the sound of the wind outside from the sound of evil and depravity trying to come inside. I was having a very hard time separating work from the rest of life. And so too were the people most precious to me. For almost a year our daughter would drag her pillow and blanket into our bedroom and put them on the floor beside our bed. On the floor on my side of the bed, of course. She knew her mom would make her go back to her room. She knew her father would not. I even tried working it out with God, but the God I was brought up to talk to in times of disquiet or angst was either not listening or not talking back.

  It wasn’t the defense attorney or the jury in the courtroom that defeated me. It was the lawyer and the jury in my own head.

  I could never persuade myself that a loving God would allow a child to be burned to death, beaten to death, or raped by her own father. I could never persuade myself that a loving God would allow a child with cerebral palsy to be killed by her mother’s boyfriend. I could never persuade myself all things were going to work for good in the end because the end for many innocent people was death—and there is no bargaining, compromising, or persuading death. For those who survived, it was a lifetime of pain, fear, and distrust; their questions were always better than my answers. I could tell them the who; I just could never adequately tell them the why.

  So I left the courtroom with just the tiniest remnant of faith left. I left as a cynic with just the slightest flicker of light. I left before the questions turned to anger and the anger turned to full-fledged cynicism. Barely.