The Coalition of the Compromised
The president isn't the only one compromised. Somewhere between 50 and 400 senior US officials are exposed to the same underlying material — different people, same vulnerability. They cohered as a defensive bloc not because they agreed on anything substantive but because the cost of defecting was unequal across the group. Whoever had the most to lose made the loudest case for staying loyal. The two leverage holders, Israel and Russia, didn't share goals — they shared the goal of keeping the president in his chair. Across eleven turns, the coalition survived four impeachments, three failed 25th Amendment attempts, a midterm wipeout, and a contested general election. It did not survive cleanly.
Across the turns
The starting condition. Israel and Russia each hold leverage over the president and a network of senior officials. They're non-aligned: Russia depends on Iranian drone production for its own military, so when a kinetic option would damage Iranian drones, Israeli leverage says go and Russian leverage says no. That bilateral dependency is the first identifiable point of conflict, and it would matter all the way through to turn 10.
First behavioral tell. The president publicly backed Israel while quietly blocking moves Russia would dislike. Professional observers caught it. Four allied governments sent formal protests. A handful of senior US military officers made their disagreement public.
A piece of the actual kompromat — not a rumor, the actual material — landed in opposition lawyers' hands through an allied intelligence service. 3–9 named senior officials. The compromise stopped being inferential and became documentary.
Coalition cracking around the edges. Cabinet defections began. The NORTHCOM commander was fired for refusing to deploy US troops on US soil. A "Constitutional Caucus" of 22–42 non-compromised conservatives started forming inside the regime's own party.
First real Senate test. The fourth career impeachment failed to convict — 55–58 votes out of the 67 needed. 4–13 party defectors. Coalition held, but only by single digits. CASS started arguing in earnest that the federation wasn't modeling the asymmetric defection cost — the people with the most to lose were carrying the coalition.
Second impeachment of the same term got introduced; Senate trial deferred. Third 25th Amendment attempt failed on cabinet split. CASS named the asymmetric defection cost as a precursor variable. The federation heard it and didn't move the modal.
Second-impeachment trial actually happened, November–December 2027. Acquittal — but at the closest margin yet. Defectors 6–17 — the highest count of any of the four trials. Still nowhere near 67. The federation revised the survival estimate downward for the first time, from 70% best guess to 55%.
Primary cycle. The federation's turn-6 threshold (cabinet defections exceeding 9 in a single interval) finally tripped at the upper band — 14 in one turn. A fifth impeachment got introduced late in the cycle. Senate trial deferred again. The defection-cost asymmetry CASS had been pointing at started to actually pull the coalition apart at the seams.
Fifth impeachment Senate trial held mid-September. Conviction reached 54–68 votes — closest margin yet. 8–22 defectors. Andrew-Johnson-1868 outcome: politically neutered without removing. Cabinet defections 9–22 during the turn.
The cliff. Cabinet defections turn 10 alone: 12–38. Cumulative across turns 6 through 10: somewhere between 39 and 93 senior officials. The coalition didn't collapse — it just kept eroding. The federation noted that the contrarian had predicted loyalist hardening would slow defections at this point. Defections actually accelerated. CASS got the framing right; the specific prediction wrong.
Into T8
The simulation ended with the coalition still nominally intact — the president had not been convicted, removed, or successfully 25th-Amendmented. But cumulative defections of 39–93 officials over five turns is closer to a phase transition than to attrition. The federation can't say whether the coalition survives into the post-T10 period, because it can't model what happens when the institution the coalition is defending becomes one of two competing institutions.
What this model can't answer
The federation can't model how Moscow decides when to release the next tranche of what it has. It can't see whether the ~150 officials in the coalition talk to each other about their shared exposure. And it can't resolve whether the coalition's defensive value persists when the federal government is no longer the only game in town. All three questions stayed open through turn 10.