Washington, D.C. is where the book’s contest between Jimmy Hoffa and the federal government takes especially concrete form. A bribery scheme to obtain inside information from the McClellan Committee ended in a watched cash exchange, Hoffa’s arrest, and a trial in the capital. Later, at Teamsters headquarters, Hoffa reportedly discussed killing Bobby Kennedy. The city thus appears not merely as a political backdrop but as a place where federal scrutiny and union power meet directly.

Federal Investigation and Hoffa’s Arrest

In February 1957, Hoffa approached New York lawyer John Cye Cheasty with an offer to infiltrate the McClellan Committee’s investigation and report its activities. The proposed payment was $24,000, paid at $2,000 a month for a year, and Hoffa gave Cheasty $1,000 toward the expenses of securing the position. Hoffa had not adequately checked the investigator: Cheasty was an honest investigator and patriot, and he reported the scheme.

Bobby Kennedy gave Cheasty a job with the committee at a salary of $5,000 a year. The Federal Bureau of Investigation then planted microphones and arranged camera surveillance. Cheasty told Hoffa that he had an envelope of sensitive committee documents and wanted another installment of cash in return. The two met near DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C. Cheasty handed over the envelope; Hoffa handed over $2,000. The exchange was photographed, and officers moved in and arrested Hoffa with the documents.

The sequence makes Washington an active instrument of the investigation. The promised information, the cash, and the surveillance converged in a public meeting place near the federal capital’s political center. Hoffa’s attempt to penetrate the committee instead supplied investigators with a documented transaction and an immediate arrest.

The 1957 Trial in the Capital

In June 1957, Hoffa went on trial in Washington, D.C., accused of bribing a McClellan Committee investigator to obtain inside information about the committee’s activities. The jury consisted of eight Black jurors and four white jurors. Hoffa and his attorney, Edward Bennett Williams, struck only white prospective jurors during selection; Hoffa also brought a Black female lawyer from California to sit at the counsel table.

Hoffa’s efforts extended beyond the courtroom. He arranged for the newspaper The Afro-American to publish an advertisement praising him as a champion of the Black community, with a photograph of his Black-and-white legal team. Copies were delivered to the homes of the Black jurors. His Chicago underworld associate Red Dorfman also arranged for boxing champion Joe Louis to fly from Detroit. Hoffa and Louis embraced in front of the jury, and Louis stayed to watch several days of testimony.

During cross-examination, Williams asked Cheasty whether he had ever officially investigated the NAACP. Cheasty said he had not, but the question planted that association before the jury. These courtroom maneuvers show Hoffa attempting to shape the trial’s racial and public context as well as contest the charge itself. Washington is the setting both for the government’s carefully documented case and for Hoffa’s efforts to influence how that case would be received.

Teamsters Headquarters and the Kennedy Conflict

The capital also housed the Teamsters headquarters, which the book calls the marble palace. One summer night in 1962, Hoffa and Teamsters official Edward Grady Partin were alone in Hoffa’s office, looking out the window. Hoffa asked whether Partin knew anything about plastic explosives and said he knew where to obtain a gun silencer. Partin later reported that Hoffa described how easy it would be to kill Bobby Kennedy, noting Kennedy’s lack of a security detail and his habit of traveling alone in a convertible.

Partin was president of Teamsters Local 5 in Baton Rouge and was facing a kidnapping charge and an indictment over the use of $1,659 in union funds. Hoffa apparently assumed that Partin’s Louisiana connections made him a suitable underworld ally, but he had not established that Partin would participate. Partin reported the remarks to the Get Hoffa Squad. After Partin passed an FBI-administered lie detector test, Walter Sheridan conveyed the threat to Bobby Kennedy.

The office scene reverses the expected relation between the capital’s institutions and Hoffa’s power. The headquarters was a center of union authority, but its private conversation became information for the federal operation pursuing him. Washington’s significance in the narrative rests on this collision: Hoffa could command influence from the city, yet the same city contained the investigators and officials to whom his words could be carried.