House of Cards Episode 1.02 Chapter 2

Underwood assumes full control of education bill and assigns a group of young staffers to write the first draft. After Underwood sequesters them into his conference room for one week, they finish writing an "historic" first draft. Underwood suggests to Barnes that Kern wrote a decades-old editorial characterizing the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as illegal. Stamper finds a conspiracy theorist who worked with Kern as co-editor decades ago. Russo convinces the conspiracy theorist say that Kern wrote the unsigned editorial, which is a complete lie. After the story goes public, Kern insults both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups. This sinks Kern's nomination. Underwood then prompts Barnes to start a rumor that Sen. Durant will be the new nominee. Claire downsizes her staff at the non-profit and fires the office manager for questioning her choices.