Absolute Power

Luther Whitney, a 66-year-old career burglar with three prior felony convictions, breaks into the Middleton, Virginia, estate of billionaire Walter Sullivan. After months of planning, Luther uses a stolen car, night-vision equipment, and a compact code-breaking device to defeat the mansion's security system. He enters the master bedroom vault through a mirrored door and fills a duffel bag with cash, jewelry, and negotiable bonds worth approximately two million dollars. When a limousine and van arrive unexpectedly, Luther hides inside the vault, whose door doubles as a one-way mirror giving him a direct view into the bedroom.

Luther watches as President Alan Richmond and Christine Sullivan, the young wife of the estate's owner, begin a sexual encounter that turns violent. Richmond slaps, chokes, and beats Christine until she fights back, slashing his arm with an antique letter opener. As she raises the blade to stab him, Richmond screams, and two Secret Service agents, Bill Burton and Tim Collin, burst through the door and shoot Christine dead. Luther is paralyzed with horror behind the glass, consumed by guilt for not intervening.

Gloria Russell, the President's Chief of Staff, takes command of the cover-up. She orders Burton and Collin to sanitize the crime scene, wiping surfaces, removing sheets, scrubbing Christine's fingernails, and vacuuming the carpet to eliminate every trace of the President's presence. Russell confiscates the letter opener, which bears Richmond's fingerprints and blood, intending to keep it as leverage. The agents stage the scene to resemble a burglary gone wrong. When Russell discovers the letter opener has fallen from her purse, Burton and Collin race back upstairs but find that Luther has escaped through a window, taking the letter opener and his stolen goods with him.

Luther disguises himself and flees to Barbados under a false passport, having prepared a will and taken Polaroid photographs of the letter opener as backup evidence. Before leaving, he watches his estranged daughter, Kate Whitney, from a distance one last time. Kate, an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney in Alexandria, Virginia, has not spoken to Luther in years, blaming him for her mother's suffering and early death. In Barbados, Luther's guilt transforms into rage when he sees Richmond's televised press conference expressing outrage over Christine's death and pledging to bring her killers to justice. This hypocrisy compels Luther to return to the United States and bring the President down.

Meanwhile, Jack Graham, a young attorney at the prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm Patton, Shaw & Lord, navigates a conflicted personal life. He is engaged to Jennifer Baldwin, the daughter of Ransome Baldwin, one of the country's wealthiest developers and a major client of the firm, but Jack feels increasingly trapped by the Baldwin family's lifestyle. He keeps a framed photo of Kate, his former girlfriend. The couple split four years earlier because Kate could not accept Jack's friendship with her father. Jack attends a White House dinner where he briefly meets President Richmond and later impresses Walter Sullivan with a strategy for a multibillion-dollar deal, solidifying his position at the firm.

Detective Seth Frank of the Middleton County Police, a former NYPD homicide detective, investigates Christine Sullivan's murder and finds the crime scene suspiciously clean. The autopsy reveals two gunshot wounds from two different firearms, strangulation marks, and a bruised jaw, but no evidence of sexual assault. Frank discovers that a letter opener visible in a bedroom photograph is missing and that a luminol test on the carpet reveals blood that is not Christine's, confirming she wounded her attacker. Frank traces the break-in to Luther through a carpet cleaning crew that serviced the Sullivan home: A crew member used a false identity, and a fingerprint from the cleaning van matches Luther's in the FBI database. Frank also identifies Wanda Broome, Christine's personal maid and Luther's longtime friend, as the likely inside accomplice. After Frank questions Wanda, she dies by suicide.

Secret Service Agent Burton inserts himself into the investigation as the President's liaison, secretly tapping Frank's phone and obtaining Luther's identity before Frank does. Distrustful of Russell and the President, Burton also begins secretly recording their planning meetings on audiocassette tapes. Walter Sullivan hires an elite assassin, Michael McCarty, to kill the man he believes murdered his wife. Burton devises a plan to use Kate to lure Luther out of hiding, and the President tells Sullivan the time and location of the planned arrest, knowing Sullivan will send McCarty.

Doubting anyone would believe his eyewitness account, Luther initiates a blackmail scheme against Russell, sending anonymous photographs of the letter opener and demanding five million dollars. His true goal is not money but evidence: He traces the wire transfer back to its White House source, creating a financial trail far more credible than his testimony alone. After the money arrives, Luther donates it anonymously to the American Red Cross. He also contacts Jack and asks him to serve as defense attorney if needed.

Frank persuades Kate to help lure Luther into a police trap. Luther suspects a trap but goes anyway, desperate to see his daughter. At a café, McCarty fires from a nearby building but misses, and police arrest Luther. At the station, Burton silently threatens that Kate will be harmed if Luther talks. Luther resolves to remain silent, and when he is indicted on capital murder charges, he refuses to tell Jack what he witnessed. Jack enters a not-guilty plea over Luther's objections.

On the day of Luther's arraignment, President Richmond makes a surprise appearance at the courthouse. As Luther is escorted from a police van, he locks eyes with Richmond and mutters "Fucking bastard." Moments later, a sniper coordinated with Burton and Collin kills Luther. Kate kneels beside her father's body in the snow.

Sullivan grows suspicious after recognizing a critical slip: Richmond publicly mentioned that Christine would be alive if she hadn't "gotten sick," though Sullivan never told anyone Christine feigned illness that night. Sullivan confronts Richmond on a recorded phone call, but Richmond orders Burton to kill Sullivan, and Burton stages the death as a suicide, taking the recording.

Before his arrest, Luther had arranged for Edwina Broome, Wanda's elderly mother and his trusted friend, to send a package containing the letter opener to Jack if anything happened to him. When Jack discovers the package at the firm late at night, Burton and Collin pursue him through the offices. Collin kills Sandy Lord, the firm's most powerful partner, and Lord's companion. Jack barely escapes, but the agents frame him for the murders by transferring his fingerprints onto the weapon.

Frank rescues the fugitive Jack during a car chase, and as their car slides to a stop before the White House, a cascade of connections crystallizes in Jack's mind: Richmond's arm injury at the White House dinner, the President's appearance at Luther's arraignment, Luther's furious words, and the extraordinary resources required to sanitize the crime scene and kill with impunity. Jack realizes that President Richmond is behind everything.

Kate retrieves backup Polaroid photographs of the letter opener from Edwina Broome. Burton and Collin track Jack to a hotel through the tap on Frank's phone and attempt to kill him, but D.C. police, tipped off by Frank, intervene. Jack has arranged for his friend Tarr Crimson, a surveillance technology expert, to install a hidden camera in the room, and the camera captures the agents' admissions. Burton, tormented by guilt, returns home and commits suicide, leaving behind audiocassette tapes of planning meetings with the President and a letter addressed to Frank.

Armed with Burton's tapes, the surveillance video, and depositions from Collin and Russell, Frank arrives at the White House and serves Richmond with arrest warrants for capital murder. Richmond is tried and convicted under a murder-for-hire statute and sentenced to death, though Frank believes the sentence will never be carried out. Collin pleads to conspiracy and multiple charges, receiving twenty years to life, while Russell receives probation in exchange for her testimony. Jack's murder charges are dropped, and the firm closes after Ransome Baldwin withdraws his business. Jack breaks off his engagement to Jennifer after learning she secretly had a colleague fired on his behalf, and he returns to a modest life. Kate resigns as a prosecutor and moves to Atlanta, but months later she appears at Jack's rooftop pool, suggesting a reunion.