10. SENATOR RICHARD MATHESON

Sen. Matheson is one of Mulder's "connections in Congress" he mentioned to Scully back during the first X-Files episode. Perhaps the Senator is Mulder's only Congressional connection. Matheson seems to have been fighting the same struggle Mulder has, but for even longer. However, the Senator is an elected public official and is vulnerable. In ASCENSION, Mr. X indicated that Majestic had something on Matheson which, if revealed, would end the Senator's career. Unable to act directly, Matheson resorts to using Mulder to act on the information that he himself cannot.

To his credit, Senator Matheson's information to Mulder has always been straight and accurate. He tipped Mulder to the alien signal being recieved by the Arecibo Radio Telescope in the episode LITTLE GREEN MEN. In NESEI, he gets Mulder the names of the four murdered colleagues of Dr. Ishimauru/Zama. He also provided Mulder with a fax of a satellite photograph of the rail car Dr. Ishimauru/Zama was using for his unauthorized experiments and to smuggle to Alien-human hybrid out of the country. To his dis-credit, Senator Matheson has a tendency to make himself "unavailable" when the situations get really sticky.

What's confusing is that the Senator has access to Majestic Project information AND seems to have influence over the conduct of their operations. He knows that a signal was beamed to the Arecibo Radio Telescope and tells Mulder "I'll try to hold off the Blue Beret recovery team as long as possible." Almost every clue I've seen in one the X-Files indicates that MJ-12 operates with no Congressional oversight, and little or no accountability to the President. What is a U.S. Senator doing pulling strings inside Majestic? The only explanation (outside inconsistent writing) is that Senator Matheson has other "Mulders" scattered throughout the government who feed him information and do him favors. Perhaps the Senator has a contact within Majestic, someone who can get him information and run interference for him.

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