What does this line mean?

It's a whole thing to do with family being involved...If it were discovered that people so close to him were involved in the deal, it would be a major scandal and ruin his career.

This was when they were talking to that guy in the middle of the pool who told them about Picker using cocaine while in the governor's mansion.

They were asking about a Clearwater-type deal and he said it had been done "straight-up" - that they had tried to get Freddy to pull strings or do some corrupt thing to maybe get it built quicker, make more money, something like that.

Libby must have heard that the men who were trying to get help from Picker had appealed to Picker's wife and brother to influence him. At least that's the sense I got.