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Watergate Anniversary Arrives As Trump Scandal Eclipses Nixon

Watergate Anniversary Arrives As Trump Scandal Eclipses Nixon

Washington (AFP) - Fifty years since it ignited Washington, the Watergate affair remains a cautionary tale on the threat of untrammeled presidential power and the yardstick against which all other political scandals are judged.

Yet some historians believe its architect, Richard Nixon, risks being displaced as the norm-breaking exemplar of presidential corruption by Donald Trump and the firestorm over his role in the 2021 US Capitol assault.

Nixon's underlying crime was covering up a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington's Watergate complex to steal documents that might have helped him in an election he would ultimately win by a landslide anyway.

The accusations against Trump -- that he incited a deadly riot to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as part of a conspiracy to overturn an election -- appear "far more serious," says history professor Michael Green.

Nixon "already has been knocked off his perch, frankly," Green, of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, told AFP.

"One of the ironies is that Nixon did not need to order a break-in to win that election," he said. "And there is no evidence, even with all of the tapes, that there was ever a discussion or thought of overturning the result if it went against him."

Five Watergate burglars were caught red-handed on June 17, 1972 and it quickly emerged that some were linked to the Nixon campaign and the White House.

The ensuing probe eventually opened a Pandora's box of abuses and dirty tricks that included political spying, the forgery of correspondence and even the theft of a pair of shoes to intimidate a Nixon rival.

But the cover-up was initially so successful that Nixon won 49 of the 50 states in his landslide victory over Democrat George McGovern in that year's presidential election.

'The First Seditious President'

The whitewash might have succeeded were it not for the chance discovery in the summer of 1973 that the president had secretly recorded all of his White House meetings.

They included a "smoking gun" tape in which Nixon could be heard ordering that the FBI, which was set to investigate the Watergate break-in, be told to "stay the hell out of this."

Nixon resigned after a delegation of Republican elders, led by ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater, came to the White House in 1974 to tell him he was likely to be impeached and the jig was up.

He was ultimately pardoned but many of his top aides went to jail.

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the reporters who played a pivotal role in bringing down Nixon, have written a new foreword for their iconic book All the President's Men drawing parallels to Trump.

Their comparison offers an insight into a pair of outsiders who felt besieged by enemies in the media and institutions of state.

But they suggest that Trump's incitement of a mob to march on the Capitol constituted "a deception that exceeded even Nixon's imagination."

"By legal definition this is clearly sedition... thus Trump became the first seditious president in our history," they say.

Analysts interviewed by AFP pointed to the vastly different political and media landscape Nixon and Trump faced when it came to consequences for their actions.

The Goldwater intervention, for example, would be inconceivable among the vast majority of today's serving Republicans, who have stuck by Trump through two impeachments and numerous other controversies.

'Just Another Story'

And while the Senate voted unanimously to set up a cross-party investigative committee on Watergate, the Republicans of the 2020s vetoed a bipartisan commission and punished two members who joined the Democratic-led House committee investigating January 6.

Some 80 million Americans -- considerably more than a third of the population -- tuned in to White House counsel John Dean's televised testimony against Nixon at the Watergate hearings.

Around 20 million -- just six percent of Americans -- watched the blockbuster first hearing put on by the January 6 panel.

For David Greenberg, author of Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image, the Watergate hearings were "instrumental" in bringing down a president attempting to subvert democracy.

"The difference, however, is that in 1973 and 1974 a great many Republican congressmen and senators loyal to Nixon ended up admitting that he was engaged in criminal activity," he told AFP.

"Today, only a few... have been willing to acknowledge Trump's complicity. Our polarized, partisan environment may prevent the January 6 hearings from achieving all they should."

Meanwhile Trump's impeachment for inciting the insurrection -- and the apparent cover up of almost eight hours of his phone calls on January 6 -- have not significantly eroded his support base.

"At the time of Watergate, Americans were united and trusted their media sources as part of one national conversation. Today that is impossible," former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez told AFP.

If the right-wing cable news outlets that dominate current conservative discourse had been around in the 1970s, argues Sanchez, Watergate would have been "just another story in the 24-hour news cycle of America."

Former President Trump, right, and former Attorney General William Barr

Why Trump’s Abuse Of Power Is Truly Worse Than Watergate

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

Stunning new abuse-of-power revelations remind us of the Trump administration's complete disregard for democratic principles. We now know that over a span of years it took extraordinary legal measures, including gag orders and secret tribunals, in pursuit of email records from reporters at CNN and the Washington Post. Team Trump also unleashed the courts on Democratic members of Congress and their families trying to obtain private phone records, as well as secretly targeting a key White House attorney, who possibly fell under suspicion for not being sufficiently loyal to Trump.

The disturbing portrait now in focus is one of a Republican White House that for four years worked in tandem with partisan prosecutors to systematically politicize the vast powers of the Justice Department, which often treated Trump's allies leniently, and used unprecedented tools to target his foes. It was Trump recklessly using the executive branch to gather private information on members of the legislative branch, as well as members of the media.

The emerging scandal already eclipses Richard Nixon's Watergate in terms of the benchmarks we use to gauge Washington, D.C. abuse of power. It's "Nixon on stilts and steroids," Nixon's former White House Counsel John Dean told CNN. "Nixon didn't have that kind of Department of Justice."

It's worse than Watergate because the White House abuse of power was purposely powered by the Justice Department. This would have been if U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell had helped plot the Watergate break-in, instead of a band of rogue Nixon sycophants. This is worse because it's institutional abuse conducted by political entities with boundless authority, such as the White House and the DOJ.

"Taken together with the Republican Party's refusal to hold Trump to account for the Capitol insurrection and its nationwide efforts to restrict voting, the new allegations also indicate that the freedoms and core values that have underpinned American life for two-and-a-half centuries remain in almost unprecedented peril," stressed CNN's Stephen Collinson.

It's worse than Watergate because this is what it looks like when democracies begin to crumble. It happens regularly all over the world, usually in emerging democracies, as nations lose their grip on crucial liberties while under the leadership of autocratic rulers.

And it's worse because since the scandal first broke last week, the Republican Party, as usual, has refused to acknowledge Trump's radical ways and condemn the anti-democratic behavior. While Democrats now push for Congressional investigations into the scandal, it appears Senate Republicans wlll stand in the way of issuing subpoenas, which are crucial in terms of gather evidence and compelling cooperation.

There's little doubt that today's blindly loyal GOP would have tried to block Congressional subpoenas issued during the Watergate investigation. (As the break-in and cover-up revelations tumbled out, Nixon eventually lost the support of Congressional Republicans.)

Late last week, the Justice Department's independent inspector general opened an investigation into the decision in 2018 by federal prosecutors to secretly seize the iPhone data of House Democrats, including Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell and their family members. Trump's team, which subpoenaed Apple, was desperately trying to hunt down who had leaked classified information early in the Trump administration. Specifically, leaks with regards to Trump's collaboration with Russia during the 2016 election.

It's almost unheard for the DOJ to use the courts to secretly seize data from members of Congress if those members are not the target of a corruption investigation, which Schiff and Swalwell clearly were not. They became abuse-of-power targets because they were trying to hold Trump accountable for his criminality.

Democrats weren't the only Trump enemies targeted by his out-of-control DOJ. It also secretly obtained the phone records of multiple Washington Post reporters. Imagine if Nixon's DOJ had snagged Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's phone logs as they reported out the Watergate caper?

On another wild fishing expedition, the Justice Department tossed CNN into a prolonged, Kafka-esque legal battle. Demanding access to 30,000 emails from Pentagon reporter Barbara Starr, government lawyers refused to tell the network what the larger DOJ investigation was about, who the subjects of the investigation were, the subject matter of the reporting at the center of the matter, or when the investigation was opened. The Justice Department also forbade CNN's general counsel from talking to Starr about the extraordinary chain of events in play.

"I was informed that, other than conferring with counsel, the order prohibited me from acknowledging to anyone that it even existed unless I had express permission from the Department of Justice," CNN's top lawyer David Vigilante explained. "And I was further informed that if I violated the order, I was subject to charges of contempt and even criminal prosecution for obstruction of justice."

Last December, a district court heard CNN's appeal and was unimpressed with whatever secret evidence the DOJ had accumulated in its mysterious case that required taking possession of 30,000 Starr emails. The gag order was soon lifted.

The good news is that CNN, the Times, and the Post met with Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday. In alignment with President Joe Biden, Garland's DOJ has said that it will not seize reporters' records as part of leak investigations.

And you can be sure it won't target Biden's political foes with partisan and secretive subpoenas.

Withholding Mueller Evidence Could Provoke Impeachment Inquiry

Withholding Mueller Evidence Could Provoke Impeachment Inquiry

Reprinted with permission from the Alliance For Justice blog Yeomans Work.

Attorney General Barr repeated in his testimony before House and Senate appropriators this week that he intends to redact grand jury material from the version of the Mueller Report that he sends to Congress. He also made clear that he does not intend to seek court permission to release grand jury testimony to Congress or the public.

That raises the interesting question of why the Department of Justice was demanding documents and hauling witnesses before the grand jury to testify regarding the president, if the Department of Justice knew 1) that its policy prevented it from bringing criminal charges against the president and 2) that it would not share the grand jury testimony with Congress, which has the power to impeach.

Was the special counsel off on a lark, abusing the power of the grand jury in a hollow exercise? Of course not. Barr’s position is untenable. Congress must receive the unredacted Mueller Report, including grand jury material.

Given Mueller’s previous indictments and all that we already know about the Trump campaign’s and administration’s dealings with Russians, as well as Trump’s public attempts to undermine the investigation, Congress has an obligation to obtain all of the fruits of Mueller’s investigation. Even before release of Mueller’s report, it has a constitutional obligation to investigate. That obligation will become irresistible once it obtains the report.

Indeed, both Mueller and Barr made congressional demands for the complete report and supporting material essential; Mueller by including in his report that his investigation did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice, and Barr by including Mueller’s language in his letter summarizing Mueller’s conclusions. Mueller alerted Congress that he had uncovered substantial evidence that warranted congressional attention. Congress would behave irresponsibly if it failed to respond with a demand for all of the evidence.

Barr’s unwillingness to seek court approval to release grand jury material is tellingly consistent with his longstanding hostility to Mueller’s investigation. The unsolicited 19-page memorandum that he shared with DOJ and Trump’s legal team before his nomination called the obstruction of justice inquiry “fatally misconceived.”

His unsurprising, ham-handed effort to override Mueller by exonerating Trump of obstructing justice gave Trump a helpful talking point. His conclusion, however, lacked legal effect, since DOJ would not indict Trump. Rather, its principal effect was to confirm his allegiance to the Trump team and to convince Congress that he does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Barr’s unwillingness to share grand jury material means that he intends to withhold massive amounts of evidence from Congress, in addition to redacting from the report’s narrative information extracted from that evidence. According to Barr, Mueller issued over 2800 subpoenas. Those subpoenas produced volumes of grand jury testimony and documents that Barr intends to conceal. Unless Barr adopts a very narrow view of what constitutes grand jury material – an unlikely prospect – the report sent to Congress will resemble Swiss cheese and the supporting material, if any, will be sliced thin.

Barr could petition Chief Judge Howell of the D.C. District Court, who supervised the grand jury, for an order lifting the secrecy of material generated by the grand jury. While Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure imposes secrecy on grand jury proceedings, it contains exceptions that should allow release in this matter. Several courts have held that courts also retain inherent authority to release grand jury material, but the D.C. Circuit effectively took that option away last week in an unrelated case. In doing so, however, it appeared to reaffirm that one of the 6(e) exceptions should apply here.

That exception allows release of material “preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding.” Grand jury material related to Watergate, Ken Starr’s investigation of Clinton, and the prosecution of Judge Alcee Hastings was released to Congress pursuant, in part, to this exception. Courts determined that impeachment was a judicial proceeding.

Trump supporters will argue that the exception does not apply because Congress has not authorized a formal impeachment inquiry. Republicans see political advantage in goading the majority into a vote to authorize impeachment proceedings. The exception, however, explicitly contemplates that the material may be produced “preliminary to” a judicial proceeding. Congress needs the information to know whether it should launch a formal impeachment inquiry. Notably, the House had not opened a formal inquiry when Starr delivered his report to Congress. The House can strengthen its legal hand by stating openly – and truthfully — that it needs the information to determine whether an impeachment inquiry is warranted.

Since Barr will not petition for release of grand jury material, the House Judiciary Committee will have to subpoena the report. When Barr refuses to include grand jury material, the committee may hold him in contempt and file suit to enforce its contempt order. In the end, the House is likely to prevail. The judicial proceeding exception provides an avenue for the court to serve the enormous public interest in Congress seeing the full Mueller Report.

House Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler appears intent on serving a subpoena as soon as Barr produces a redacted report. He should, since the enforcement process will take time.

In a final effort to convince Trump that he is completely in the fold (and that he should not be trusted by Congress), Barr testified to his concern that the FBI had spied on Trump’s campaign. He plans to look into this Trump conspiracy theory. Trump wanted a protector as his Attorney General. He chose wisely.

Bill Yeomans is the Senior Justice Fellow  at Alliance for Justice. He previously taught constitutional law, civil rights, and legislation at American University Washington College of Law. He previously served for 26 years in the Department of Justice, where he litigated cases involving voting rights and discrimination in employment, housing, and education, and prosecuted police officers and racially motivated violent offenders before assuming a series of management positions, including acting Assistant Attorney General. 

Trump Is Tearing Apart Our Civic Fabric And Democratic Institutions

Trump Is Tearing Apart Our Civic Fabric And Democratic Institutions

The United States is coming undone. It is dis-united. Its citizens are bitterly divided along a widening chasm, each side believing the other is despicable; its democratic institutions are under assault; its ideals of equality and respect for the rule of law, once so widely admired around the world, are now ignored, even scorned, by some of its highest-ranking officials.

I had always believed that only a shooting war could tear us apart in this way, but I was wrong. Our civic fabric is being ripped to shreds, lacerated by a petty and divisive president and the people who enable him.

President Donald J. Trump has launched a full frontal assault on the rule of law, belittling the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ignoring the Department of Justice, intimidating (and firing) senior law enforcement officials who attempt to hold him to account. The latest example is his determination to release a one-sided and harshly partisan memo, despite pleas from the FBI director not to do so.

The memo, composed by staffers for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) — a Trump lapdog — is another attempt by the president and his team of lackeys to undermine the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The most significant part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry focuses on whether any members of Trump’s campaign — including Trump himself — colluded with Russians to damage Hillary Clinton’s chances. Apparently, top Republicans and White House staffers have descended into panic as Mueller’s probe draws closer to the president.

However, the FBI fears that the release of the memo, some of which is based on classified information, may threaten national security. You would think that would matter to the so-called patriots in the GOP who put so much emphasis on saluting the American flag. But Republican voices who object to Trump’s release of the memo are few and muted.

Then there was the president’s contentious State of the Union speech, which had laughably been billed in advance as a unifying bit of oratory. Ah, not so much. While Trump did utter the word “bipartisan” several times, the policies he bragged about were those that thrill only conservatives: tax cuts that benefit the richest Americans most, another blow to Obamacare, the dismantling of environmental regulations.

And that was the milder stuff. By the middle of his speech, the president had released his inner Trump — taking an unnecessary swipe at (mostly black) athletes who kneel during the national anthem, using the case of the tragic murders of two teenage girls by Latino gang members to suggest that most immigrants are dangerous killers, and repeating his demand for a wall along the southern border to stop “criminals and terrorists.” Those weren’t dog whistles. Those were full-throated rallying cries of racism.

Once upon a time, there would have been legions of Republicans standing up to counter Trump’s dangerous tyranny and bigotry. During his presidential campaign in 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) silenced a supporter who insisted that opposing candidate Barack Obama was not born in the United States. But McCain has since been sidelined by debilitating brain cancer.

When President Richard Nixon tried to place himself above the law during the Watergate investigation, several high-ranking Republicans stood to defend the U.S. Constitution from his despotism. When Nixon tried to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than carry out the president’s tyrannical orders. (Nixon eventually found a lackey to do his bidding: Solicitor General Robert Bork.)

Where are the Republicans who would defy such an order from Trump? While Democrats have pushed for a bill to protect Mueller, GOPers have seemed less than eager to go along. Meanwhile, FBI Director Christopher Wray may find himself in Trump’s crosshairs for the crime of standing up to him on the Nunes memo.

If you are still waiting for the president to pay a price for his despotism, you will likely be disappointed. He remains popular among Republican voters; more than 80 percent approve of his performance, according to Gallup.

Historians are already debating whether Trump will eventually be judged the nation’s worst president. I have a more depressing question: Will he be our last?