Until very recently the consensus among historians and political observers was that President Richard M. Nixon was the most corrupt president in American history. There were other scandals, of course, many of them quite serious. But none of them featured the same crude, gangster quality of the Watergate scandal, the details of which shocked and appalled the American people when they were uncovered. The public learned that the president of the United States acted like a common thug in private, issuing orders to his enforcers in language closer to that used by the mobsters featured in the recent hit movie “The Godfather” than the dignified leader of the free world.
He was an amateur compared to Donald Trump.
Everyone knew that Nixon was a sour type, who liked to whine that he had always been treated unfairly but people obviously overlooked that personality flaw. He had, after all, just won one of the biggest landslide victories in electoral history and had more or less succeeded in ending America’s involvement in the Vietnam war, the most important issue of the time. Nixon, however, was consumed with resentment at his perceived enemies about whom he nurtured a long list of grievances. He was obsessed with punishing them and perceived the presidency as his vehicle for doing so.
In June of 1973, John Dean, the former White House Counsel, testified before the Senate Watergate Committee for a solid week. And he revealed the existence of a formal Enemies List, that included reporters, actors, business leaders, political rivals, Democratic donors and more. which he had compiled for the president the purpose of which was explicitly “to use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”
He saw no limits on presidential power. He wiretapped reporters, weaponized the IRS and infiltrated groups like the student movement and the Black Panthers. At one point he’d even wiretapped his own National Security Council to find leakers and as everyone later learned he had even formed a secret group called “the Plumbers” that was tasked to do criminal wet work like burglaries, members of which were among those caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate setting in motion his eventual downfall.
Much as President Trump was stopped by the proverbial “guardrails” in his first term, Nixon was thwarted in some of his worst nefarious plans by career bureaucrats and members of his administration who refused to follow through on his orders. Attorney General Elliott Richardson along with his deputy William Ruckelshaus ended up resigning when Nixon ordered them to fire the Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who was investigating the Watergate cover-up. In another pivotal moment it had been revealed in testimony that Nixon had been taping his conversations and Cox demanded that Nixon turn them over. The president eventually found someone who would fire him, but the die was cast.
Another Nixon administration scandal had unfolded during this period that would have been huge if it weren’t for the fact that the president was enmeshed in an even bigger one. The Vice President, Spiro Agnew, had been found to have been taking bribes for government contracts in the form of envelopes full of cash as Vice President of the United States. He was forced to resign and was let off with a minor fine despite the fact that such clear cut criminal behavior would have cost anyone else jail time.
The corruption and abuse of power was overwhelming. Nixon had started out his second term with an impressive electoral mandate and a 68% approval rating. But as the scandal deepened and at each of those pivot points it sank dramatically, dropping all the way to 24% on the day he left office. The American people were shocked by Nixon and his accomplices’ behavior and they wanted him out.
This is an old familiar story but it’s worth looking at it again as we contemplate a couple of events that unfolded over the weekend. We all know the litany of President Trump’s abuse of power in this second term, much of which is still being litigated. It is pervasive across virtually every aspect of American society at this point and even more blatant than Nixon’s who at least had the good graces to try to keep it under wraps.
On Saturday Trump published a very odd post on Truth Social. It was addressed specifically to “Pam”, as if it was meant to be a text or a direct message to Attorney General Pam Bondi that he had mistakenly posted publicly. (He’s done that before.) His own staff wasn’t sure if he had meant it to be published. It was quickly deleted and then promptly reposted, likely because they realized it had already been distributed all over the internet because it was essentially an order to get cracking on prosecuting the enemies on his list. “They’re all guilty as hell but nothing is going to be done,” he proclaimed.
He complained about the Virginia US Attorney who said he couldn’t find the evidence to get a conviction against Trump’s arch enemy NY York Attorney General Letitia James, declaring “There is a GREAT CASE,” and “I fired him, he didn’t quit.” His intentions could be clearer:
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility, they impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT.”
Nixon may have been paranoid but at least he didn’t sound like a petulant teenager.
Also on Saturday MSNBC’s Carol Leonig and Ken Dilanian reported that “Deportation Czar” Tom Homan was caught red handed by FBI agents accepting a paper bag filled with a $50,000 cash bribe in exchange for contracts, exactly the same crime that sent Spiro Agnew packing. They even have it on tape. But instead of prosecuting him or even forcing him to resign, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel dropped the case and Homan is evidently completely secure in his job.
When people heard about Nixon’s crimes the Republicans in Congress abandoned him and the courts ruled against him. He was forced to resign. But Trump went farther than Nixon ever contemplated when he incited an insurrection to overturn the election he lost in 2020, and he was rewarded with a triumphant return to the White House four years later. Now he’s literally committing the same crimes and his people are gladly carrying them out with the full support of his party.
One of the big questions has always been whether President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon did more harm than good. Its seems clear today that it did. It opened the door to what was possible if only you could maintain partisan political support in the Congress and had a compliant media. Today we know that despite the efforts of some reformers in the Congress to rein in future presidents after Watergate they relied on good faith adherence to norms and rules and it clearly wasn’t enough. That open door was just waiting for someone like Donald Trump to walk through it and this time it’s just business as usual.