In everything from casual statements and tweets to formal court filings, Donald Trump himself — along with his staff and supporters — has been reframing the Watergate story
White House tapes . Yes, lawmakers can see a “road map” of the evidence Watergate prosecutors presented to the grand jury . Yes, Nixon’s aides will testify .
In November, Trump’s lawyers were specifically pressed on the 1974 “road map” ruling as they argued against letting lawmakers see the evidence Mueller presented to the grand jury. They argued the 1974 case would have a “different result” if heard today, citing changes in the laws.
Yet the Trump team’s arguments reflect a broader suspicion in conservative legal circles of the famous Watergate-era legal decisions. Some conservative legal scholars argue that while the rulings may have felt morally righteous at the time — Nixon shouldn’t hide incriminating tapes from the Justice Department; Congress should see damning evidence — they aren’t necessarily legally sound.
“That was a huge step with implications to this day that most people do not appreciate sufficiently,”Kavanaugh, years before Trump would appoint him to the Supreme Court. “Maybe the tension of the time led to an erroneous decision.” It’s a concept that fell out of favor after Watergate, when such a muscular presidency was known more derisively as “The Imperial Presidency.”
At times, he seemed to address the 37th president as a kindred spirit for having endured a similar experience. Other times, Trump compared himself favorably to Nixon. Trump did not excuse Nixon’s behavior, but he did not directly indict the resigned president, either, hedging about the pardoned president’s culpability and alluding to the difficulties the country faced.
A few months later, phoning into “Fox & Friends,” Trump offered one lesson learned from studying Watergate., a reference to Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre, in which the top two Justice Department leaders resigned rather than carry out Nixon’s orders to fire the Watergate special prosecutor. Despite persistent rumors, Trump never fired his own special counsel, Robert Mueller, even if Mueller uncovered evidence that the president had tried to do“No. 1, he may have been guilty, and No.
Implicitly, however, Trump’s words also cast Nixon in a new light. Nixon is no longer a man whose corrupt behavior left him with no choice — resign or be fired. Instead, Trump frames Nixon as a man who prematurely walked off the battlefield.It’s an attitude, Gerhardt added, that pervades Trump’s entire team: “You can hear it in his lawyers’ arguments during the impeachment trial — and since.”It’s been nearly five decades since the break-in at the Watergate that started it all.
“You had this widespread feeling in the 1970s,” he added, “that really there was rot at the core of the apple.” In the decades since Watergate, many of the 1970s good-government statutes have been rolled back. The independent counsel statute expired in 1999. Court rulings eroded campaign financing restrictions. Surveillance soared after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump fired numerous inspectors general with no legal ramification. And when it came time to investigate Trump and his campaign, it was up to the attorney general to appoint a special counsel — exactly what Holtzman wanted to avoid.
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