1973 — Republicans in Congress, on President Richard Nixon‘s staff and in his cabinet protected him for months against press reports about the Watergate scandal. Much of this cover was provided unwittingly. But there came a time when they just couldn’t provide that cover any longer. The truth was slowly emerging, and these wingmen needed to start thinking of themselves.
Many were already doomed for a prison sentence, and those folks started thinking of how long that sentence might be. Deals to cooperate with investigations began being made because the president’s guilt had become too obvious and the crimes too severe. The crime that became the most damaging for the president was not the original crime but the attempted cover-up of it. And although the Watergate break in may have been unknown to him when it happened, Nixon put the crime in motion with his paranoid efforts to stop the leaks coming from within his own White House.
Does any of this sound like current events? You would think that for people whose lives revolve around politics, the lessons of American history would be informative and ever present. President Reagan was urged by fellow Republicans not to repeat Nixon’s mistakes when the Reagan administration was covering up their Iran-Contra scandal. Did he listen? No. And more members of Reagan’s administration ended up doing time in prison than did those of Nixon’s.
Now we have another over-sensitive, narcissistic, paranoid president in the White House. This one sports only a fraction of Nixon’s intellect. He also does not have anyone around him with the slightest bit of knowledge of how to govern. And they’re clearly taking no pointers from the colossal mistakes made in the last 45 years.
Nixon’s White House created a secret team to try to “fix the leaks” coming out of the administration. Although not the first crime committed by the aptly named “Plumbers“, the famous Watergate break in occurred in June of 1972. They got caught, and it was quickly discovered by Washington Post (WP) reporter Bob Woodward that some of those “plumber” burglars were ex-CIA and one of them was tied to a White House aide. As more dots were connected the WP published those connections throughout the summer, fall, and winter of 1972.
Republicans in Congress and within Nixon’s administration ridiculed these reports, calling it un-American to write such things about the presidency. The public went along with the Republican propaganda, and were fooled enough by Nixon’s “dirty tricks” perpetrated against Democrats during the election to re-elect Nixon in November, 1972.
Does THAT sound familiar?
The cover provided by Republicans finally began buckling on March 17, 1973 when Watergate burglar James McCord wrote a letter to a judge claiming that he perjured himself – under pressure – to say that the burglary was a CIA operation. In reality he knew it involved other government officials, thereby leading the investigation to the White House. A couple weeks later, on April 6, 1973, White House counsel John Dean began cooperating with federal Watergate prosecutors by slowly and clearly revealing truths tying the White House to the cover up and other crimes on national TV to an investigative committee.
That’s when the floodgates opened. The WP stories continued and kept getting closer to the truth. Then it was revealed that all conversations in the White House had been recorded on tape. Much like Trump refuses to release his tax returns – which likely contain the equivalent of the “smoking gun” Nixon tape – Nixon would not willingly give up those tapes. Those tapes were subpoenaed by the investigative committee.
By July of 1974 it looked nearly certain that Nixon would be found guilty in the impeachment charges put against him. He resigned on August 9th in order to avoid the impeachment.
General Michael T. Flynn, who was fired by the Trump administration only after it was reported he was working with Russian entities while on Trump’s transition team, has now made a deal with the FBI. More and more information has surfaced about illegalities Flynn was involved in, likely contributing to the reason Flynn made this deal. Is this the beginning of a floodgate similar to that which opened in the spring of 1973? Each day new revelations come out that seem to indicate it very well could be.
The White House appears to be hunkering down into a stubborn defense mode. Possible fall guys are surfacing. Obvious Trump-initiated distractions are occupying news coverage. But the FBI investigation continues below all that hum. We seem to be in 1973 now, and inevitably this will bring us into 1974.
Our country’s democratic experiment is again being tested. So far, our oversight capabilities with its checks and balances are causing the truth to overcome criminal coverup attempts – although perhaps too late and with not enough consequences for the offending parties. The timeline of the current scandal also seems to be moving much faster than the scandal of Watergate.
Our current scandal began before the 2016 election, and if the truth had come out before election day we would have a different president — possibly a different House and Senate as well. This time the American public is playing a huge role in how this scandal plays out. And this time we are all becoming very familiar with the notion that democracy is not a spectator sport.
