Watergate
Forty-eight years ago today, Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, announced his resignation from office. After two long years of investigations, Congressional hearings, court cases, protests and counter-protests; Nixon finally took the “easy” way out. He resigned, not saying he did anything wrong, but that he didn’t have support of Congress to continue his fight.
I was seventeen at the time. The Watergate crisis had subsumed my life since the first Congressional hearings in the spring and summer of 1973. I was convinced that Richard Nixon led a conspiracy. He hid the felonies his campaign committed with his full knowledge. I was right. He disgraced the Presidency, and he had to go. I fully expected to spend the next six months, my freshman year in college, watching the second impeachment and removal of a President .
Nixon
So his speech on that August night wasn’t a total surprise. The actual “news” was leaked earlier in the day. But it was a pleasant acceleration of justice. The “long national nightmare” of Watergate, as the incoming President Ford called it, was over. The United States could focus on something else. I “raised a glass” that night, to the final triumph of American justice. (Yes, I was underaged – it was champagne, and you can consider this a confession).
A few weeks later, Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he might have committed, from Watergate to income tax evasion. I was outraged. If we are all equal in the eyes of the law, justice “blind” to status; then Nixon deserved to be “in the dock”. He should suffer the same fate as his Attorney General, his Chief of Staff and his Domestic Affairs Advisor. He should go to jail. Later on, I better understood Ford’s reasoning. He hoped .to end the focus on Watergate, and avoid the spectacle of a former President on trial.
Precedent
That was before Donald Trump. Looking back over those forty-eight years, my entire adult life, I now see that Ford inadvertently established a precedent. He established that American justice will not be applied to those that reach the highest office in the land. Of the forty-five men who have held that office (Grover Cleveland counts twice since he served two different terms), there really hasn’t been a concern about their possible criminality. That is, except for Nixon, who was pardoned. And now, except for Trump, who has weaponized and transformed the Republican Party to serve as his defense.
Yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at Mara Lago, the home of the former President, Donald Trump. The warrant was to search for papers improperly removed from the White House, in violation of the Federal Records Act and national security statutes. At least, that’s what we know so far. But this unprecedented search, after more than a year of negotiations among Trump’s attorneys, the National Archives and the Department of Justice; can’t possibly just be about old menus, draft speeches, and a letter from Kim Jong-Un.
Trump himself wasn’t there. He was in New York, preparing for a deposition with the New York Attorney General about possible civil law violations and his real estate transactions. The FBI sent “plain clothes” agents, and notified Trump’s Secret Service detail of the warrant. But Trump, with his usual hyperbole, claimed that the FBI was “laying siege” to Mara Lago, and illegally exercising a political vendetta.
Investigations
The New York Times reports that there was an index one hundred pages long of unclassified documents improperly removed from the White House. More importantly, there was a second index, three pages long, of classified documents. Perhaps the value of some of those classified documents is so great, and the former President’s position so intransigent, that the only choice was to go and physically get them.
That we know of, Donald Trump is under investigation by a Federal Grand Jury in Washington regarding the insurrection, another Grand Jury dealing with violations of the Records and National Security Acts, a state Grand Jury in Atlanta for election interference, and a state Grand Jury in New York for fraudulent financial dealings. And of course, the January 6th Committee continues to investigate, as well. Documents legally seized by the FBI in their search aren’t just restricted to any one of those investigations. If they are relevant, they can be shared.
Proof
Executing a search warrant is not “proof” of anything. But this warrant, a warrant to search the home of this former President, must have been the most carefully scrutinized document ever produced by the Department of Justice. It would have been cleared all the way to the Attorney General. It was signed off by a Federal Judge, who agreed that there was probable cause that evidence of a crime was present at the home. Every one of those officials involved knew exactly the momentous and unprecedented decision they were making. They all knew that, as Roger Stone would say, they would have “their time in the barrel” for this. Whatever they were searching for, they were damn well sure it was there, in Mara Lago.
The defense has already begun. Kevin McCarthy is threatening Attorney General Garland with Congressional investigation if the Republicans regain power next year. Even Fox News, who were distancing themselves from Trump, led their website with story after story of Republican outrage. Only deep down in the list was a sole former FBI Special Agent in Charge, saying that there was no way the entire system was politicized, or corrupted.
So I fully expect another year or more of spectacle, and even the possibility of Donald Trump himself on trial. Unlike Watergate, there seems to be no other way for our nation to get beyond our “long nightmare” of Trumpism, and focus on something else. But meanwhile, last night, I raised a glass once again. It was legal, this time, and it was beer. For this minute, Justice remains blind to status, and we are all equal in the eyes of the law, even a former President.
