Watergate showed the way. Did we learn anything? Can we repeat the results of Watergate?
I was in college during the Watergate affair. Even then I was already a news freak, and I watched the whole process unfold on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite supported by a stable of quality reporters. It took a little over two and a half years from the Watergate break in to see Nixon being sent down the road in Marine One. The question is: as a nation are we capable of sending Trump to jail (or at least neutering him) for his crimes against We the People? Remember the quote by George Santayana: Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. So in that light, here are five points I want to make about Watergate.
1) The story could have been: some strange people, for reasons unknown, broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building - end of story. It was only through the Washington Post's investigative reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, their Editor Ben Bradley and the willingness of Katharine Graham, owner of the Post, to defy threats from Richard Nixon (sound familiar?), as well as reporting by Time Magazine and the New York Times, that the details and implications of the break in came to light. It was those news stories that started a series of investigations that eventually revealed a massive conspiracy and cover up, indictments, and ultimately Nixon's resignation. The tag line, "Follow the Money", is still around and it was that money trail that largely contributed to the unraveling of the whole Watergate affair (always a money trail).
2) The courts played their part in the process. Although a flawed character, federal judge John J. Sirica presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars. He did not believe that they acted alone and by using his judicial discretion persuaded James W. McCord Jr. to give up people in a much wider conspiracy. He also handed down a court order demanding that Nixon give up his secret White House recordings. Of course Nixon appealed all the way to the supreme court (sound familiar?) which found by 8 to 0 (William Rehnquist, a recent Nixon appointee, did the right thing and recused himself) that Nixon had to give up the tapes. The tapes put an end to Nixon's presidency.
3) The U.S. Congress stepped up to do their duty. First the U.S. House Judiciary Committee started investigations into the Watergate affair. Soon thereafter, in a display of true bipartisanship, the Senate voted of 77 to 0 to form the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, better known as the Watergate Committee. They held a series of televised hearings which I, and millions of other Americans watched, very often in rapt disbelief, as the perfidy of government officials became clear (sound familiar?). That committee was lead by Democrat Sam Irvin of North Carolina and Republican Howard Baker of Tennessee. It was through the testimony of John Dean, former White House Council, before the Committee that the depth and details of the scandal came to light for the American people. It was also through the testimony of Alexander Butterfield that the existence of the Nixon tapes was revealed.
4) Special Prosecutors also played a large part. Without going into details, after the resignation of Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, who had too many ties to too many dubious people, newly appointed Attorney General Elliot Richardson, in his first official act, appointed Archibald Cox as Special Prosecutor. After the existence of the tapes was revealed, Cox issued a subpoena for the tapes. Nixon ordered Cox to drop the subpoena. He refused. Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox. In a display of doing the ethical right thing, Richardson and Deputy AG William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than fire Cox. In the end Robert Bork (yes the same Bork the Senate refused to appoint to the Supreme Court) proved to be Nixon's toady and fired Cox. Leon Jaworski was appointed to Cox's post and he continued the investigation to its end.
5) In the end justice was served. In the final accounting, 69 indictments for a range of crimes were handed down which resulted in 48 convictions. Many of the convictions were for perjury and reached the highest echelons of the White House. Some of those perjury convictions included John Mitchell, former Attorney General and later head of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President; H.R. Halderman, former Nixon Chief of Staff; John Ehrlichman, former Attorney General and later Chief Domestic Advisor; John Dean former White House Council; Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, Maurice Stans, Jeb Magruder and Kenneth Parkinson, all former high up White House insiders; E Howard Hunt, G.Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. (who started naming names) the Watergate burglars; and a long list of underlings, apparatchiks, and dirty tricksters. THEY ALL WENT TO JAIL. Nixon should have gone to jail for obstruction, but his hand picked presidential appointee, Gerald Ford (long may he live in infamy) saved his bacon with a presidential pardon on the lame excuse that America had suffered enough and was incapable of seeing a former president in the dock.
I have gone through this long exposition to make the point that right and justice can win in the end. All that is required is for men and women of integrity and good will to do their jobs. I think that it is obvious that old fashioned integrity is hard to come by these days, but we can look to The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack and people like Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to see that there are people who are still willing to do the right thing (It should also be noted that Republicans Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott went to the White house and told Nixon that his time was up and he could either resign or have the House issue bipartisan Articles of Impeachment). The vast majority of courts have held fast against Trump. Jack Smith appears to be the right man at the right time and place. Many everyday Americans are giving their time and energy to sit on grand juries. Many good citizens, both Republican and Democrat have stepped up to give honest (it appears we do have some perjurers) testimony as to their knowledge of events. Call me naive, but I think in the end justice will prevail.
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In a two party system, both parties have to care about the rule of law and republicans just don't
