This old satirical article by Art Buchwald has been circulating recently. It gives some of the common retorts that Nixon-supporters would use when talking about Watergate. Some of them could be recycled today with no changes whatsoever.
Yeah, astorian seems to be a bit ahistorical here.
Watergate began with a break-in ordered by Nixon and Mitchell to find out what Larry O’Brien knew about a $100K cash payment from Howard Hughes to Bebe Rebozo. That break-in itself was not of “high crimes” stuff. The “high crimes” was the abuse of power involved with trying to cover that up, and in trying to cover-up the cover-up.
IF Trump actually was aware of and (even indirectly) complicit in his campaign colluding with a Russian hack of our election system then such is a much bigger initial event than the Watergate break-in itself was. If true it itself would have been treasonous, one of two explicitly named “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
But the bigger comparison will be what is (or is not) found about any abuse of power in covering it up, using the power of the office to attempt to obstruct justice. For their part Nixon and his crew knew that abusing power in that was was bad and parsed what they said accordingly. They were perhaps bad people but they weren’t stupid and they had some discipline. I’m not sure that Trump gets why he cannot as president just use the power of the office any damn way he wants to, and neither he nor his crew have either Nixonian smarts or discipline.
I suspect apologists then and now will use the same sorts of talking points. The issue more will be (depending on how the facts infold) how long it takes who to jump out of the apologist camp.
Trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice related to collusion with a hostile foreign nation (Russia). He has also betrayed Israeli intelligence by sharing their secrets with Russia.
The betrayal was stupid, not illegal.
And so far, there are a lot more accusations of wrongdoing than proof of anything illegal.
Trump is a sleazeball and an asshole who should never have been elected, but he WAS. The RUSSIANS DIDN’T MAKE HIM PRESIDENT!!! The American people did (the idiots).
So far, Trump has repeatedly proven I was right to vote for Evan McMullin. He has yet to do anything that warrants impeachment or use of the 25th Amendment.
Trump isn’t going anywhere. I’m as sorry about that as anyone. If you think he won’t serve out his term, you’re dreaming.
In the Nixon era, the Democrats controlled the Supreme Court and both houses of government. Nixon was outright crooked and it was painfully obvious. It appears a number of his own republicans wouldn’t stand behind him.
Fast forward to today, and Republicans control the Court, and the government houses and further, Trump’s crookedness is viewed by many as a “shrewd businessman” and not nearly so obvious as Nixon.
IMHO, Trump will skate through all this but likely remains a controversial figure for as long as he remains president.
That is likely true (although there is possible obstruction of justice, which would be illegal, the amount seen so far would likely not rise to a “high crimes” level).
But of course there was no proof of Nixon’s wrongdoing until the tapes were finally released. There is certainly cause for serious investigation.
If serious investigation finds no evidence of abuse of power by him in the process of attempting to cover-up wrongdoing by either himself or of his crew and no evidence of his participation with colluding with an attempted Russian hack of our election then you are completely correct. But note: whether or not the attempted hack had any measurable or significant impact is immaterial to whether or not colluding with the attempt was treasonous.
Of course what gets defined as “high crimes and misdemeanors” is up to the House. It would have to be worse than Watergate for the current House to declare something as impeachable. Of course who knows how long this process will take and if past midterms what the House will look like by then. Maybe more GOP. Maybe flipped. Who knows?