The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
The ongoing Jan. 6 committee hearings concern the most serious allegations of presidential wrongdoing since Watergate. They come almost exactly 50 years after the break-in that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. And they carry some striking similarities.
The details of the two scandals are very different. In essence, however, both reflected serious abuses of power by presidents with an inflated view of their authority.
The Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations preceding the invasion of the Capitol climaxed President Donald Trump’s weekslong propagation of unproven fraud claims and a series of failed efforts to pressure key state officials to reverse the results. Members of the House panel hope to determine to what extent Trump was directly responsible for the most serious assault on the nation’s democratic institutions since the Civil War, and to decide if there are grounds for the Justice Department to prosecute him.
As a journalist who wrote about the political aspects of both scandals I see one essential similarity and two basic differences. The similarity is that both involved presidents willing to go beyond the law to keep themselves in office.
Trump tried to persuade officials in key states to reverse Joe Biden’s popular vote victories. Failing that, he sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to reject Biden’s electoral vote triumph.
Both Nixon and Trump suggested there were no constitutional constraints on their presidential powers. “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal,” Nixon said in a post-presidential interview with David Frost. “I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump said in a 2019 speech.
The major difference is that, in the end, Nixon was an institutionalist who accepted the verdict of the courts and Congress. Trump refused to concede his 2020 defeat, contending without any factual basis that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in both his 2016 victory and 2020. Seventeen months after Congress affirmed Biden’s triumph, he still says it was rigged.
By accepting the verdict against him, Nixon enhanced public support for our governmental system. By making repeated unproven claims, Trump weakens it.
Perhaps the biggest difference is that today’s more partisan landscape protects a charged president.
In 1974, a crucial factor was that some Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats, allied ideologically with Nixon, acknowledged his guilt and withdrew their support. Facing the same prospect in the Senate, he resigned.
In today’s more partisan politics, Republicans face partywide pressure to back Trump publicly, regardless of any private doubts. After the House impeached him for his Jan. 6 role, all but seven GOP senators voted to acquit him.
Afterward, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, in essence, that Trump was guilty but that a former president couldn’t be impeached. Still, determining the facts remains important.
While reasons for the Watergate break-in remain hazy, subsequent probes answered Republican Sen. Howard Baker’s oft-repeated question: “What did the president know and when did he know it?” Hopefully, the current inquiry will answer the crucial Jan. 6 question: “What did the president do and when did he do it?”
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