There is much that can be compared to two presidents accused of influencing elections nearly half a century apart.
There are echoes of Nixon’s secret efforts to meddle in the 1972 election in Donald Trump’s very public effort to overthrow the 2020 election.
but this is not a case of history repeating itself. Trump’s efforts were arguably more outrageous and dangerous, threatening the peaceful transfer of power for the first time since the Civil War, when the Southern states seceded from the Union after Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 victory.
Jan. 6 Hearings Against Watergate Hearings
The Watergate hearings, on the other hand, laid the groundwork and helped uncover the Watergate conspiracy.
Almost drafted by a special Senate committee A year after White House-backed agents broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, the hearings caught the nation’s attention.
A senior Nixon whistleblower was involved in the Watergate hearings
Trump’s top aides refused to cooperate with the House inquiry on Jan. 6.
In contrast, Nixon’s White House Counsel, John Dean, turned against the President at the Watergate hearings, telling the world about a conspiracy being planned at the White House.
Watergate hearings set off a chain reaction
The Watergate hearings also revealed the existence of the now infamous tapes of Nixon’s White House talks, which ultimately corroborated Dean’s testimony.
Nixon’s efforts to keep these tapes from the public led to the “Saturday Night Massacre” in October 1973, in which the two top Justice Department officials resigned in protest.
What to expect from the Jan. 6 House hearings
It could be top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence making compelling testimony at this week’s Jan. 6 House hearings. Pence, who was presiding over the vote count on January 6, was attacked by rioters.
Senate Republicans have never turned against Trump like they have against Nixon
Nixon resigned because he lacked the power to impeach. Republican senators told him he had lost almost all of his support among Senate Republicans and would face impeachment if he didn’t resign.
“Mr. President, you have five votes. And one of those isn’t mine,” then-Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona told Nixon at the White House, according to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in the CNN documentary series.
More than a year later, most Republicans have stopped criticizing Trump.
The difference between then and now
Trump wields more absolute power over Republicans than Nixon, which is either a symptom of or a factor in the crippling power of partisanship in politics today.
This is perhaps the most important difference between the Watergate scandal and the January 6 investigation.
“What America and the world saw in 1974 was the most powerful man in the world losing his job,” he said Timothy Naftali, a New York University professor and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, says in the CNN documentary series. “And for anyone who doubted the strength of the US Constitution, what they saw removed those doubts.”
Trump survived the impeachment and did not resign. But he lost his job when voters threw him out. The question today is whether his refusal to accept this loss will raise new doubts about the strength of the constitution.
But the root of their sins is the same.
“Both crimes began by undermining the most fundamental element of democracy,” Bernstein said, “free and fair elections.”
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