The conduct of the DOJ and media deserves a second look.
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If you are a baby boomer, you remember The Beatles, Henry Aaron hitting #715, and President Nixon resigning over Watergate. It was our soundtrack, as they like to say. It gave us words like "Nixonian" and "The Saturday Night Massacre" and Oval Office tapes. It turned the 37th president into an evil man, and everyone took a shot at him. Even the GOP took down his pictures at the party's convention.
As someone who admired President Nixon, bought and read all of his post presidency books, and volunteered as a student for his 1972 reelection campaign, I do believe that revisiting Watergate is a good idea. Maybe The Washington Post will end up returning that Pulitzer? Don't bet on that, but who knows?
What if Watergate was a hoax, as we say these days? Honestly, after watching Russiagate, the New York trials, and everything else, the idea is not so crazy. I'm not ready to call it a hoax yet, but I'm open to a conversation, as they say these days.
Well, some people think so, such as John D. O'Connor:
Many citizens today, with varied sources of information, understand the highly unethical lawfare waged against President Donald Trump, as exemplified by the Russiagate hoax. By contrast, the more restricted media environment of the early 1970s made prosecutorial misconduct during Watergate harder to scrutinize. With fresh eyes now taking a closer look at the reporting and prosecution of Watergate, it is becoming clear that DOJ investigators should sanction prosecutorial misconduct and set the historical record straight on Richard Nixon’s innocence.
As a refresher, Watergate refers to a political scandal stemming from the June 17, 1972, burglary of the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate building by burglars with known CIA ties. After two years of investigations, committee inquiries, and trials, over 40 government officials were convicted or jailed, and President Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office.
Recently, former Nixon aide and historian Geoff Shepard presented his case to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), arguing that the proceedings against Richard Nixon amounted to dishonest, partisan “lawfare” enabled by prosecutorial and Congressional misconduct. Hopefully, the OPR will follow up with a vigorous investigation and clear the record of this unfairly maligned former president.
Clear the record of this unfairly maligned former president? Yes, it's time for a second look at that whole story.
As the article points out:
Why, fifty years later, should we investigate any flaws in Nixon’s prosecution? Because key questions remain: 1) was the prosecution of Nixon and aides (with Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator) so clearly unethical that the OPR should conclude formally that the prosecution was fatally and unethically flawed;
and 2) were the Senate investigation and Majority Watergate Report false in material particulars, constituting a willfully false official Report to the public? In light of the attempted replay of Watergate and the Russiagate hoax, these questions are existential.
Bring it on. Maybe it's time to revisit that whole episode that consumed the country for years. I do recall people back then, such as a neighbor historian, saying that there was a lot of hypocrisy in these attacks against President Nixon. I do believe that the collapse of Vietnam and the betrayal of the Shah of Iran would have turned out differently if President Nixon had been in the Oval Office.
So, let's open up the case and hear more about this.
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