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Cosby's attorney says he is worried about Cosby's healthTop political storiesbegin quote from:Zelizer: We're in a Watergate kind of mess |
45 years after Watergate, we're back in the same kind of mess
Trump won't stop tweeting amid Russia probe 02:27
Story highlights
- This weekend is the 45th anniversary of the break-in to the Democratic national headquarters that started the Watergate scandal
- Julian Zelizer writes that the nation finds itself once again in an explosive situation revolving around the potential abuse of power by a commander in chief
Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University and a CNN political analyst, is the author of "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society." He's co-host of the "Politics & Polls" podcast. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN)Forty-five
years after the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic national
headquarters that started the Watergate scandal, the nation finds itself
once again in an explosive situation revolving around the potential
abuse of power by a commander in chief.
President
Trump is creating a dangerous atmosphere in Washington. The underlying
scandal in Watergate involved the break-in of the Democratic
headquarters. We still don't know if there was collusion between the
Russians and the Trump campaign -- though if this did happen, Watergate
would feel like small potatoes.
The
big similarity, however, is that the effort by the President to stifle
the investigation is blowing up into the largest problem of all.
With
the President's anguished tweets and the statements of Trump associates
like Christopher Ruddy and Roger Stone, the special counsel's
investigative task becomes more difficult day by day. This is a
dangerous state of affairs, because special counsel Robert Mueller is
not fully independent of the administration.
Once
Congress allowed the law which provided for creating a special
prosecutor to expire in in 1999, the US no longer had an independent,
nonpartisan person who could investigate executive branch conduct.
In
order to avert another "Saturday Night Massacre," the infamous moment
when President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of special prosecutor
Archibald Cox, who was looking into the Watergate scandal, we now depend
on the expectation that presidents will allow investigations into
wrongdoing to take place unimpeded.
While
presidents have considerable leeway to attack legislators who are
holding hearings, it is vital that the Justice Department, the FBI and
appointed special counsel don't feel threatened as they attempt to find
out whether something illegal has taken place.
President
Trump is not fulfilling this expectation. There is ample evidence, some
taking place right before our eyes, that he is pressuring and
intimidating government officials whose jobs still depend on his good
graces.
The intimidation began with
former FBI Director James Comey. While President Trump and his
supporters have gone to great lengths to downplay Comey's claims that he
felt the President was placing improper pressure on him to stop looking
into all things Russia, for many observers the defense doesn't really
pass the smell test.
Russia investigation takes new twists 05:54
After
all, the fact that Comey felt so uncomfortable being alone with
President Trump is already evidence that something was wrong. Though the
President's defenders say that the word Comey said Trump used -- "hope"
-- in expressing a desire for the Michael Flynn investigation to end
doesn't really mean much, in this context, and said to someone who
served at the wishes of the President, the signal seems pretty clear.
This
is particularly true since the story culminated with the President
actually firing Comey. After the initial excuse that the decision came
because of how he handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation, the
President then admitted on television that he did this to stop the
"Russia thing" and then told the Russians behind closed doors he was
relieved to have the pressure of the investigation off his back.
Trump's
next target has been Mueller, the former FBI director and special
counsel who has been expanding his investigation into the 2016 campaign
and into obstruction of justice.
Mueller,
who is not totally independent of the President, either, has been the
subject of attack. President Trump's close friend, Christopher Ruddy,
sent out an ominous message when he suggested the President was
considering firing him.
The White
House distanced itself from the notion in the face of a backlash, but
many observers suspect Ruddy was delivering a message straight from the
Oval Office.
And one day after the
horrendous shooting directed at Republican congressmen playing
baseball, the President could not contain himself and blasted out a
tweet about the "single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political
history --led by some very bad and conflicted people."
Friday,
the next Trump victim was yet another appointee, Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein. "I am being investigated for firing the FBI
Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."
Now admitting that he was the subject of an investigation, Trump's tweet
will send a strong message to Rosenstein, who has to balance overseeing
the investigation with his boss lashing out about what he is doing.
President
Trump shouldn't be wondering why there is an investigation into the
obstruction of justice. Some might say he is obstructing justice right
in front of our eyes.
The
comparisons to President Clinton's attacks on Kenneth Starr and to
Reagan administration officials who criticized Lawrence Walsh miss the
fact that both of those prosecutors were independent under the 1978
Ethics Law, which no longer exists.
Now
we are back to where we were in the dark days of 1973, and President
Trump is flexing his muscle in way that even President Richard Nixon
would have been hesitant to do.
The
officials responsible for determining if the President and his advisers
abided by the law must work every day knowing that their future might
be on the chopping block if they carry out their responsibilities.
All
of this goes on because the Republicans in Congress remain quiet. The
press and congressional Democrats have been pretty forceful in saying
that something is going very wrong. Republicans in Congress, however,
have generally focused on leaks from the investigation and justification
for why Trump might have just been careless or naive rather than what
is right before their eyes.
It's
time for some profiles in courage on Capitol Hill. Regardless of whether
Republicans believe that the President or his associates are guilty of
anything, there must be some who understand why a legitimate
investigation is vital.
Without
such an investigation, the President, ironically, will never be able to
clear his name. We have reached the point where our democratic
institutions are now in dire need of bipartisan demands for
accountability, with members focusing on the national interest above
anything else.
When prosecutors and
Congress looked into what happened in the Watergate break-in, President
Nixon's response was ultimately what brought him down. With each tweet
and tirade, President Trump might very well be following in his
footsteps.
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