'Bigger than Watergate'

Richard Nixon's lies almost seem quaint

Thursday’s Newsrime

DJT’s million-plus mentions in the Epstein files

references to key advisors that add to the piles

But Attorney General tells Congress there’s nothing to see

Because 50,000 on the Dow and Wall Street’s on a spree

I was in high school when the Watergate hearings were broadcast. We would roll a television (ok, it was a different era) into our history class and watch it unfold live. This was a Congress serious about doing its job.

Today students learn about this history in class, too. I was looking through some of the materials that are taught and this is the first paragraph from the Levin Center’s curriculum:

The Senate investigation into the Watergate scandal is one of the best-known examples of congressional oversight. It is a story of how Members of Congress, despite differing parties, opinions, and political ambitions, ultimately came together at a time of crisis in the best interests of the country, showing what can be achieved when principles trump politics. The investigation led to the resignation of the president and legislation to strengthen transparency and accountability in presidential elections and in the operation of the federal government.

Watergate changed the country in so many ways, including language, “-gate became a suffix that could be added to any word to define a scandal. Watergate also changed politics: Republicans lost 49 seats in the next election and it took the rise of Ronald Reagan to restore balance between the two parties.

There is another lesson here. From the University of Virginia’s Miller Center:

Nixon's downfall, however, came not so much from lack of congressional support—though that was the proximate cause—as it did from what is undoubtedly history's most transparent look into of the presidency of the United States. Nixon's secret White House tapes, uncovered in the course of the Senate Watergate hearings, revealed the truth about the Nixon presidency—and about Nixon himself. As much as Americans may have wanted to believe the president when he told them that he wasn't involved in the Watergate cover-up, the tapes proved otherwise. Americans could not reconcile Nixon’s public statements with the private recordings, and many could reach only one conclusion: Their president had lied to them.

Nixon’s lies almost seem quaint. But now Americans have the data and it will be revealed bit by bit, day by day, and frame the debate. (And, I should add, the U.K., France, Poland, and other governments have this information and are already moving forward with their own investigations.)

When I read through the Epstein files, or the well-reported investigations, and even summaries, I struck by how this strikes at the very nature of who has been running this country. We need to think beyond crimes and examine the structures that made this impossible. Epstein and many of the men who are still around see themselves as untouchable. That cannot be.

Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vermont, yesterday asked Attorney General Bondi if the Justice Department had interviewed three senior Trump officials about their roles. No. They all said it’s fine and one (who has already admitted lying about his involvement) “addressed those ties himself.”

After yesterday it seems like the Department of Justice is spending more time investigating those who want answers, than potential co-conspirators.

Republican Tom Massie is the first who has described this scandal as ‘“bigger than Watergate.” Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna have been the moral voice for Congress, in the tradition of the Watergate committee. (Unlike the Judiciary Chair Jim Jourdan who did all he could to help Bondi at the hearing.) We have these documents now because Massie and Khanna would not back down.

“A funny thing about Bondi’s insults to members of Congress who had serious questions,” Massie wrote on X. “Staff literally gave her flash cards with individualized insults, but she couldn’t memorize them, so you can see her shuffle through them to find the flash-cards-insult that matches the member.”

Congress is clearly not ready to appoint another Watergate inquiry. But we will get there.

A few years ago, when I was editor of the editorial board at the Seattle P-I, we had a board meeting with Slade Gorton as a member of the 9/11 Commission. (It was the first time I ever had conversations with Gorton that were not about federal-Indian policy. Very different perspective.) Gorton made the case that the commission worked well because it was partisan. One Republican, one Democrat up and down the line. Perhaps because of that, the focus was on facts, and what steps the federal government could do to fix "failures of imagination, management, capabilities, and policy.”

We need facts now. And for damn sure we need a review about the failures of a criminal justice system that so favors the wealthy and powerful.

A Congressional Commission is not enough, but it’s a start. We clearly cannot trust the Department of Justice to investigate itself.