People are getting excited about how the firing of Comey accelerates the trump scandal toward his being held accountable. I need to pour a bucket of cold water for now. Recapping Watergate:
Watergate was part of a broad culture of abuse of power in the Nixon presidency. Some details are still unclear, but it involved people committing crimes Nixon wanted committed — the “plumbers” as the unit was formed in response to leaks Nixon was upset about and wanted them to investigate with actions such as break-ins.
These people were caught red-handed during a break-in, and had White House telephone contact information.
Despite this, with Watergate already starting to be reported before the presidential election, Nixon won re-election from 49 states.
The investigation took years. Something to remember.
And those years were WITH the senior FBI official Mark Felt secretly acting as a source to confirm their findings — Deep Throat — to Woodward and Bernstein on the investigation.
Let’s remember that Nixon NEARLY prevented the FBI investigation entirely by having the CIA say it was national security — prevented only by the CIA’s refusal to do his bidding.
We don’t have that. We have the FBI Director investigating removed.
Watergate had a special prosecutor. We don’t.
And let’s remember how nothing was coming to remove Nixon we could see until the extraordindry development that he happened to tape himself in the coverup.
We can’t count on that again.
And finally, let’s remember that when the committee voted on the articles of impeachment, most Republicans voted no — the only reason Nixon faced impeachment was Democrats having control.
Republicans are in control of Congress now and backing trump;
So, we’re a very far way from any sort of ‘Watergate type trump is gone’ development here.
I’ve long said people should understand how nearly Nixon almost got away with it, and accountability is a long shot, not at all something to count on.
A lot is needed to hold trump accountable that’s not in place now. People being upset about Comey’s firing will not get the investigation completed.
Perhaps it was far enough along that Comey can offer valuable information in closed sessions.
Luckily, there might be some equivalent to the tapes — the recordings by the intelligence community that captured conversations, which can force and help succeed further investigation.
