Matthew T. Mangino,
GateHouse Media
May 14, 2017
On the night President Donald Trump announced that he had
fired FBI Director James B. Comey, David Ignatious, a columnist with the
Washington Post, wrote “[A] prominent Republican politician gave me this
simple, blunt assessment of the Trump White House: ’These guys scare me.’”
Forty-five years ago this country was in the midst of one of
the scariest times in American history. President Gerald Ford referred to
Watergate as “our long national nightmare” after assuming the presidency in the
wake of Richard Nixon’s resignation.
In many ways, Russiagate and President Trump’s efforts to
derail its investigation are far scarier than Nixon and the White House
Plumbers.
For starters, there was resistance within Nixon’s own
administration. The “Saturday Night Massacre” — the firing of special Watergate
prosecutor Archibald Cox — was initially defied by the Department of Justice.
Trump’s firing of Comey has been compared to Nixon’s
conduct. To compare the two events is to do a disservice to the top two
Nixon-era justice officials and to elevate the top two current Justice
officials to a level of unwarranted integrity and independence.
In 1973, President Nixon demanded the Department of Justice
fire Cox for refusing to obey the president’s order to abandon his demand for
the “White House tapes.” Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather
than dismiss Cox.
When Nixon turned to Deputy Attorney General William
Ruckelshaus to fire Cox, Ruckelshaus chose to resign as well. Finally, the
Solicitor General Robert Bork carried out the president’s demand.
The New York Times reported that President Trump asked Comey
in January to pledge loyalty to him and that Comey refused to do so. According
to sources, the director pledged honesty and independence. Although a highly
unusual request of an official investigating a president’s administration —
apparently, neither response was adequate.
When Trump “decided” to fire Comey — the man investigating
his administration’s ties to Russia and possible collusion between the Trump
Campaign and Russia to turn the election — not only did the Justice Department
not bulk, senior Justice officials aided and abetted the president.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein met with Trump before
the firing, where, according to the Wall Street Journal, they discussed
Director Comey’s job performance. At the White House’s request, Rosenstein
wrote a memo to the president detailing his concerns about the director’s
conduct.
The 12-paragraph letter was deeply critical of Comey’s
handling of an investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use
of a private email server to conduct public business. Rosenstein concluded that
the FBI had lost the public’s trust and that “the director cannot be expected
to implement corrective action.” The president’s termination letter to Comey
refers to the memo.
As for the top man at Justice, Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, the concerns are even greater. Sessions admitted that he consulted
with the president as he made the decision to terminate Comey. Trump admitted
that the Russia investigation was a consideration in his decision. However,
Sessions had recused himself from the Russia probe and all matters relating to
the 2016 campaign, including the investigation into Clinton’s emails — the
“primary” factor is Comey’s firing.
“Refusing to recuse oneself from a conflict or breaking the
promise to recuse from a conflict is a serious breach of legal ethics,” conservative
Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin wrote. “He [Sessions] needs to testify
immediately under oath; if there is no satisfactory explanation, he must
resign.”
Nixon covered up a bungled break-in at the Democrat National
Committee headquarters and it cost him the presidency. President Trump may well
have attempted to obstruct the investigation into his administration’s ties to
a major foreign power and his campaign’s possible collusion with that power.
How will Russiagate end for him?
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
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