Former President Richard Nixon:
A) Quit the office of the presidency too soon
B)Died too soon
C) Is somewhere in the afterlife kicking himself
D) All of the above
Fifty years ago this week ex-President of the United States Richard Nixon resigned from office in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
The episode, in which operatives for the president’s re-election campaign were busted for breaking into Democratic National Committee headquarters, was tied back directly to Nixon’s attempt to cover up the scandal.
It also caused a deep fissure in the country, with some equating the investigation into Nixon’s corrupt behavior as overblown and unmerited. A witch hunt, if you will.
His resignation and subsequent exit from public life, however, went a long way in allowing the country to move on, according to the press.
In an unusual front page editorial, The Chula Vista Star-News wrote:
“At last with his admissions of a few days earlier that he had indeed repeatedly lied about his knowledge of the Watergate cover up (and had in fact been personally instrumental in the attempt to obstruct justice) Richard Nixon had “brought us together”—not with him but against him. After that admission almost all Americans…agreed that he must leave office.”
Not long after his departure, as if to explain away his culpability Nixon infamously said, in essence: If a president does it, it’s not illegal.
Fifty years later the Supreme Court would seemingly agree with Nixon, writing that under certain circumstances a president does enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution.
However, they were writing with regard to a different president—Donald Trump—twice impeached, convicted of sexual assault, and fraud and who faces a litany of other federal charges. He also is awaiting sentencing in September while running in the 2024 presidential race. And in national polls currently leads his opponent by a slim margin.
In 1974, The Chula Vista Star-News wrote: “There should be no immunity from criminal prosecution for either Mr. Nixon or his henchmen and the same laws which apply to other citizens should apply to them.”
How times have changed.
