Think Lawfare Is New? It’s Not. It Was Used Against Nixon.

Lawfare is running wild this election cycle. It’s being used against candidates, advisors, members of Congress, judges, and others who in any way support Trump or his policies.

But is it really new? This article makes a good case that lawfare is a good way to understand what happened to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal in 1972 – 1974 that resulted in his being driven from office.

Some context is required. Nixon was elected in a close election in 1968 and then reelected in one of the greatest landslides in U.S. history in 1972. (Nixon carried 49 of the 50 states. Nixon’s opponent George McGovern carried only Massachusetts and Washington DC).

Nixon opened relations with China after a 25-year freeze, ended the Vietnam War (started by Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson) after ten years of combat and over 50,000 Americans killed, signed the Environmental Protection Act and created the Environmental Protection Agency, and was president when the first men landed on the moon. Nixon also negotiated the first nuclear arms limitation treaty with Russia (then the Soviet Union).

To this day, there is no evidence that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in in advance or had any hand in authorizing it. Once the break-in participants were arrested, the White House went into damage control mode.

There’s no doubt Nixon broke the law by authorizing payments to the burglars and their families. He was also aware of perjury by some of his aides. Still, these were not momentous crimes relative to what almost all of his predecessors had done. His acts could arguably be viewed as in the national interest to preserve what had been a successful administration in both domestic and foreign policy.

The scandal could have ended with some criminal trials of both campaign officials and some White House officials involved in the cover-up. But the FBI, liberal media, and Democrats were out for blood. Using leaks from Mark Felt (Deputy Director of the FBI also known as Deep Throat), friendly media outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post, and hearings in the Democrat- controlled Senate (summer of 1973) and House (summer of 1974), Nixon’s enemies raised the temperature and, in the end, made Nixon’s resignation almost inevitable due to the threat of impeachment.

Donald Trump has been through this and more; he has been impeached twice. The point is Trump should study the Watergate playbook to avoid some of Nixon’s mistakes and for guidance on how to stand up to the wolf pack behavior of the progressive media.

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