Trump is mirroring Nixon's final days

[DonViejo]

But unlike in 1973, it's unclear whether Republicans in Congress will hold him to account.

By David Greenberg May 10 at 1:23 AM

David Greenberg is a history professor at Rutgers University.

For more than 40 years, virtually every major scandal in American politics has been likened to Watergate. But no presidential deed — not Ronald Reagan’s trading of arms for hostages in Iran-contra, not Bill Clinton’s cover-up of his affair with a young White House aide in the Monica Lewinsky affair — ever rivaled any of Richard Nixon’s serial abuses of executive power in their gravity.

Until now.

President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey — who was overseeing the probe of the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election — was technically legal, since the president acted within his official authority. But it plainly violates the democratic norms that have long governed the use of presidential power, and bears Nixonian overtones. With Trump mirroring Nixon’s brazen high-handedness, the most pressing question is whether Republicans in Congress will muster the same courage and integrity Republicans did after Watergate.

Comey’s unceremonious firing brings to mind the Saturday Night Massacre of October 1973, when Nixon ordered the sacking of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who was pursuing Watergate, and who was demanding to hear the secret White House recordings that might contain evidence of Nixon’s role in the scandal. On that fateful night, the top two Justice Department officials, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, resigned rather than carry out Nixon’s orders. Solicitor General Robert Bork finally fired Cox, and days later abolished the special prosecutor’s office altogether.

Nixon’s actions then were also technically legal. But as everyone could see, they constituted a blatant attempt to snuff out an investigation that was closing in on him. In that sense, the parallels with Trump’s firing of Comey seem striking.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/10/trump-is-mirroring-nixons-final-days/?tid=pm_opinions_pop&utm_term=.02470a5f5f71

[FSogol]

1. He probably mirroring Howard Hughes final days too, we just haven't heard about it yet.

[Scarsdale]

3. If only

we could be sure the orange lump really IS facing his final days in office. It did not take long for this repub. president to completely screw up EVERYTHING, making the US a laughingstock for installing this joke into the WH. The laughter can stop now, this is too serious for jokes. The only good thing I can think of after this fiasco is that the gop OWNS this tRump mess.

[pdxflyboy]

2. Unfortunately

It's probably more like his final months, or even years. Wish we were close to his final days.

[Orsino]

4. Minus, the charm and savvy. n/t