After the Watergate hearings captured the nation's attention, history is seemingly repeating itself as Congress presents the American public with a trove of evidence and bombshell testimony in order to prove a Republican president's guilt.
There is a break-in at the Democratic National Committee and an insurrection at the US Capitol. The lead characters are both political and desperate to stay in power.
The congressional hearings related to the political crises have some similarities.
Ken Hughes is a historian and Watergate expert at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
The interview has been edited to make it clearer.
Have you noticed any similarities between these hearings and the Watergate hearings?
I think the two sets of hearings have the same things in common. The majority of the people agree that the president was guilty of wrongdoing. Back during the Nixon administration, the right still believes that this is just liberal bias in the media. In the 70's, that was the case. I believe it is the case now.
People have commented on the outcomes. Nixon thought he had to leave. There is more of a geographical difference.
Are you talking about where people are divided within the country?
Yes, that's right. When Nixon was president, a lot of Republicans in the House and Senate were worried that they would have to be accountable to the majority in order to keep their jobs. In some states, Democrats and Republicans were both competitive in congressional districts. Congressional Republicans supported the Republican president because they would lose the support of Republican voters if they supported another party. They wouldn't be taken lightly. They would lose their jobs if they got challenged by the right. If they don't support Trump, most congressional Republicans find themselves in that situation. They will lose their jobs if they don't support the president.
Congressional Republicans had to worry about losing their jobs if they got past their primaries because the majority would vote them out of office if they supported President Nixon.
gerrymandered congressional districts insulates the Republicans from the majority in Congress today. If they keep a majority of the right on their side, they can keep their jobs. They have to stick with Donald Trump in order to keep the majority of the right.
The mechanisms that were used to keep a president from abusing power are not working anymore. The right wing of American politics believes it can take control of the White House through a majority in the electoral college. It is possible to gain control of the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court without winning a majority of the voters. Democracy can fail and that puts us in a dangerous position.
One of the ways in which the January 6 hearings have been similar to the Watergate hearings is that they succeeded in convincing a portion of the population that the president was guilty. Heading into the hearings, was the country divided on whether Nixon should be blamed? The hearings may have done most of the work in convincing people of that.
The Watergate break-in in 1972 was considered serious by Americans. They condemned the break into the opposing party's headquarters, but they didn't think Richard Nixon was involved. They were correct. I believe Nixon did not know about the break-in. He discovered that the people who organized the break-in were the people he hired a year before.
Nixon was worried that it would come to light. Nixon wanted to protect himself. If the FBI had an unimpeded investigation of Hunt and Liddy, it would lead to a crime that Nixon committed when he put together the group that was known as the Plumbers in order to break into Brookings and do other political tasks, both illegal and legal. That was a crime when he created the plumbing company. It was a crime that anyone could comprehend. It was not like obstruction of justice. It wasn't complicated.
The abuses of power began to come to light when the Watergate hearings began in 1973. The people who were involved in the Nixon administration testified about their activities. In the 70's and 80's, it became clear to most people that Nixon had abused the powers of his office.
The fact that the people testifying worked in the White House is similar to what we see with these hearings. Most of the time they would vote for him again. It's very convincing that the evidence comes from Republicans. If your own man says so. The Republicans admitted what was going on. The importance of Republican testimony to establish the guilt of a Republican president is similar to what happened in Watergate.
What differences were there between Nixon and Trump in their responses to the investigations?
Nixon was able to hide what Trump couldn't. Nixon was a very smart politician. He wanted to be the president since he was a child. He was very focused. He was a strategic thinker. Trump has a lot of political strengths. He connects with the Republican base through his charisma. He makes a strong emotional appeal to a small group of voters.
Nixon was a better politician. The country could be realigned from one where the Democrats had a kind of coalition. Donald Trump is a poor candidate. He can't get a majority. He divides the majority against him. He doesn't have the discipline of a Republican who is running for public office. He has a strong connection to the Republican base, but he isn't able to reach out to other parts of the population.
How did Nixon's Congress affect the hearings? Are there any parallels to be drawn between Trump and the congress we are seeing now?
The Democratic Congress was in charge in both instances. It was a house of Democrats. The January 6 committee's majority was Democratic just as the Watergate committee's majority was Democratic. Republicans were involved in the investigations. They wanted to show the public that they were serious about taking law-breaking seriously. They depended on their jobs to get the American center to agree with them. The center wasn't interested in electing Republicans. The center wanted to preserve democracy and have an honest government. The Congressional Republicans are mostly accountable to their base. Most of them are not accountable to the people.
In the 70s, we didn't see the kind of animosity from the Republican lawmakers that we see today, where most of them didn't want anything to do with the investigation.
It's right. The Republicans in Congress realized in the 70's that they had to act like they were willing to hold the president accountable even if they didn't want to. They took some actions. They supported subpoenaing the tapes. It was important that they did that. Back then, congressional Republicans had to focus on appealing to the middle in order to win the election. Democrats would take their jobs if the situation was different.
Most congressional Republicans don't have to worry about that anymore. If they hold onto their base, that's all they care about. There is a situation where a very large minority can gain control of the majority of offices in both houses of Congress, without ever getting a majority of the popular vote, and can also gain a majority on the Supreme Court.
The Watergate hearings took place while Nixon was in office, but they are taking place after Trump's victory. How did that affect the situation?
People used to only talk about it. It was not the same media environment as it is today. There were only three networks on TV. The details of Nixon's abuses of power became very familiar when they began givingl-to-gavel coverage. People couldn't ignore it.
It's difficult to get people's attention because we have so many alternatives. The January 6 committee has done an excellent job of giving focused hearings and presentations of information, and making sure that it isn't just telling a story. It allows people to see and hear what was being said and written in secret at the time. Despite the structural handicaps, I think they are doing a good job of getting the attention of the public.
Why did Nixon make the decision to step down? There was no sense of shame or desire to do the right thing. Did he just accept his fate?
He wouldn't have left office if he could. He needed the support of at least a few congressional Republicans. The release of the "Smoking Gun" tape in August 1974 caused congressional Republicans to realize that their primary was behind them. They don't have to worry about losing their jobs anymore. They were worried about losing their jobs in November because the middle and the left were convinced that Nixon was guilty. Nixon was told by congressional Republicans that he would be impeached. We don't know if you'll get 34 votes in a Senate trial. We don't know if you'll get 20.
When it comes to the impact of the hearings, how are they remembered? They set a legacy.
The hearings had a positive effect. The positive impact was that people realized that even the most powerful public official in America can be held accountable to the law and must comply with subpoenas. During the Watergate hearings, the Supreme Court ruled that President Nixon had to turn over evidence. In the history of our democracy, that was an important moment. Without that evidence, Nixon wouldn't have been able to finish his second term. People might not have believed in Nixon's guilt without those tapes.
The way Watergate played out and the way the Watergate hearings were conducted showed that our democracy is vulnerable to abuses of power by unethical presidents. It is possible for a president to abuse power and get away with it for a long time, even though it is possible to hold a president accountable. In order for Nixon to be held accountable, a lot of things had to come together. You had heroic efforts by journalists, by the Judiciary, which asserted and demonstrated its independence as its own branch of government, and by members of Congress who had a lot to lose by taking on a president.
The right wing of the political party refused to accept the evidence of their senses. They believed that the Republican president was the victim of liberal media bias. They believed in conspiracy theories. We expect that to continue today. Congress was accountable to the majority of voters. It is barely today. The Republicans have a good chance of taking control of Congress in this year's elections. Donald Trump won the election without getting a majority of the votes.
What's at stake in elections isn't just what policies will be enacted, but what's at stake is whether or not we have majority rule. Will we remain a republic? We need to preserve our heritage.
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