Russiagate Is No Watergate

"History is repeating itself, and with a vengeance," John Dean told the judiciary committee, drawing a parallel between Watergate, which brought down Richard Nixon, and "Russiagate" which has bedeviled Donald Trump.

But what strikes this veteran of Nixon's White House is not the similarities but the stark differences.

Watergate began with an actual crime, a midnight break-in at the offices of the DNC in June 1972 to wiretap phones and filch files, followed by a cover-up that spread into the inner circles of the White House.

Three years after FBI Director James Comey began the investigation of Trump, however, the final report of his successor, Robert Mueller, found there had been no conspiracy, no collusion, and no underlying crime.

How can Trump be guilty of covering up a crime the special counsel says he did not commit?

And the balance of power today in D.C. is not as lopsided as it was in 1973-1974.

During Watergate, Nixon had little support in a city where the elites, the press, the Democratic Congress and the liberal bureaucracy labored in earnest to destroy him. Nixon had a few of what Pat Moynihan called "second and third echelons of advocacy."

Contrast this with Trump, a massive presence on social media, whose tweets, daily interactions with the national press and rallies keep his enemies constantly responding to his attacks rather than making their case.

Trump interrupts their storytelling. And behind Trump is a host of defenders at Fox News and some of the top radio talk show hosts in America.

There are pro-Trump websites that did not exist in Nixon's time, home to populist and conservative columnists and commentators full of fight.

Leftists may still dominate mainstream media. But their unconcealed hatred of Trump and the one-sided character of their coverage has cost them much of the credibility they had half a century ago.

Two years after the Watergate break-in, Nixon was near the end, about to be impeached by the House with conviction possible in the Senate.

Three years into Russiagate, 3 in 4 House Democrats do not want their caucus to take up impeachment. Many of these Democrats, especially moderates from swing districts, do not want to cast a vote to either bring down or exonerate the president.

Assume the House did take up impeachment. Would all the Democrats vote aye? Does anyone think a Republican Senate would deliver the needed 20 votes to provide a two-thirds majority to convict and remove him?

For a Republican Senate to split asunder and vote to expel its own Republican president who is supported by the vast majority of the party would be suicidal. It could cost the GOP both houses of Congress and the White House in 2020. Why would Republicans not prefer to unite and fight to the end, just as Senate Democrats did during the Clinton impeachment?

Trump's support in the Republican caucus in the Senate today is rock solid. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is herself opposed to impeachment hearings in the House, considering them ruinous to her party's hopes of maintaining control in 2020.

When Dean went before the Watergate committee of Sen. Sam Ervin in 1973, all five days of his testimony were carried live on ABC, CBS, and NBC.

When Dean appeared Monday, the three cable news networks swiftly dropped coverage of the judiciary committee hearings to report on a helicopter crash in mid-Manhattan. Dean's testimony could be seen on C-SPAN3.

Much of America is bored by the repetitive, nonstop media attacks on Trump, and look on the back-and-forth between left and right not as a "constitutional crisis" but as a savage battle between parties and partisans.

Now that Mueller has spent two years and found no evidence of a Trump-Putin conspiracy to hack the emails of the DNC and Clinton campaign, questions have arisen as to what the evidence was that caused the FBI to launch its unprecedented investigation of a presidential campaign and a newly elected president.

Did an anti-Trump cabal at the apex of the FBI and U.S. security agencies work with foreign intelligence, including former British spy Christopher Steele, to destroy Trump?

The political dynamic of Trump's taunts and defiance of the demands of committee chairs in a Democratic House and the clamor for impeachment from the Democratic and media left are certain to produce more calls for hearings.

But if the impeachment hearings come, they will be seen for what they are: An attempted coup to overthrow a president by the losers of 2016 who are fearful they could lose again in 2020 and be out of power for four more years.

Actually, Nixon wasn’t even guilty of spying on McGovern. In fact, he didn’t even KNOW the plumbers broke into the DNC headquarters until AFTER the fact. He if anything was framed for that bit. The only thing he was actually guilty of was being loyal enough to those involved that he covered up their involvement. Whatever Dean’s role was in the misdeeds, it was covering up his own actions (he was the one actually responsible for the breakin, and it had nothing to do with getting dirt for the republicans. Quite the opposite, he was trying to illicitly get rid of evidence that his then-girlfriend was part of a call-girl ring headquartered in that building).

So no, even under that narrow scope, it’s NOTHING like Watergate. Not the true events, anyway. Ironically, the only thing similar is that both times, that weasel John Dean attempted to collude in throwing the Republican President out.

If the House Democrats draw up articles of impeachment (each one flimsier than the next—probably the Stephanopoulos interview would be an item), they will have a hard time getting 218 yes votes because some of the freshmen Democrats come from swing districts. If it did go to the Senate, Romney would probably vote yes, and maybe one or two other NeverTrumpers but it would be hard for them to get even to 50, let alone 67 (Manchin might vote no), and Mitch McConnell wouldn’t make things easy for them.

People need at least the basics about the story.

This seemed to cover the gist of it:

http://feralhouse.com/what-do-prostitutes-have-to-do-with-watergate/

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