[cgbg]

There are some excellent revisionist history books on the Watergate scandal.

Nixon was corrupt, and he was concerned that the Democrats had the Howard Hughes files—they were hard evidence Nixon had been paid millions over the years to steer military industrial complex contracts to Hughes companies.

Those files could have gotten Nixon impeached and jailed—regardless of who the Democrat nominee was.

The Deep State wanted Nixon under their thumb, so their agents on the Nixon team made sure there were lots of clues left for investigators to find.

Blackmail in DC is normally used to pressure the victim to do the Deep State’s bidding—if that is not successful they then move on to more “active measures” (up to and including murder if necessary).

[hinckley buzzard]

The democrats had their knives out for Nixon ever after he defeated their Helen Gahagan Douglas for the senate in 1950 by casting her as a communist sympathizer. The press went after him, and never relented. Through out his career he was targeted and he knew it. The result was an insecurity and distrust that they would find a way to ambush him.

Watergate was an unforced error, to be sure, but he believed he had to know everything his adversaries were up to in order to be safe. Remember. Watergate was an attempt to bug the rat headquarters so he could find out what the democrats were plotting.

Sort of tragic in the dramatic sense that his very attempt at using his power to safeguard his campaign led to his downfall at the hands of the very people he feared.