President Richard Nixon and President Donald Trump and their respective administrations have been rocked by scandals and hounded by controversies. While the Watergate Scandal and the Mueller investigation are distinctive from one another, they are parallel in certain aspects. In both administrations, both presidents have been accused of manipulation of their respective 1972 and 2016 elections in order to secure their presidential victories. Moreover, both scandals have reflected poorly on Nixon and Trump and have left blemishes on their legacy as presidents of the United States by generating suspicion and distrust of political processes. One key difference between both scandals is that Nixon has claimed executive privilege, while Trump hasn’t …show more content…
Prior to the Watergate scandal, Nixon’s tight victory in the election of 1968 made him scared that he was going to lose this election; thus, he had a great incentive to sway public opinion, and through a means of infamy and misconduct, he was successful in securing his victory in the election of 1972. In the Watergate scandal, President Nixon was investigated because the burglars whom were arrested for infiltrating the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex of buildings, were connected to President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign . The goal of the robbery was to find the “nitty gritty” to get dirt on his enemies and use it to secure a republican victory. Similarly, President Trump is getting investigated for collusion in seeking aid of Russia to influence the outcome of the election. The Intelligence Community has stated with high confidence that the Russian government has sought to influence the outcome of the U.S Presidential election favoring Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton through disinformation campaigns, breaching election data, and hacking the Democratic National Committee to access their emails and releasing them to WikiLeaks. As a result, Trump is currently getting investigated for conspiracy with a foreign government. Although both presidents have been accused of meddling with their respective elections through dishonorable …show more content…
With regard to the Watergate scandal, a handful of Nixon’s aides testified that Nixon had secretly taped every conversation that took place in the Oval Office, which became known as “Nixon’s tapes.” Soon, there was a subpoena issued for “all tapes and other electronic and/or mechanical recordings or reproductions, and any memoranda, papers, transcripts or other writings ,” yet Nixon refused to give them up by claiming “executive privilege,” the right to withhold information in the public interest. This trial became known as United States vs. Nixon, where the unanimous court forced him to hand the tapes over asserting that nobody, even the president, was above the laws of the Constitution. Nixon’s abuse of power in claiming executive privilege and refusal to obey the congressional subpoena brought his downfall and subsequent disgraceful resignation of the presidency. Contrastingly, up to this day, President Trump has not claimed executive power as a legal defense. Although Trump is currently getting investigated for Russian collusion and obstruction of justice, there is still no direct evidence tying Trump to the Russian conspiracy. President Trump has not been charged for these accusations yet, and he has not used executive privilege as a legal defense. While there is a lot of uncertainty
The Federal Bureau of Investigation in an intelligence agency focusing on the collection of facts and information in order to achieve national security. Opinion of the bureau often varies due to the sum of information and knowledge that one have of the bureau itself. Tim Weiner critically depicted his own view-point in Enemies: A History of The FBI where he judges the FBI’s unlawful courses of action in exchange for security. Using declassified documents from the bureau and people he knew with great knowledge of the FBI, Weiner wrote his book following the history of the FBI from the early 1900s, when the bureau was first founded, until the modern days of the 2000s in order to show the negative direction the FBI had taken.
RESEARCH PAPER The President William Clinton and Monica Lewinsky Scandal Revisited Monica Torain HIST- 410 Professor Bruce Franklin Devry University On January 7, 1999 the United States Senate began the second presidential impeachment trial in the history of the United States, since the trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 (History- President Clinton impeached, 2014). According to The Clinton Impeachment, a Basic Chronology, in June 1995, President William Clinton sparked a steamy affair with 21-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, which lasted a little over a year, with plentiful erotic meetings.
Being the thirty-seventh president of the United States in 1974, President Richard Nixon was involved in a scandal known as the “Watergate Scandal”, that eventually led to the replacement of presidency from vice president at the time, Gerald Ford. Both Nixon and Ford believed Ford taking over the position of the president was the best decision as Nixon was never charged with the crimes from the “The Watergate Scandal”. Emotional responses from the people were also a key factor to accept as Ford took over the president position, and overall Nixon and Ford had to work together to figure out the prime decision regarding the nation. President Nixon was always attempting to do what is best for the nation. However, after the entire “Watergate Scandal”,
Rhetorical Analysis: in Barbara Jordan’s “Statement on the Articles of Impeachment” In 1976, the first African American Congresswoman took the podium to address the political problems in the U.S. She used every form of document in the constitution to prove that things can change if they were followed accordingly. This courageous woman, Barbara Jordan, wrote “Statements on the Articles of Impeachment”, delivered July 25, 1974 to the House Judiciary Committee and argued that if the President was to participate in anything suspicious and kept the person safe, he may be impeached. Jordan builds her credibility with the evidence of Richard Nixon’s activity with several things beyond out of order; during her speech she was forcefully optimistic
Watergate, Clinton’s Impeachment, and the Iran-Contra Scandals all could have been avoided if people had just told the truth. This is an all-around good rule to follow. No one is above the law, especially the president. Watergate, Clinton’s Impeachment, and the Iran-Contra Scandals were all caused by the illegal actions of the president and members of his staff.
In this article, Appleton explores various survey results to solve the mystery of President Kennedy’s assassination. Assessing Harris survey results on the Kennedy assassination, Appleton discloses that most of the Americans believed that other than Harvey Oswald, other people were involved. Besides, notes Appleton (15), a Gallup poll conducted in 1976 indicated that both non-whites and Democrats were most likely to believe in a conspiracy than others. However, Americans with college education alongside those in higher income groups accepted that the assassination of Kennedy was a one-man action. From his analysis, Appleton discloses that there are substantial beliefs about Kennedy assassination conspiracy to have been caused by a political
Richard Nixon showed us that this is not always the case when he supported criminal acts to try to weaken his opponents during the Watergate
But in Clinton's case, he was impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice related to his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Trump, on a different note, was impeached on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate joe biden so that he can get dirt on him so that he can win his next election. Something that is interestingly similar about these cases is that both presidents were ultimately acquitted ( to free someone from criminal charge by being proven not guilty) by the Senate. In Clinton's case, the Senate acquitted him on both charges, while in Trump's case, the Senate acquitted him on the charge of abuse of power and failed to reach a verdict on the charge of obstruction of
Some similarities and differences between Trump’s impeachments and other presidential impeachments are: Trump’s impeachments are more frequent, recent, and unprecedented than other presidential impeachments. They occurred within a span of 13 months, during his first and last years in office. They also made him the first president to be impeached twice and the first president to be impeached after leaving office. No other president has faced impeachment more than once or after their term ended. The previous impeachments of Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton occurred at different times and for different reasons.
However, with such privilege, anyone could make mistakes. The Executive Privilege could grant the president power to conduct operations for personal interest, such privilege can disrupt the justice of investigation. In the Watergate scandal, when the U.S. supreme court asked president Nixon
In the U.S Constitution, it states that if President is convicted of any treason, corruption, or any other high Crimes and transgressions they can be removed from office. However, there are many steps to being impeach. The first thing in order for the President to be impeach is when the situation of the President brings attention to the members of the House of Representatives. Next, they are handed over to the House Judiciary Committee to see if the situation is serious. If the situation is serious then the president would be presented to the U.S Senate to decide if he should be impeached.
The water gates scandal is why President Nixon was being impeached but he resigned before the house voted on the Articles hence Nixon was not impeached during the
The San Francisco Chronicle published stories in 2004 about a BALCO steroids investigation, involving grand jury testimony of four baseball stars, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and sprinter Tim Montgomer. In 2006, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru Wada, the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, were ordered jailed by a federal judge after they refused to divulge their source. The reporters repeatedly had said they would rather go to jail than reveal how they obtained the transcripts from a grand jury that investigated the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. A federal court judge ruled that Williams and Fainaru-Wada must testify before a federal grand jury and reveal the name of the confidential source that leaked information to them
Richard Nixon, once a man that was the leader of the United States, was accused of a scandal. This scandal became known as the Watergate scandal. He was going to have to be punished for this, so he decided to resign as president. With this, Gerald Ford, the vice president, became president. When becoming president he pardoned Nixon for his scandal, so Richard had not punishment put on him.
Throughout history many nations in many places would hunt for invisible enemies, threats so great that even the government itself couldn’t see them behind the shadows. Two of these hunts were in the United States, one being the Salem Witch Trials back when the US was just a meer colony, and then the Red Scare, where everyone was afraid of communists entering our ranks. In Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” he wrote about such fears and event of the Red Scare, but through the lenses of the Salem Witch Trials. But later, in a almost strange twist of fate, began to mirror the actions one of the characters, this being an example of the mirror between fiction and reality. Arthur Miller’s actions during the Red Scare mirrors the actions of John Proctor