Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

Yes, this is Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. The photograph was taken at the Westin Galleria March 11, 1989, at a fundraising event, Houston High Society’s Party of the Year. Nixon would have been about 76 years old. He had resigned the presidency fifteen years earlier. Trump would be about 43 years old, working on building his empire. Trump had been courting the disgraced Nixon at least since 1983 when he invited Nixon to move into Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Trump lived. A series of letters between the two, previously unknown, was revealed to the public by the Nixon Foundation just two years ago.

A footnote is appropriate here. The image Donald Trump paints of himself as a self-made, tremendously wealthy, successful businessman has always been a fraud. That Donald Trump is a fictional character created as the star of the NBC television program, The Apprentice. The image was crafted by television producer Mark Burnett in 2004 and promoted heavily by NBC under the guidance of then CEO Jeff Zucker. That character never existed.

The real Donald J. Trump, born in 1946, inherited his father Fred’s real-estate business in 1971 and renamed it the Trump Organization. In addition to money directly inherited from his father, Trump also appears to have acquired, often by questionable means, funds belonging to his siblings and other relatives. These have been the subject of numerous investigations and lawsuits. His niece, Mary L. Trump, has written extensively about these matters in her book, “Too Much and Never Enough.“

In fact, Trump’s many attempts to expand his brand and his empire failed far more often than they produced a return on investment. Trump and the Trump Organization have been involved in thousands of lawsuits over the years. There have been at least six bankruptcies. Forbes magazine recently reported a detailed analysis that concluded that if Trump had merely placed the money he received from his father into a passive Standard and Poor’s 500 fund, he would be worth the same amount he appears to be worth today.

So what? Fair question.

Trump and his supporters never seem to address the charges or the evidence in the indictment issued against him by a federal grand jury. Instead, they argue that the indictment is unique, that no president has ever been indicted, and therefore it must be political. They say it is President Joseph Biden “weaponizing” his justice department to attack the man he is likely to face in the 2024 election.

It could be the reason Trump finds himself a unique target is the simple fact that Donald Trump made it inevitable by his own conduct over many, many years. The United States has never encountered a president so corrupt, so disdainful of his responsibilities, so disrespectful of his oath to uphold the Constitution, and so enamored of the role of dictator that these extreme actions have never been necessary.

But in truth there is nothing unique about the case of Donald Trump. His supporters are simply wrong.

The Nixon Watergate experience matters because it clearly shows that we have been here before. That contradicts the arguments being advanced by Trump and his cheering squad in the wake of the indictment. People who have actually read the indictment are expressing great concern over the seriousness of the charges. None other than Trump Attorney General William Barr, who I would say “weaponized” the Trump justice department, has been quoted saying if half the charges in the indictment are true, Trump is “toast.”

Those who follow Trump blindly and worship him unquestionably ignore the fact that Richard Nixon was investigated by a senate select committee, a special prosecutor, and a grand jury while in office during the Watergate scandal. Watergate involved burglaries, illegal wiretaps and other crimes committed by operatives for Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign. There had been months of concerted White House efforts to cover up those crimes. Forty federal officials were indicted or jailed in the case, including Nixon’s chief of staff, White House attorney, chief domestic adviser, and attorney general. All had carried out orders that, directly or indirectly, originated with Nixon himself.

The Watergate Grand Jury named Nixon an “unindicted coconspirator.” The only reason Nixon was not indicted was a justice department policy that said you could not subject a sitting president to indictment or other criminal legal process. That policy was revised by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2000. Both documents make it clear that after impeachment and removal from office, or after leaving office at the end of term, an ex-president would, quoting Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 69, “afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.”

“Aha” you say, but Nixon was never charged after he resigned and left office. True. But there is every indication from historical documents that he would have been charged. His successor, President Gerald Ford, put a stop to that. Exactly one month after Nixon announced his resignation, Ford issued the former president a “full, free and absolute” pardon for any crimes he committed while in office. The Nixon pardon was highly controversial and remains so today.

Two-thirds of the people in America today were not yet born at the time of Watergate. Not that that is an excuse lacking interest in our nation’s history. At the height of Watergate, the mood of the country was as strained, and we were as divided as we are today. One difference is that there were, in Nixon’s time, members of the Republican party who would stand up to him. Barry Goldwater, Senator from Arizona, and a solid conservative, following release of the “smoking gun” tape on August 5, 1974, famously went to the White House to tell Nixon impeachment was a certainty and removal from office likely.

Goldwater and other Republican leaders put country before party. That kind of Republican doesn’t exist today. Today’s Republicans complain Trump is the victim of a “witch hunt” and a pollical vendetta. They defy the historic record and claim a criminal investigation into the activities of a president is something new. They spend their time, and the precious time of the House of Representatives where they have a narrow majority, spreading rumor and inuendo without any factual basis. This false information would never be admissible in court. It only serves to delude the public.

For four years Donald Trump controlled the Department of Justice, which includes the FBI. Trump’s first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, demanded the resignations of every single United States Attorney in the nation and replaced most of them. For the first two years, Republicans had majorities in both houses of Congress. Yet the DOJ never indicted anybody. The Congress never impeached anybody. They never charged Joe Biden, or Hunter Biden, or Bill Clinton, or Hillary Clinton.

The Trumpies never charged the Democrats because they never had the evidence needed to make the case in court they alleged in the media. Special prosecutor Jack Smith and the Miami Grand Jury say, in the case of the United States v. Donald Trump, they have the evidence they need. We shall see. We’ve been here before. This is the way the system is supposed to work.

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