Leonard Downie Jr., the Weil Professor of Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School, is a former executive editor of The Washington Post. He was one of the editors who directed The Post’s Watergate coverage.
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vice President JD Vance said at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum last week. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
Did Vance say that because President Donald Trump is still president after surviving several criminal investigations and two impeachments? Or because Trump has taken control of the Justice Department? Or because the Supreme Court has ruled that Trump and future presidents are immune from prosecution for any official presidential action?
Vance added that “the deep state” forced Nixon’s resignation. “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon,” he said, “it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions, tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.”
What “deep state” took down Nixon?
Was it the small group of reporters and editors on The Washington Post’s local news staff who investigated the June 17, 1972, burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and its connections to the White House — almost alone among the press for many months?
Their investigative stories that steadily exposed the growing White House cover-up of its role in the burglary and other “dirty tricks” aimed at both Nixon’s “enemies” and the Democratic opposition in the 1972 presidential election?
The bipartisan Senate Watergate Committee and its widely watched televised hearings that exposed more of the scandal? The bipartisan House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach Nixon on three counts of obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress?
The unanimous Supreme Court decision that ordered Nixon to turn over the secret White House tape recordings that revealed the president directing the Watergate cover-up and other illegal activities, including the White House “Plumbers” investigative unit that conducted burglaries?
Or the senior Republican senators who went to the White House in the final hours before Nixon’s resignation to tell him that the Senate was certain to vote to convict him?
Far from being a victim of “the deep state,” Nixon had used the FBI and CIA to conduct unauthorized wiretaps and surveillance against his political opponents and people on his long “enemies list.” He directed the IRS to launch targeted tax audits against his political opponents. He attempted to use the CIA to obstruct the investigation.
So, why did Vance tell the folks at the Nixon Library that Watergate would now “be like a 12-hour news story”?
Because Trump has taken control of so much of “the deep state”?
Trump’s personal lawyer is the acting attorney general, and the Justice Department now investigates Trump’s perceived enemies. He has told his interim director of national intelligence to dismiss many of the agency’s officials. His appointees have been drastically changing many other government departments, and he has been trying to strip federal workers of their civil service protections.
So, does Vance believe that the Trump administration’s “deep state” could quickly squash investigative reporting of a Watergate-like scandal?
Or does he believe that Trump’s verbal and legal attacks on journalists and news media that question him would do the job?
Of course, the news media is much different now, in the digital age, than it was in the 1970s. Much of the so-called “mainstream media” has suffered significant losses in audience, revenue and credibility. There has been a proliferation of media of all kinds, including many strongly supportive of Trump. Many Americans gravitate only to media with which they agree.
But, because of the legacy of Watergate, investigative reporting has grown into one of the most important functions of American journalism in many media. Competition among them is intense.
Of course, there already has been plenty of controversy and investigations about many of Trump’s actions as president, his financial dealings, his attacks on his perceived enemies and his vitriol in speeches, media interviews and internet posts. While his approval ratings have fallen, he still has more than two years left in office. And he has survived a plethora of revelations and controversy so far.
So, what might happen if a news organization investigated a Watergate-like scandal reaching into the White House today? Would it only be “a 12-hour news story”?
If it is something as obvious a political crime as a burglary of the national Democratic headquarters involving the White House, I believe it would reverberate quickly and lastingly in our multimedia universe. No news organization would be pursuing it alone, as The Post did for many months. The coverage and controversy could well be chaotic, with Trump and his followers fighting back. But it would not disappear quickly.
Vice President Vance said, “I’ve always liked Richard Nixon,” based, he explained, on what he perceives as their similarities as vice president: “Young senator, vice president, writes some best-selling books, is hated by the media.” If Vance has presidential ambitions, he may want to study Nixon’s presidency and downfall more closely.
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