50 Years of Watergate Ripples
7 lessons from SCOTUS to Carter to education to pardons....
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August 9th marked the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s ignominious resignation from office as a result of the Watergate scandal. This sad anniversary has gotten a good bit of attention, particularly, and understandably, from The Washington Post. But I want to highlight seven lessons that are relevant to governing, the last two related to Mr. Nixon’s pardon and the regrettable U.S. Supreme Court decision in Trump vs United States.
First, humans are flawed, and some unusually flawed humans end up in public office. This is unfortunate but inevitable. We must stop them when they act corruptly. But we can and should do more to foster moral and civic virtue in individuals earlier, especially as they grow in public influence. We need to explicitly teach these concepts, beliefs, and behaviors to the young and then reinforce those lessons as they climb the public-service ladder. Yes, it’s a tragedy that Mr. Nixon acted as he did while in the Oval Office, but by that time he had already been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate and he had served for eight years as the Vice President of the United States. The system could have done much more to ensure he—and others like him—received moral formation appropriate for such offices. Currently, public officials might receive occasional briefings on ethics rules, but that is insufficient.
Second, Mr. Nixon’s perfidy was enabled by a team of people who also acted dishonorably. Public officials attract and often look for loyalists. Some people believe that loyalty is a form of honor. That’s not always the case. Loyalty is only a virtue if it advances moral acts. Loyalty to an unjust cause is vice. Public officials must have the moral wherewithal to tell their teams—and tell those hiring their teams—that they expect legal and honorable service, not just loyal service. More needs to be done to ensure that staff members to public officials understand and act on their moral duties. Generally, the most galling behavior by public officials was allowed, even supported by, people who should’ve known better.
Third—with one glaring exception continuing to this day—our governing system handled the Watergate scandal relatively well. It’s easy to forget that when our framers created the structure and powers of the federal government, there were not clear, successful models to follow. Longstanding democratic republics made up of three branches across national, state, and municipal levels were not exactly commonplace. Our founding generation was informed by a host of positive and negative micro-lessons from various places and times. But for the most part they had to invent. The impeachment process was one of their successes. It's a prudent blend of law, public opinion, and political will. It was administered quite well with Watergate (investigations, hearings, articles, etc.). The one glaring question mark—then and now—is the role of the Justice Department in the investigation and potentially prosecution of the president and his top aides. The Attorney General works for the president, and this causes all sorts of problems. This still hasn’t been totally solved a half century after Watergate. From the Saturday Night Massacre to independent counsels to the recent Judge Aileen Cannon decision ruling that Jack Smith’s appointment was unlawful, the question remains: How does Washington’s law-enforcement apparatus enforce the law against its boss?
Fourth, had a few honorable people not shown political courage, Mr. Nixon probably would have remained in office for the remainder of his second term. But because Republican leaders like Howard Baker, Barry Goldwater, and Lawrence J. Hogan Sr. stepped up, the pressure on the president to resign grew. In cases of corruption by a public official, particularly a president, the activity of the opposition party only matters so much; for as long as they push the charges alone, it will largely be seen as a partisan affair. Members of the corrupt official’s party must act. Admittedly, this asks a great deal of them: They must risk their own careers and move against an erstwhile ally. But honor and fidelity to the law require it.
Fifth, the electoral fallout from Watergate was massive. In the 1974 midterm election, just a few months after Mr. Nixon’s resignation, the Democratic Party, which already had substantial majorities in both houses of Congress, picked up nearly 50 seats in the House (winning 291 in total). In the Senate, they ended up with 61 seats. The Watergate class of 1974, young and progressive, had a major influence on congressional rules immediately and policy for decades. Then, the inexperienced Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential election promising to be good and honest. We can’t know what would’ve happened had those elections gone the other way, but 1975-1981 was an important period: Economic stagnation, inflation, the energy crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the hostage crisis, malaise, the transfer of the Panama Canal, and more. The voters ultimately punish crookedness.
Sixth, I’m convinced that President Ford’s pardon of Mr. Nixon was a grave mistake. America needed—and the principles of republicanism needed—Mr. Nixon to be tried and, if convicted, punished for his crimes against the nation. All public officials must be subject to the law. That includes the federal government’s elected executive. It undermines the rule of law and faith in our system when officials can behave lawlessly without legal consequences. The pardon might’ve had the short-term benefit of symbolically putting Watergate in the rearview mirror, but it exacted a long-term cost on public confidence in our government and the moral authority of the law. I also suspect it has emboldened future presidents who have an outsized inclination to act corruptly. We cannot protect the integrity of American governing through leniency toward corrupt officials. Protecting the integrity of American governing will require, from time to time, the prosecution of bad actors.
Seventh, in this term’s Trump vs United State, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents enjoy an expansive zone of immunity from prosecution. The Court got one big thing right in that decision: It clearly articulated the importance of protecting presidential decision-making in areas where the office has constitutional or statutory authority. The Court was correct that we cannot have the other branches infringing on the president’s powers and duties. But the Court got one huge thing wrong. It acted as though the only governing principle worthy of forceful defense in the case was the separation of powers. It treated as an afterthought the fundamental republican principle of preventing public corruption. The dissent in that case was so forceful in this area only because the majority opinion was so anemic. We know from countless cases against federal and state judges, members of legislatures, and governors that public officials can behave in reprehensible ways all the while defending their actions as the legitimate use of public authority. Mr. Nixon seemed to have believed that most if not all of his Watergate-related actions were not abuses at all. America needs its courts, especially its U.S. Supreme Court, to be absolutely clear about the legitimacy of criminal laws—and the legitimacy of prosecutions associated with those laws—aimed at public officials who act corruptly, even if those officials try to invoke the privileges of their offices as a defense.
In total, 50 years after Mr. Nixon’s resignation, we still have a significant to-do list if we’re serious about good and honorable governing.