Donald Trump and Richard Nixon: Parallels between Russia and Watergate

http://www.dw.com/en/donald-trump-and-richard-nixon-parallels-between-russia-and-watergate/a-39150998

Date 07.06.2017
Author Carla Bleiker

Americas

Donald Trump and Richard Nixon: Parallels between Russia and Watergate

Former FBI Director James Comey is set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into Donald Trump's alleged Russia connections. Similarities with the Watergate scandal are hard to miss.

James Clapper has served in various government intelligence functions for decades, starting under President George H. W. Bush. Now Barack Obama's former director of national intelligence has put Watergate, arguably the greatest domestic political scandal in modern US history, and current events concerning President Donald Trump's connections to Russia side-by-side - and Trump doesn't come away favorably. "I think if you compare the two Watergate pales … compared to what we're confronting now," Clapper said in a speech to the National Press Club of Australia on Wednesday.

On Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey will testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. On the agenda: the FBI's investigation into Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, possible connections between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign and what exactly went down between Trump and Comey before the president fired him on May 9.

To understand the weight of Clapper's statement - and all the other Watergate comparisons that have sprung up recently - you have to know how exactly the Watergate scandal developed and led to the end of Richard Nixon's presidency.
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Even with this extremely simplified run-down of Watergate events, parallels to Trump's presidency are obvious.

Russian hackers are accused of influencing the 2016 presidential election. In July 2016, they compromised the DNC's email servers, leaking thousands of confidential emails to the media, many of which embarrassed senior Democrats - the 21st century version of breaking and entering. Trump and his campaign team say they had nothing to do with this. The hack still worked out in his favor: Trump won the election and was inaugurated on January 20, 2017.

But on February 13, less than a month after Trump took office, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign after having lied about his past meetings with Russian officials. Flynn had claimed he never discussed US sanctions against Moscow with the Russian ambassador to the US, which was later proven false. The Justice Department, as well as former president Obama, had warned Trump's White House that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
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Trump allegedly wasn't happy with Comey and reportedly asked him to drop the FBI's probing of Flynn. On May 9, the president fired Comey, the very man investigating his administration and campaign. If the allegations against Trump turn out to be true, some legal experts say his behavior could constitute an obstruction of justice, which is defined as corrupt attempts to "influence, obstruct or impede" the "due and proper administration of the law" in pending proceedings.
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While the parallels between Nixon's and Trump's administration are there to see, it remains unclear whether the two stories will have similar endings.