Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are warning that America is once again faced with a president in Trump who is in a determined standoff with an independent prosecutor.
Woodward and Bernstein wrote in The Washington Post:
We’re here again. A powerful and determined president is squaring off against an independent investigator operating inside the Justice Department. Robert Mueller’s mission is a comprehensive look at Russian meddling in the 2016 election — and any other crimes he uncovers in the process. President Trump insists it’s all a “witch hunt†and an unfair examination of his family’s personal finances. He constantly complains about the investigation in private and reportedly asked his White House counsel to have Mueller fired. No wonder many people are making comparisons to the “Saturday Night Massacre†of 1973, when President Richard Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned.
We covered that eerily similar confrontation for The Washington Post 45 years ago. Nixon didn’t know it at the time, but the Saturday Night Massacre would become a pivot point in his presidency — crucial to the charge that he’d obstructed justice. For him, the consequences were terminal.
Let’s not kid ourselves. If Trump pulls a Saturday Night Massacre, even if he slow rolls it, he will end his presidency. Sure, Republicans will try to obstruct and defend him, but if Trump pulls this before the midterm elections, it could cost Republicans the House and the Senate. Donald Trump doesn’t know history, so he is doomed to repeat it.
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The only barrier between Trump and impeachment is the Republican control of the House. Trump would effectively turn a Democratic blue wave into a landslide if he fired Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller.
America is reliving history at hyperspeed. What took years to unfold in Watergate is happening in months with Trump.
Donald Trump is repeating all of Richard Nixon’s mistakes, and it is increasingly likely that his story will have a similiar conclusion.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
