by WorldTribune Staff, August 7, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
In 1972, President Richard Nixon won re-election in what remains one of the largest landslides in U.S. presidential election history.
Nixon won the Electoral College vote over leftist Democrat George McGovern, 520-17. That mark was topped only by James Monroe and George Washington, both unanimous choices (although one of Monroe’s electors defected to allow Washington to be the only unanimous choice).
Nixon won the popular vote 60.7% to 37.5% over McGovern. Only Lyndon Baines Johnson’s 61.1% to 38.5% win over Barry Goldwater eight years earlier topped that, and then only because of the Kennedy assassination.
On Aug. 8, 1974, Nixon delivered a nationally-televised speech to the American public from the Oval Office announcing his intention to resign the presidency the following day.
Friday marks the 50th anniversary of what blogger Don Surber noted was “one of the darkest days in American politics — the day when the FBI and the rest of the deep state overthrew the duly elected government of President Nixon by forcing him to resign in a scandal designed by the FBI and promoted by the Washington Post.”
“The cover up was worse then the crime, because there really was no crime,” Surber wrote. “Thus in less than two years, the deep state overturned the biggest Electoral College victory in 152 years.”
Support American Journalism
How did the deep state pull it off and who were the Watergate burglars?
The Richard Nixon Foundation later provided some context and background that the Washington Post and the New York Times omitted:
Of the seven individuals indicted and later convicted of the planning and execution of the June 17, 1972, Watergate break-in, six had been employed by the CIA and the other was a former FBI agent.
Over the years there has been speculation that the CIA played a role in the break-in, or at least had advanced knowledge of the plan. CIA director Richard Helms vehemently denied any CIA involvement before the Senate Watergate committee. Despite the involvement of six former CIA operatives, Helms’ assertion was unchallenged at the time.
“By turning an insignificant incident in the campaign into a scandal,” Surber wrote. “Mark Felt of the FBI and others fed information to the media, which agreed to never name them. That allowed them to never be held accountable for their actions. They never had to answer tough questions thus history can gloss over the motives of the deep state.”
The recipients of the information were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two low-level reporters at the Washington Post. They were rewarded not only with the infamous Washington book deal, but an award-winning movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford.
“A year of flogging this story led to Senate hearing which led to the first presidential impeachment effort in the House in more than a century,” Surber noted.
The Watergate narrative pushed by Democrats and their major media allies was that Nixon’s henchmen tried to wiretap the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Surber pointed to a December 20, 2019 New York Times article in which the legacy outlet “dragged out the Myth of Watergate in an attempt to get Trump, whining, ‘Why Is Trump Finding More Protection Than Nixon Did?’ ”
The story said:
President Nixon was accused of trying to unlawfully influence the 1972 election. On June 17, 1972, five burglars linked to the Committee to Re-elect the President broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex. Though there is still debate about what the burglars were seeking, Nixon’s role in trying to cover up his campaign’s involvement became central to efforts to impeach him.
Nixon faced three articles of impeachment but quit before the House voted on them. One was for abuse of power for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas, thus subverting the constitutional scheme of government. He was also accused of obstructing justice by, among other things, paying off the burglars to encourage their silence and making false and misleading statements to investigators and to the public. Nixon also faced a third charge — that he misused the I.R.S., F.B.I., Secret Service and other government agencies to violate the constitutional rights of citizens.
As Surber pointed out: “Under Obama, the FBI spied on Donald Trump. Transcripts from that spying were the basis of a front page story NYT published on the day of Trump’s inauguration under the headline, ‘Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides.’ As for ignoring subpoenas, Democrat attorneys general (Eric Holder and Mad Man Merrick Garland) ignored subpoenas and faced no penalty. As for abusing the IRS and FBI, the media supported Obama using the FBI to spy on a political adversary, didn’t it?”
On April 9, 1974, “the American people had their presidential election stolen from them by the very government they had created to protect their rights to, among other things, a fair election,” Surber wrote. “In today’s parlance, Watergate was an insurrection — a coup d’etat by the state itself.”
It was during the Nixon years that Donald Trump came into adulthood.
Trump “watched. He noted. He learned. I hope in a second term, President Trump can pull the plug on the intelligence community and the rest of a federal government that is too large, too expensive and too stupid to do anyone much good,” Surber concluded.
FBI flashback: 50 years ago, Richard Nixon resigned after biggest landslide victory in 150 years added by Editor Two on August 7, 2024
View all posts by Editor Two →
Source link