Watergate v. The Russia Hoax
Commenter Joe raised the issue recently of how to deal with the Russia Hoax if it leads, as seems inevitable now, to the Obama White House. In doing so, while avoiding the word itself, he referred in passing to the ultimate evil in Liberal mythology--Watergate: Eeeeek!
We have a history of not indicting presidents, à la the Ford pardon of Richard Nixon. Is it a realistic possibility that charges are brought against Obama and Clinton, with a Trump pardon predicated on an admission of guilt and possible payments of large fines? Thinking of Clinton for all the dirty Clinton Foundation pay-to-play scheme.
In response I noted that Nixon, IMO rightly, never made that admission of guilt. Further, in my mind the Russia Hoax is different in kind as well as degree from Watergate. George Parry, a former prosecutor, expresses the stakes as well as the distinction well in a recent article :
"The Watergate burglary was a bungled attempt by the Committee to Re-Elect President Nixon to break into Democrat headquarters to plant listening devices in the telephones. The burglary failed, but the national outrage at the mere attempt drove Nixon from office and sent members of his administration to prison. As bad as that was, at least the Nixon campaign didn’t corrupt the FBI and CIA to do its dirty work. So it is that, if our official law enforcement and intelligence agencies were co-opted by the Obama administration to illegally spy on American citizens and the opposition party, this will be the worst governmental scandal and threat to our civil liberties in the history of the nation.
"If Joe diGenova is right, the very survival of the rule of law and our constitutional republic mandates that these treasonous thugs — no matter how highly placed in the Obama administration — be exposed, charged, and imprisoned."
I think Parry and DiGenova have it exactly right. What we're faced with is a conspiracy against our constitutional order. It may not satisfy the requirement of force and violence to constitute a seditious conspiracy, but in its intent (and its methodical abuse of our legal system) it represents absolutely as much of a threat as any violent conspiracy to the rule of law and our constitutional republic. And let it not be forgotten that this conspiracy was undertaken and carried out in collaboration with foreign powers. A conspiracy against our constitutional order in collaboration with foreign powers. There. I said it again.
The ball is in Bill Barr's court.