President Donald Trump’s surprise firing of FBI Director James Comey drew swift comparisons to the Nixon-era “Saturday Night Massacre.”
Both cases involve a president getting rid of an official leading an investigation that could ensnare the White House.
On that Saturday night in 1973, Nixon ordered the firing of the independent special prosecutor overseeing the Watergate investigation, prompting the resignations of the top two officials at the Justice Department.
This week, Trump fired the FBI director in the midst of an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign had ties to Russian meddling in the election that may have helped send him to the White House.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, said the comparison was “apt.”
“Obviously there are different circumstances. But it’s about a president that’s seeming to lurch into abuse of power,” he said.
Nixon ordered Archibald Cox fired for his continued efforts to obtain tape recordings made at the White House. Cox had said he would not bow to “exaggerated claims of executive privilege” and drop his pursuit of the tapes.
Attorney General Elliot Richardson refused to carry out Nixon’s order and resigned in protest. Richardson’s deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused and resigned as well. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork, the third-ranking official at Justice, fired the prosecutor.
In this case, Trump had the power to fire the FBI director himself. The White House cited a Justice Department official’s concerns about the director’s handling of last year’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices.
But Democrats criticizing Trump’s stunning move say the two cases are similar because Comey was overseeing an FBI investigation into both Russia’s hacking of Democratic groups last year and whether Trump campaign associates had ties to Moscow’s election interference.
Three U.S. officials say Comey told lawmakers that he had recently asked the Justice Department for more money for the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling.
“This is Nixonian,” Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., declared on Twitter on Tuesday, calling for a “special prosecutor to continue the Trump/Russia investigation.”
The White House has said there is no evidence of any ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. In his letter to Comey, Trump stressed that the FBI director had told him “on three occasions, that I am not under investigation.”
There are some differences. Brinkley noted that the Watergate investigation was further along, while the Russia probe is just beginning. And after Nixon’s firings, Brinkley said a number of Republicans “started going after the leader of their own party” and that has not happened yet in Trump’s case.
The Richard Nixon Library pushed back on the comparison on its official Twitter account Tuesday, writing: “FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the Director of the FBI.”
(AP)
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8 Responses
> the Russia probe is just beginning
Spin, meaning evidence has not yet been found. I read the investigation was on-going already for months before Trump was even elected. The correct assertion is that compared to the Nixon case where suspicions of wrong-doing was based on some reasonable basis by the time firing, no such thing has been found in this case despite months of investigation even before Trump was elected.
But another difference is that in this case it was the justice department that reported (at least implicitly) that they could not work with the FBI diredctor because he thinks he runs the show instead of answering to them.
For weeks and months Hillary and her Democrapic allies themselves haven’t stopped blaming Comey for Hillary’s loss. And now Fakestream media and Hillary are comparing Nixon’s ordering the firing of his prosecutor to Trump’s firing an incompetent crook and accusing Trump of some Russian cover up hoax. What HYPOCRISY!
President Trump fired Comey for a simple reason. If Russia did interfere and revealed to the world about Hillary’s massive corruptions, Comey should have been rewarding Russia a medal for preventing this massive criminal candidate, murderer, thief, liar and cheater, from becoming President of America, instead of digging up reasons why Russia shouldn’t have revealed the truth.
All we have heard from the degenerate draft dodger and his henchmen is that the Russian investigation is a hoax, let’s move on, get over it. What we haven’t heard is we will fully cooperate with this investigation in any way we can, that would be an indication there is nothing to hide. All the firings and resistance indicate that there’s a huge cover-up going on. They’ve already been caught lying, “no one had any contact with any Russian” and Flynn lied to the vice president, so they lack credibility already.
Trey Gowdy had a Federal Judge order to exhume the body of Vince Foster whom MSMFN reported committed suicide but died of gunshots wounds to his head (on Clinton’s Body Count list). Where were you, Fakestream media, when Bill Clinton fired his FBI Director the day before Vince was found?
Oy nebach Arye, there you go again. You obviously know nothing about the firing of William Sessions by Clinton, it was for corruption. Btw Clinton had the courage and fortitude to call Sessions himself to tell him he was being terminated, and had already lined up a replacement. Not like the degenerate draft dodger coward we have now.
Re Arye’s second comment: I believe that you get most of your information from radio waves in your tinfoil kippah, but bullets in the head are consistent with (but not conclusive proof of) suicide. Maybe you should check the tin for oxidation.
RT, I don’t know where you picked up your corruption story from. According to CNN and other media outlets: “he can no longer effectively lead the bureau and law enforcement community,” Clinton said at the time.”
And for your information, Comey was fired on the recommendation of the Justice Dept. and unlike Clinton’s firing of Sessions which happened just before the discovery of the death of another one that Clinton was behind.
And huju, just keep hiding your head in the sand and make believe you live in Fairyland.
“How could a suicide victim be found with TWO bullet wounds? – a .38-caliber gunshot into the mouth that exited through his head and another wound on the right side of his neck that one of the paramedics described as a small-caliber bullet hole? And why would the government investigators go to great lengths to cover it up?”
Reply to Arye’s comment on my comment: Yes, I made a mistake. Two bullets in the head are not likely to be suicide. Ooops, my bad.
Now, tell us where you get your information.