Trump Falls Under the Shadow of Spiro Agnew

On August 7, 1973, the Wall Street Journal published a startling story: Spiro Agnew, elected in 1968 as Richard Nixon’s Vice-President, was under investigation for tax evasion, bribery, and various corrupt practices, most dating back to 1967, when Agnew became the governor of Maryland. Agnew’s first reaction was a relatively restrained statement: “I am under investigation for possible violations of the criminal statutes,” he said, adding, “I am innocent of any wrongdoing.”

Then, at a press conference a day later, Agnew called the allegations “damned lies,” as well as “false and scurrilous and malicious”; he certainly wasn’t going to resign. A few days after that, he said, “I will fight, I will fight to prove my innocence,” and over the next sixty-five days he never stopped attacking leaks and fighting what he called “smear publicity.” The Agnew case, briefly, got as much attention as the Watergate scandal, which was then closing in on President Nixon following the start of televised Senate Watergate hearings, in mid-May, and the revelation, in mid-July, that a voice-activated taping system had been installed in the White House.

All this comes to mind when considering questions surrounding President Trump, his family, and his business associates. As the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and the team he’s hired investigate Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, the Watergate investigation is often invoked. But what’s known so far seems to bear more resemblance to the Agnew investigation. Bloomberg News recently reported that Mueller is looking at a “broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates,” and that the inquiry “also has absorbed a money-laundering probe” begun by Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who was fired by Trump, in March. As Paul Waldman wrote recently in the Washington Post, “While the possibility of campaign collusion is what started this scandal, the financial connections between Trump and Russia may wind up being just as important.”