Senator Hugh Scott addresses the media after the meeting.
Behind him is Senator Barry Goldwater.
Facing Scott is Representative John Rhodes.
August 7, 1974, 50 years ago: President Richard Nixon sees 3 leaders of the Republican Party at the White House: Representative John Rhodes of Arizona, the House Minority Leader; Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, the Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott; and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the Party's 1964 nominee for President, and the unofficial leader of what had come to be known as "the conservative movement."
They had bad news for him.
On June 17, 1972, 5 men working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President had broken into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington. Whether Nixon knew that this was going to happen, and approved of it, or not, only he knew for sure.
But, 6 days later, on June 23, he met with his White House Chief of Staff, Harry Robbins "Bob" Haldeman. The conversation was captured on an audiotape, in a system Nixon had installed in the Oval Office of the White House, for the purpose of historical records, because he didn't want anything to be distorted by outside historians. Ironically, this taping system would, instead, be his downfall, as it recorded these words, among others:
Haldeman: That the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say, "Stay the hell out of this… This is ah, business here, we don't want you to go any further on it."
Nixon: Just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, "The President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah, because these people are plugging for, for keeps, and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this case, period!"
Haldeman: OK.
"Walters" was Vernon C. Walters, a former 3-star General in the U.S. Army, who was then the Deputy Director of the CIA. "Pat Gray" was L. Patrick Gray III, the Acting Director of the FBI following the death of J. Edgar Hoover on May 2, 1972.
In other words, Haldeman had suggested to Nixon that he tell the FBI to back off on investigating the scandal that had become known as "Watergate," Nixon had agreed to it, and Haldeman understood that Nixon had agreed to it. This was obstruction of justice. Given that there were two men discussing it, this was also conspiracy to obstruct justice. Each of these was a felony; and, in Nixon's case, an impeachable offense.
But no one else knew that at the time, and Nixon was overwhelmingly re-elected. But the scandal broke out at the start of his 2nd term, and the Senate began holding hearings. Alexander Butterfield, Director of the Federal Aviation Administration and a former Nixon White House aide, was asked by the Senate committee if he had installed a taping system in the Oval Office. He told the truth: He had.
The fight by Congress to get those tapes, and the fight by Nixon to keep Congress from getting them, went all the way to the Supreme Court. On August 5, 1974, the Court unanimously ruled that they had to be released. When the tape featuring Nixon agreeing to Haldeman's plan to get the FBI to back off was released, it was proof of felonious guilt. It became known as "The Smoking Gun Tape."
On July 27, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to approve 3 Articles of Impeachment against Nixon. All 11 voting against it were Republicans, On August 5, having heard the tape, all 11 of those Republicans said they would vote to impeach him when the Articles came to a vote before the full House.
And so, Rhodes, Scott and Goldwater went to see Nixon at the White House. Rhodes said he couldn't save Nixon from impeachment in the House, since only 30 Republicans were willing to vote against impeachment. Scott told him there might be half a dozen Senators willing to acquit, and that was with the remaining segregationist Democrats, a.k.a. Dixiecrats, being counted. And Goldwater told him the conservative movement, which had stopped trusting him during the 1960 Presidential campaign, wouldn't save him.
Upon leaving the White House, the three men then told the media that impeachment and conviction were a near-certainty, and that the only thing that could prevent it was if Nixon resigned the Presidency, and that they had told him this. They didn't tell Nixon that they thought he should resign, only that it was the only way to avoid impeachment and removal.
After talking it over with his family and his remaining loyalists the next day, August 8, Nixon spoke to the nation that night, and announced his resignation, effective at 12:00 Noon the next day, August 9.
Scott served out his term in the Senate, and left after the 1976 election. He died in 1994, 3 months after Nixon. Rhodes retired after the 1980 election, and lived until 2003. Goldwater was running for re-election in 1974, and won, and won again in 1980. He retired after the 1986 election, and died in 1998.
In 1998, when it looked like Bill Clinton might be impeached at the height (or depth, depending on your point of view) of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, there was speculation that Clinton might receive a similar visit: House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Senate's leading liberal and the brother of Clinton's hero, President John F. Kennedy.
But that delegation never came together, because Clinton was never in danger of being removed from office: The Republican-controlled house had enough hatred to impeach him, but the Senate had neither enough evidence nor enough Republicans to convict him.
In 2019, Donald Trump was impeached. But there would be no Republican delegation of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the leader of the conservative movement, whoever that was then believed to be, going to tell Trump he had to resign -- not for the good of the country, not for the good of the Republican Party, not for the good of the conservative movement, and not even for Trump's own good. There didn't have to be: McConnell had a hammerlock on the Senate's Republican caucus, and the Senate acquitted Trump.
Trump got to serve out his term. He even got to come back and be nominated for another in 2024. Nobody in the Republican Party has had the courage -- moral or otherwise -- to tell him that he is unacceptable. For America, for the Party, for anything. We, the people, must show him that. We've done it before. We must do it again.
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