Forty-three years ago tomorrow, on August 9^th, 1974 Richard Nixon resigned as the 37^th President of the United States, becoming the only President in American history to quit while in office.  His resignation was ostensibly due to his personal role in the lawful (as President), albeit unseemly, cover-up of the January 1972 Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee Office (of which he was unaware at the time).  The reality is that Nixon’s demise was the culmination of the loathing by and determination of the media-Democratic Party cabal to find or fabricate anything to force him out of office and a feckless Republican Party who willingly and without a whimper abandoned him. 

August 9, 1973, Richard Nixon leaves the White House after resigning the presidency

This unexpected, exhilarating and addictive success by the media-Democratic Party cabal has cast a long dark shadow over the political landscape during the past 43 years, as this strategy has been utilized by this same alliance in order to attempt to compel the resignations or at a minimum grossly undermine the Presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.  Yet when the opposition used this template against one of their own, Bill Clinton, someone who was unequivocally guilty of malfeasance, the cabal protected him to the end. 

With the election of Donald Trump, who is more loathed than Nixon, the process began almost immediately after Election Day and, in many ways, has gone far beyond the tactics previously employed against his Republican predecessors.

Ronald Reagan, based on his two electoral landslides, was the most popular president of the 20^th Century and by far the most successful Republican.  Something had to be found to destroy not only his presidency but the man on a personal level.  That something was Iran-Contra-- the sale of arms to the rebels in Nicaragua in supposed contravention of the Boland Amendment as attached to various Appropriation Bills.  While the spineless Republicans controlled the Senate, they were woefully outnumbered in the House (272-163).  Hearings were immediately convened and both Parties agreed to the necessity of appointing of an Special Independent Counsel.  A three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals appointed Lawrence Walsh.  The anticipation of another Watergate triumph filled the hearts of the media and the Democrats.

However, Reagan, and many of his subordinates, would not go quietly into the night and, relying on his popularity with the American people as well as the justice and validity of his administration’s actions, he aggressively withstood the onslaught and maintained his standing with the citizenry.  Nonetheless, Lawrence Walsh successfully indicted and obtained convictions on evergreen obstruction of justice violations against a number of administration officials.  However, many were later overturned by the courts and pardons issued by President George H. W. Bush.  In their collusion with the media, Walsh and the Democrats in Congress’ overall attempt to destroy Reagan and his legacy encompassed 7 years (1986-1992) and cost the taxpayers in excess of $57.1 million ($107.6 million today).

While George H. W. Bush was not subject to a similar assault by the media-Democratic Party cabal, he was, through the media’s allusions, innuendos and fabrications, falsely implicated and hamstrung by the Iran-Contra ordeal, which was kept alive until the end of his term.

In 1994, the media-Democratic Party cabal was hoisted on their own petard as Kenneth Starr was appointed Independent Counsel by the Court (pursuant to the Democrat passed Ethics in Government Act of 1978) to investigate Bill Clinton’s activities regarding Whitewater, and later expanded by Attorney General Janet Reno to include the Monica Lewinsky affair.  The media and the Democrats immediately assumed the role of Clinton protector, justifying any behavior or falsehood uttered by Clinton.  They attacked Starr portraying him as the deviant, megalomaniacal Torquemada persecuting an innocent man for minor personal indiscretions.  That there was not only irrefutable evidence of perjury in sworn and notarized testimony but physical evidence in the matter of a blue dress was immaterial. 

While the House of Representatives (under Republican control) was able to impeach Clinton, his Party in the Senate stood by him and refused to vote for a conviction and thus eviction from office.  Unlike Nixon, Clinton, who had the unquestioned support of his party and the media behind him, had no intention of doing the honorable thing and resign.

Not unexpectedly, the statute delineating the Court appointment of Independent Counsels was allowed to expire in June of 1999 and was replaced by another statute allowing the appointment of Special Counsels, when necessary, by the Attorney General as he or she may see fit.

In 2004, the pathologically civil George W. Bush succumbed to the incessant caterwauling of the media and the Democrats and at the behest of James Comey, who was the acting Attorney General, consented to the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate the specious and irrelevant Valarie Plame affair.  A CIA employee whom the media claimed had been deliberately exposed by the White House as a covert agent.  She was not a covert agent and the Special Counsel knew almost immediately who had leaked her name. 

Regardless, the investigation went on for two years with one minor conviction for alleged perjury.  However, the media-Democrat cabal accomplished its goal, as the investigation helped cast a further pall over the administration, abetting an erosion of confidence with the American people thus opening the door for the election of Barack Obama.

Unsurprisingly, despite numerous scandals (e.g. Fast and Furious, the IRS, Benghazi and Hillary Clinton Emails) there were no Special Counsels convened during the Obama years to investigate any of these matters and no outcry from the media to do so.

Today, another Republican is in the White House and the nation is again subject to the daily and relentless onslaught of the Nixonian undermining and/or removal strategy.  In the cross hairs is Donald Trump.  Through the dubious machinations of James Comey, the incessant drumbeat of the media and the Democrats forcing recusals in the Department of Justice, another Special Counsel is standing astride the political world. 

Unlike previous occasions, where there was at least the fig leaf of criminal activity to justify a special prosecutor or counsel, there was no criminal activity alleged in the brief given to Robert Mueller as Special Counsel other than to investigate the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election -- in essence a national security matter and not one for a special counsel who by statute is only supposed to investigate criminal matters.  The fig leaf or justification to go after Nixon in Watergate was a criminal break-in, perjury and obstruction; in Iran-Contra, the violation of the Boland Amendment; with Bill Clinton, it was a fraudulent real estate scheme and perjury; and in the Plame affair, the outing of a CIA agent.  But more importantly, these prosecutors had a mandate to investigate a specific criminal matter.

With the powers conveyed to Mueller, this is a criminal investigation looking for a justification.  In that sense, it is worse than the investigative abuses of Watergate or Iran-Contra.  Never in American history has a prosecutor with unlimited resources and manpower been turned loose on a President and his election campaign to function as a police detective and investigate anything he can claim is remotely tangential or marginally related to his apparent unconstrained mandate.   

The voluminous amount of information that will be gathered by the Special Counsel in this setting will be unimaginable.  Considering the media and Washington Establishment’s animosity toward Trump, and in today’s world of leaks and innuendos, how is this massive volume of information going to kept confidential?  There is little doubt that this information will be leaked and exploited by the opposition party and the media to undermine and destroy the Administration even if there is no criminal activity uncovered by Mueller.  This entire process may well end up being the ultimate opposition research for the Democratic Party or in the future when the shoe is on the other foot, perhaps the Republican Party.

What is to prevent an unscrupulous attorney general, in league with a president, from appointing a special counsel to investigate a political opponent on specious but marginally valid grounds?  With the Mueller precedent, nothing -- unless Congress on a veto proof basis invalidates the current law.

It matters not whether one is rabidly pro-Trump, aggressively anti-Trump or passionately never-Trump, the precedent this entire process has set is alarming.

Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General should shut down the Special Counsel investigation or be absolutely certain that Robert Mueller, based on an investigation limited to just Russian interference and collusion, can, with evidence akin to that of the Bill Clinton inquiry, prove the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and include in any indictment the illicit activities of the Democratic Party in their undertakings with the Russians.

Anything short of or beyond that narrow corridor will trigger animosity, anger and resentment among the body politic that may well eventuate into national chaos.  The moment of decision for Mr. Mueller and Mr. Rosenstein is rapidly approaching.