'FISA-Gate': The Drama Continues

The Watergate Hotel complex in Washington, DC; site of the
Nixon campaign break-in to the DNC headquarters in 1972.

I was 15 years old when the Watergate break-in took place, and I was 16 when the cover-up scandal rocked Washington and the entire USA.  As a high school student studying civics and US history - among other subjects - I followed the events very closely with my teachers and classmates.  In the wake of Watergate, every shameful episode in American public life has come to be measured against the break-in of the five Watergate burglars, all aides to President Nixon who was running for re-election at the time, to the Democratic National Committee offices to collect intelligence.  The attempts by the Nixon White House to cover up the scandal, led to a constitutional crisis with the certainty that the House of Represents would impeach the President.  Nixon's Vice President, Gerald Ford, had only been in the Number Two Office a short time, serving in that capacity as a result of a scandal in which Nixon's original VP, Spiro Agnew, resigned after pleading No Contest to a corruption charge and Ford, a US Congressman from Michigan and House Minority Leader, was tapped to replace him.  After only a year as VP, Ford was elevated to President upon Nixon's resigning to avoid impeachment; he pardoned his former boss as one of his first official acts of office.  In the wake of Watergate, almost every scandal in public life has been known by a word describing it, appended by '-gate' as an allusion to the Daddy of all Scandals.

Center:  US Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Chairman of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and
principle author of the now-unclassified memo alleging
irregularities by Obama Administration officials in seeking
FISA warrants against members of the Trump campaign.
Flanked by (left) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking Dem-
ocrat on the Committee, and (right) Rep. Pete King (R-NY)
 

This week, for the first time I heard a news commentator refer to the scandal currently raging in Washington as 'FISA-gate,' an allusion to the contention of Congressman Devin Nunes' memo that was de-classified and made public last Friday, that the top officials in the Obama Justice Department and FBI had used the Steele/GPS Dossier as the basis for their seeking, and getting, warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) based mainly, or even exclusively, on alleged collusion with the Government of Russia by President Trump's campaign team, to influence the 2016 Presidential Election.  The problem with the Dossier, which was leaked to the public realm last year, are two:  the thrust of its 'revelations' were not, and have still not been, corroborated through other sources; and it was financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Foundation.
  The Watergate Scandal provided an ignominious, premature end to the Nixon presidency, which by all accounts had been up to that point successful on a number fronts, in both foreign and domestic policy.  The question is, what are the parallels - if any - between 1972-3 and 2016-18?

As the scandal is shaping up, it looks as if FISA-Gate represents an attempt by the Democrats and Hillary Clinton to do exactly what Nixon and his aides tried to do:  to get dirt on the other side in the election, in order to ultimately discredit them.  If so, and if - as has been speculated - its ultimate purpose was to deflect public attention from the negative fallout on the Clinton candidacy from what many contend to be the irregular and tainted nature of the FBI's 'investigation' into into the Clinton E-mail Scandal, a residual from her time as Secretary of State under Obama.  Although Clinton won the Democratic nomination despite that scandal - there was little opposition, but even so many are contending that the Democratic machine schemed to 'steal' the nomination from Senator Bernie Sanders - there were well-founded fears that it would influence voters to vote against her, for Trump.  And in fact, that was at least part of the reason for Trump's win; just as there were 'Never Trumpers' in the Republican Party and electorate, probably a good many voted for Trump in the spirit of 'Anybody but Hillary.'  I guess I would count myself among the latter group; while I thought at the time that Trump was a flawed candidate because of his penchant to spontaneously spout things that no president should (in my opinion) say, I thought this flaw was small potatoes compared to the scandal of Clinton's behavior as Secretary of State and what was looking like a serious cover-up of same in the highest echelons of Washington.  If Trump was rough around the edges, Clinton appeared to be entirely corrupt.  For me, the choice of whom to vote for was easy.

If the deflecting of the public's attention from Hillary Clinton's flaws, was the purpose of the Executive Branch's surveillance of the Trump campaign, it was unsuccessful.  But of course, that's not a good reason to just sweep the whole thing under the carpet; if there's truth to it, then it represents corruption at the highest levels of the previous administration and therefore a serious breach of the public trust that should be revealed and yes, prosecuted and punished.

So the biggest differences between Watergate and FISA-gate would seem to be two.  First, the former was perpetrated by the winning side, the latter by the losing side.  Second - if proven to be true - FISA-gate makes the Watergate Break-in look, in comparison (in the words of former Arkansas Governor and presidential contender, and now Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee) "like a [college] fraternity prank."  Comparing the two scandals in that spirit, I'm reminded of the line in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather:  "One lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns."

But perhaps more important than anything else I've said above, is the question of what the recent revelations about the Obama Administration's alleged misuse of the FISA Court, means for the Mueller investigation into the Trump Campaign-Russia connection.  As you know, that investigation has been underway for well over a year - previously led by FBI Director James Comey until Trump fired him - and has yet to result in any proof of such allegations.  One of the contentions of a number of prominent opponents to the declassification of the Nunes Memo, was that it would take the wind out of the sails of the Mueller Investigation.  Whether that will be the case, remains to be seen.  But since the investigation appears to be going nowhere, perhaps that's not a bad thing. 

Oy!