Will Richard Nixon's Three-Pronged Defense Work for Trump?
No president has loomed as large over Donald Trump as Richard Nixon. Since he launched his campaign, when Trump appealed to his own Silent Majority through calls for law and order along the borders and in the cities, the comparisons have never stopped. As the congressional and Justice Department investigations into the Trump campaign and administration’s dealings with Russia have unfolded, the comparisons with Watergate have been front and center. Some of the comparisons have been useful, pointing to relevant precedent, while others have been off the mark.
But now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is entering a new and more intense phase, as the prosecutor and his team seem to be circling closer to the president himself, one thing is clear—President Trump is drawing directly from Richard Nixon’s playbook as he mounts a three-pronged strategy to fight the investigation.
Claiming that the president can’t actually obstruct justice,
