we're back in the same kind of mess

[Buckly J. Ewer]

45 years after Watergate, we're back in the same kind of mess​

(CNN)Forty-five years after the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic national headquarters that started the Watergate scandal, the nation finds itself once again in an explosive situation revolving around the potential abuse of power by a commander in chief.

President Trump is creating a dangerous atmosphere in Washington. The underlying scandal in Watergate involved the break-in of the Democratic headquarters. We still don't know if there was collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign -- though if this did happen, Watergate would feel like small potatoes.
The big similarity, however, is that the effort by the President to stifle the investigation is blowing up into the largest problem of all.
With the President's anguished tweets and the statements of Trump associates like Christopher Ruddy and Roger Stone, the special counsel's investigative task becomes more difficult day by day. This is a dangerous state of affairs, because special counsel Robert Mueller is not fully independent of the administration.
Once Congress allowed the law which provided for creating a special prosecutor to expire in in 1999, the US no longer had an independent, nonpartisan person who could investigate executive branch conduct.
In order to avert another "Saturday Night Massacre," the infamous moment when President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was looking into the Watergate scandal, we now depend on the expectation that presidents will allow investigations into wrongdoing to take place unimpeded.
While presidents have considerable leeway to attack legislators who are holding hearings, it is vital that the Justice Department, the FBI and appointed special counsel don't feel threatened as they attempt to find out whether something illegal has taken place.
President Trump is not fulfilling this expectation. There is ample evidence, some taking place right before our eyes, that he is pressuring and intimidating government officials whose jobs still depend on his good graces.
The intimidation began with former FBI Director James Comey. While President Trump and his supporters have gone to great lengths to downplay Comey's claims that he felt the President was placing improper pressure on him to stop looking into all things Russia, for many observers the defense doesn't really pass the smell test.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/17/opinions/watergate-45-years-later-trump-fbi-mueller-opinion-zelizer/index.html