26 February 2021, NIICE Commentary 6887
Vikas Nagal
The events surrounding the chaotic two-and-a-half months between Election Day and Inauguration Day during the American 2020 presidential election were a stark reminder of the Watergate Scandal of early 1970s. Both the scenarios displayed similarities in terms of resilience of centuries old institutions and their institutional performance according to constitutional design and mandate. In both the cases, guardrails put by the system of checks and balances survived the unrelenting assault by its detractors. This article compares both the instances and tries to show that the institutions and party leaders across the aisle in the US politics, joined forces to protect the ideals and principles of their century’s old republic, when they were challenged.
The Watergate Scandal involves a series of actions taken be the then President of the United States (US) Richard Nixon and his close advisers to cover up their administration involvement in the June 17, 1972 attempted burglary in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Building, Washington, D.C. The scandal caused a political storm and led to resignation of President Nixon, after his involvement in the cover up was revealed.
During the Watergate Scandal impeachment hearing, the President of the United States (US) Richard Nixon refused to comply with the congressional subpoena to share the ‘Nixon tapes’ with the Senate Watergate Committee. The ‘Nixon tapes’ were audio recording of conversations between the Nixon administration officials, produced between 1971 to 1973. In response, the House Judiciary Committee started the impeachment process and appealed to the US Supreme Court to force President Nixon to turn over the tapes. In the landmark decision (United States v. Nixon), the American Supreme Court ordered the release of “Nixon tapes”. One tape, known as the “smoking gun” tape documents the cover-up and President Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate Scandal. Nixon’s political support from the Republican Party drastically decreased, once the “Smoking Gun” transcripts were made public. The Republicans in the House of Representatives, who were against the impeachment earlier, later expressed their desire to support the process once it reached the House floor.
The Republican Party delegation led by stalwarts like Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott visited the American Oval Office and delivered the ultimatum to the President Nixon to resign or face impeachment in the US Congress. The next day, President Nixon resigned from the office. Similarly, in 2020 after the “fog of opinion polls” dissipated and American Democratic Party candidate Joseph Biden won the presidential election, the incumbent president Donald Trump refused to accept the election results and used Twitter and other ways of social media to spread unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud. The “President Trump re-election” campaign team filed multiple lawsuits in various states and federal courts especially in the states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and others. But all those lawsuits were rejected by courts because of lack of evidence substantiating election fraud claims.
The effort to invalidate electoral college votes in four key swing states- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia – won by Democratic Party contender Joe Biden, failed to succeed, when the US Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit – even though, three out of nine judges were appointments during the Trump presidency-filed by the Republican legislators from the State of Texas, on the grounds of “lack of standing” to bring the case. President Trump had also tried to pressurize the Republican Party legislators in the swing states to override the election results favoring Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden. The Michigan Republican legislators, refused to back the President Trump efforts to overturn the election results, in their meeting with the President Trump in the Oval Office. On 15 December, electoral college certified the election results and formally confirmed Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. After the certification of electoral college results, President Trump launched its last-ditch effort to overturn the election results in the US Congress.
President Trump tried to coax and coerce Vice President Mike Pence and Republican Senators to support his patently illegal and unconstitutional bid to overturn the certified electoral college results, for which there is no precedent in the republic’s history. Some of the Republican Senators led by Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley supported President Trump’s illegal efforts to overturn the election results. Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley objected to counting of Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s electoral college votes during the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021. But the Vice-President Mike Pence – an ally of President Trump – refused to de-certify the electoral college results. Even conservative Republican politician Mitch McConnell refused to endorse the President Trump bid to overturn the election results. On 6th January, despite the efforts of President Trump’s collaborators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to stymie the Congressional effort to perform its constitutional duty, the US Congress endorsed the electoral college results. In the end, even after repeated efforts by the President Trump to co-opt or undermine the independent institutions, American institutions emerged above power politics and took the decisions without any prejudices.
In recent decades, institutions like courts, free press had faced barrage of attacks from populist leaders like Victor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, and others. These populist leaders tap into the pent-up public anger toward the elites to win elections. Once elected, they use their offices to further weaken the institutions by appointing cronies at powerful posts and by co-opting or bypassing institutional restraints. The situation in the US is better than several other countries like Egypt. At least in the US, politics stops at the water’s edge.
