We have some strange stuff going on in the current Legal Circus. It is an entertaining show, since the performers are engaged directly in the struggle for the Oval Office. That will drag on through next November. Not the month around the corner, mind you. The one after that (by year).
Part of the excitement in this periodic go-around is the real possibility that some of the people currently serving at the apex of our Constitutional Republic could be subject to indictment if they lose the election. That appears to be a new tradition in America’s electoral process, which apparently now includes a requirement to get lawyered-up and fitted for coveralls colored in bright Orange.
This morning? We got the drips about the First Family’s problems all yesterday afternoon. This Saturday morning we have been informed the liability for firearms violations NOT directly associated with the President could carry a penalty amounting to 20 years in the slammer. Plus, the legal retainers that would bankrupt any (all) of us. This, naturally, competes with the legal troubles on the other side of the aisle. The liability over on the out-of-power side amounts to 91 charges in 4 jurisdictions with potential liability that goes to the grave.
There is a lot to sort out. We have mentioned the current de-construction of the famed Parking Garage here in Arlington where a once-anonymous informant spilled the beans on the President and his Plumbers. The “breaking news” part of the story has been going on since 2005. The state is going to rip that concrete up, and there is talk about what will be on the historical marker that will remain long beyond us.
There was more controversy on that angle, since one of the players in the political panoply include Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a colorful politician who can do a hell of a push-up. With the dripping leaks disclosed yesterday, the Secret Service has denied special protection to the son of RFK senior. His assassination so soon after his brother’s death in Dallas continues to echo more than fifty years on.
One of the themes in this campaign is that under the new electoral process all the people on the other side of the aisle could be liable to jail time, which will change the calculations at those morning meetings at the long table in the conference room in whatever hotel is hosting the politicians who are lining up for the positions of power next year. But the word in the background is that “defeat is not acceptable.”
That reflects the very real possibility that things could lurch unexpectedly into an entirely new model in our Republic’s journey through what used to be our Constitution’s stipulations.
So, there is that stuff going on with merry abandon. There is more, of course.
We first started discussing this matter in the middle of 2005, days on the calendar that marked the passing of a man of significance in the national Law Enforcement community. He was given a call-sign for use in the Parking Structure by a dynamic duo of Washington Post Reporters. Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein went on to be famous and are worth discussion on their own.
During the great struggle to remove a President, they were described as heroes in the struggle to preserve democracy, a popular phrase widely in use for this campaign. There are some matters that still make no sense. Mr. Woodward, for his part, had been eased from the Navy and a Pentagon job where he worked classified issues and plunged directly into the Deep State’s revelations on a President it did not appreciate. Mr. Bernstein had parents who are reported to have been committed Communists.
Deep Throat was a retired career Justice official named W. Mark Felt. The morning meeting on the Patio had to wrack our brains to remember who he was. Every one of a certain age remembers J. Edgar Hoover and his long-time companion Clyde Tolsen at the apex of the FBI. They kept files on all of us, the kids who had doubts about Vietnam, the Members of Congress and everyone of any importance anywhere. At least, that is what JEDGAR wanted us to think.
The Bureau has had a pivotal role in recent history, and arguably its fierce parallel hubris to the CIA’s is the reason the entire Intelligence Community had to be dismantled in 2004. They say that the first meeting of a new president with the Director of the FBI was an interesting thing, since with those files and all that dirt, Mr. Hoover had established an independent power center in Washington.
He had the dirt on Congressional daughters, and Dr. King’s lovers, and he had dirt on the people who had dirt on him. But that was a bit of a Mexican Standoff, meaning no disrespect to the people of Mexico.
The mob had stuff on Hoover, and he, of course, had stuff on them. So, the weight of prosecution went elsewhere. And a lot of effort funded by the taxpayers went to protecting the Bureau. We have not mentioned the other crowd of people up in Langley. Nor will we start now, although you get the complexities of the situation.
Our group of Salts vaguely remembers when Mr. Hoover passed away. It was one of those tipping points in history that connects the Baby Boom generation to John Dillinger across time. We didn’t go to the funeral, and it would not have occurred to us then to find his grave in the confines of funky old Congressional Cemetery. It is a haven for dog walkers now, and otherwise a place of tranquility on the banks of the muddy Anacostia River.
We used to visit the former Director fairly frequently on the daily PT run. Sometimes to sit on the iron bench in front of the wrought-iron railing around his plot. The bench and the fence were donated by the association of former Special Agents, which accounts for the relative luxury in a place that has seen few internments of power for a century.
I don’t know why Mr. Hoover chose Congressional as the place to spend eternity, but after that long dreary summer of the Senate Watergate Hearings, maybe it was precisely the right thing to do. The Administration was slowly unraveled by the careful ministrations of Senator Sam Ervin, the grand old caricature of a Southern country lawyer, grilling the President’s men, one by one. Chewing them up, making them cower and rat out the next one up the chain.
That may be the way some of this plays out. Those not in power at the moment may be thinking of the legal issues to be played out. Those in power may be of the opinion that extended litigation is the best way to preserve Democracy. As a group, the Salts are uncertain about how such legal maneuverings are to be applied. This “Slow News” week has some pundits discussing the possibility of a Civil War Two Point Zero to resolve the legal uncertainties.
It is entertaining and frightening at the same time. We looked back at the parade of momentary celebrities from Watergate who made their way to the Penitentiary. Chuck Colson was one of them, who was quoted as saying he would have walked over his mother for the President. He said so. Alexander Butterfield was another. G. Gordon Liddy was an unapologetic burglar who considered the intramural fight in Washington to be an extension of the Vietnam War.
When the dust settled on that one, nineteen White House and Re-election Committee officials spent time in the slammer, courtesy of Federal District Judge “Maximum John” Sirica. For the last two years, some have been muttering that the current mixed-assortment of controversies is “Worse than Watergate.”
That struck us as curious, since the idea that senior Administration Officials would be liable for punishment has not been paraded in three decades. This transition is also stark, since the contrast with the Watergate convictions and this month’s litigation includes mutterings that this might be the most amazing change to the system since 1776.
The Nixon Administration was thrown down (and out) largely because of Deputy Director Felt’s testimony. Nixon was a paranoid fellow, as we now know. But as the saying goes, it is only paranoia if someone is actually not out to get you. In an effort to protect himself from a highly autonomous FBI and the Hoover and Felt legal antics, Mr. Nixon was moved to appoint long-time crony L. Patrick Gray as only the second Director in the history of the Bureau.
W. Mark Felt was the senior career bureaucrat. He was passed over in favor of a man the President could trust. The term “Deep State,” as opposed to “Deep Throat” was not in use at the time. Mr. Felt clearly felt abused. Contemporary newsreels show a man with a swooping mane of gray hair wearing those hip, thick-framed swooping glasses that resembled the ones worn by Aristotle Onassis. He looked, from this distance, a little more like a mobster than a G-man. But we all wore unfortunate clothes at the time.
Some of the Salts now claim the Nixon Administration came down not because the President authorized the Watergate Break In, but because he didn’t. He just tried to cover up the misdeeds of his minions after the fact. For the Deep State, loyalty is first to oneself, followed closely by that to your Agency and then the Nation.
Mr. Felt kept the secret through his retirement and the honors from the government for a career well-served. He kept the secret through the publication of his memoirs, and apparently intended to keep the secret to his grave. But he spilled the beans to his daughter, Joan, and grandson, Nick. They considered him not only a national hero, but possibly a source to help pay off some college bills.
So, Felt’s secret came out. There was nothing as grave as Watergate in America’s history of self-governance. Until the Government started ruling itself, anyway. A break-in of the opposing party’s headquarters is a pretty startling event, but over time we have got used to it. Overthrowing the Government itself- cutting the stockholders and taxpayers out of the process- has to rank a little bit higher than that, wouldn’t you think?
We guess we will see. There are months of this to come.
Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com