Editor,

Who were Tricky Dick and Don, the Lying Con? This will be the answer to the Jeopardy prompt, “These two American Presidents were forced to resign from office.”

During this perilous crisis our country is facing, we hear repeatedly that the United States is in uncharted waters with the Trump scandal. I don’t believe we are. I believe we’ve charted and sailed this course before. Here are five ways history will view the Nixon corruption and the Trump corruption as hauntingly parallel.

1. Each president, Nixon and Trump, thought himself above the law and that the office of the president allowed him to act with impunity. Nixon, in effect, said the president could not break the law because the president is the law. Trump thinks he can pardon himself.

2. History will show that both Nixon and Trump broke the law. Nixon and his cronies knowingly conspired, with malice aforethought, to burglarize the Democratic National Headquarters in the infamous Watergate break-in for the purpose of stealing campaign secrets and “dirt” against his Democratic opponent, George McGovern. Special prosecutor Mueller will show with overwhelming and irrefutable evidence that Trump and his cronies conspired, with malice aforethought, with the Russian government and its agents to steal campaign secrets from the Hilary Clinton campaign and “dirt” to engage in a massive disinformation dissemination for the purpose of electing Donald Trump.

3. History will show that both presidents, Nixon and Trump, obstructed justice by lying and attempting to cover up the crime. Trump does this every time he claims “no collusion.” Nixon, of course, has the infamous blank spaces on the tape recording.

4. History will show that each president, under overwhelming pressure by both Congress (yes, even a Republican Congress) and the American people, was forced to resign his office amidst a toxic political climate in which there was absolutely no place to hide. Republicans, under both presidents, were forced to choose, under intense pressure and relentless scrutiny, between the rule of law and morbid allegiance to a pathetic and disgraceful figure.

5. History will show that each president was pardoned by his vice president after the latter assumed the presidency. In each case, history will show that co-conspirators, accomplices and cronies went to prison as punishment for their part in the conspiracy.

Finally, one last question. What would the American government have done in 1960 if it found out, and had received documented evidence from its intelligence community that 10 Russian military figures had conspired to disrupt and influence the presidential election? How about in 1952 during the McCarthy era and the Red Scare? How about in 1980 when Reagan was elected? We would have declared war on the Soviet Union. Putin is attempting to disrupt elections in a myriad of western democracies. He’s a throwback to Lenin and Stalin.

We need a president who’s willing to lead the world in muscling up against Putin. We should declare war on Russia, and what’s our current president doing? He’s down on his knees like a low boy.

Steven V. Horton,

Langley