This week’s January 6 committee hearings concern the most serious allegations of presidential wrongdoing since Watergate. They come almost exactly 50 years after the break-in that spawned the scandal leading to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. And they carry some striking similarities.
Hopefully, clarity will emerge from the first public testimony to the House committee that has been examining the insurrection that halted for some hours the congressional certification of the 2020 election results.
The details of the two scandals are very different. In essence, however, both reflected serious abuses of power by presidents with an inflated view of their authority.
