The news has been full of concerns about the fate of our republic following the indictment of former President Donald Trump. There have been questions about the politicization of criminal laws and the credibility of the judiciary, the polarization of the electorate and threats of violent domestic reaction.
But these concerns pale in comparison to the threat to the democratic system posed 50 years ago this summer, when it became shockingly clear that the country was being run by a president, Richard Nixon, and a vice president, Spiro Agnew, who were both simultaneously under criminal investigation for wholly unrelated conduct.
What is now the controversy buzzword “obstruction of justice” was then the more mysterious buzzword “nolo contendere.” Where the first one refers to a provision of criminal law, the second refers to a rarely applied pleading device. And those distinctions make a difference.
