Left Engages in Absurd Trump-Nixon Comparisons

The ink was not yet dry on President Donald Trump’s statement announcing the dismissal of acting Attorney General Sally Yates when political opponents began drawing comparisons to President Richard Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre.”

With the Watergate investigation closing in on him, Nixon in October 1973 fired his attorney general and deputy attorney general before he found an official willing to ax the special prosecutor who was investigating the Democratic Party headquarters break-in.

“It’s like comparing World War II to an exhibition baseball game … Apples and oranges doesn’t do justice to how different these two situations are.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N-Y.) argued that is analogous to Trump’s dismissal of Obama administration holdover Yates for ordering Justice Department lawyers not to defend the president’s executive order freezing the refugee program and travel from seven terrorism-compromised countries.

“We had a Monday night massacre,” he declared. “Sally Yates, a person of great integrity who follows the law, was fired.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) drew the same parallel in announcing Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she would vote against the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to be the next attorney general. She praised Yates, arguing that it took guts.

“That statement took a steel spine to stand up and say, ‘no,'” she said. “It took the courage of [Nixon Attorney General] Elliot Richardson and [Nixon Deputy Attorney General] William Ruckelshaus to stand up to President Nixon. That is what an attorney general must be willing and able to do.”

But legal experts noted Tuesday that Nixon was trying to obstruct a criminal investigation in which he was implicated, while Trump simply removed an insubordinate political appointee from the previous administration.

“There’s no comparison at all,” said Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center. “This Justice official was insubordinate and should have been fired … She may think she’s president, but she’s not.”

Andrew McCarthy, who served as lead prosecutor on several high-profile terrorism cases in Manhattan in the 1990s, agreed. “To my mind, she should have been escorted out of the building,” he said.

McCarthy said the honorable thing for Yates to do if she could not carry out her duties would be to resign. He said that is not remotely similar to Nixon’s firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

“It’s like comparing World War II to an exhibition baseball game,” he said. “Apples and oranges doesn’t do justice to how different these two situations are.”

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said Yates acted for clearly political reasons. He noted that her letter explaining her decision referenced what was “wise” and “just” but offered no legal analysis and cited no case law.

“Trump’s move was an anti-corruption move,” he said. “It’s the exact opposite of what Nixon did … This is exactly what we need more of.”

Flaherty said former President Obama almost certainly would have taken the same action against a holdover from his predecessor’s administration. And the holdover official likely would have been “vilified,” not praised in the media, he said.

“It underscores the problem, to me, just how much trouble the media is having covering President Trump,” he said.

A man who played a role in Nixon’s downfall, Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein, also threw cold water on the “Saturday Night Massacre” storyline.

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“There’s a big difference, because the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ was really about firing the attorney general when Nixon was the target of an investigation and was actively obstructing justice,” he told “CNN Tonight” on Monday. “I think the president is within his rights here to fire the attorney general, that he has that ability.”

For Democrats hoping for fissures between Trump and the GOP majority in Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) stomped out that bit of wishful thinking.

“What is happening is something that we support, which is, we need to pause and we need to make sure that the vetting standards are up to snuff so that we can guarantee the safety and security of our country,” he told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference on Tuesday. “That is what this does. We want this goal to be achieved.”