The Haldeman maneuver didn’t really work for Nixon.
Trump has a more fanatic following.
Maybe they’ll fall into line.
As if I needed another reminder of my age, Donald Trump brings Bob Haldeman to my mind.
Haldeman was indignant 46 years ago during the Watergate hearings. John Dean had not lied, exactly, but he had misled the world by leaving out something important.
Dean had remembered talking with President Nixon about Watergate burglars. They had been caught and put in jail. They were being pressured to name names. They were about to tell an angry Judge John Sirica just who had ordered them to break into Democratic headquarters.
And they were demanding money from the Nixon people to keep quiet.
John Dean had discussed that demand with his boss, the President of the United States. And he told the Senate Committee on Watergate how that talk had gone:
I told the president about the fact there was no money to pay these individuals, to meet their demands. He asked me how much it would cost. I told him I could only make an estimate, that it might be as high as a million dollars or more.
He told me that that was no problem. He also looked over at Haldeman and repeated the same statement.
Well, that wraps it, I thought at the time. I was young.
Then it was Haldeman’s turn at the witness table. He denied being in that conversation at all.
President Nixon had been secretly recording conversations and this one was on tape. The President refused to let the Senate listen to the tapes, and he refused to let special investigators listen to them.
But Haldeman had been allowed. Even though he wasn’t there – he explained Dean was lying about that – he had heard everything in that conversation on tape and he could let the committee and the world know precisely what Dean had left out.
The President said there is no problem in raising a million dollars. We can do that, but it would be wrong.
We can do that, but it would be wrong. Nixon’s defenders seized on that. It should be obvious that Nixon was vetoing the idea and that he was innocent.
In a documentary made 19 years later, reporter Nancy Dickerson explained the significance.
A moment later, the president said “You could get a million dollars and you could get it in cash. I know where it can be gotten.”
Later in the conversation the President is heard to say “…but it would be wrong.”
Now that’s a phrase his supporters used to prove that he condemned paying hush money.
Well yeah they did. Naive, don’t you think?
And with the kind of weird sort of reporting that survives to this day, Nancy gives what she thinks is the other side:
His detractors disagree. They deplore any discussion of that kind in the White House.
Really? That is what we were saying?
Sorry Nancy. What we actually were saying is that leaning over your hidden microphone, the mic only you know about, to declare the plot you are creating would be wrong, is laughable. In fact it remained a punchline for years.
Three decades after Watergate, I remember a business meeting in which some bizarre idea was being buried. The final note was when one participant leaned over a desk and spoke into a pencil holder: “We could do that, but it would be wrong.” We all laughed and the idea was never mentioned again, except as part of a joke. “But it would be wrong” was the punchline. It was the line from Watergate everyone remembered.
Later, when the tapes were published, Dean turned out to be right. Haldeman turned out to be lying. Turned out Haldeman was there. And it turned out Dean was accurate. If Nixon said it would be wrong, it was not right then, not after figuring out how to find money for the bribe.
Seems a shame. One of the best jokes coming out of Watergate didn’t get said.
As I listened to another President, I thought about humor you shouldn’t have to explain, that a denial you know will be caught on tape, or any other way; criminal intent denied just for the record; is transparently meaningless.
Now we jump to 2019.
After the whistleblower had whistled, when, as regulations require, the report of wrongdoing, the quid pro quo part of it, was duly registered and certified as credible, a conversation was held between Ambassador Gordon Sondland and President Donald Trump.
This week the Ambassador testified about that conversation:
There were so many different scenarios floating around as to what was going on with Ukraine, so rather than ask the president nine different questions; is it this, is it this, is it that; I just asked, “What do you want from Ukraine?”
I may have even used a four letter word.
And he said, “I want nothing.”
Then, according to Ambassador Sondland, the President known for his hatred of reading, his disdain for experts with their educated ways, his fourth grade insults, broke into Latin.
“I want no quid pro quo.”
In fact, it was the exact Latin phrase that happened to be in the Whistleblower report that had not yet gotten to Congress.
“I just want Zelensky to do the right thing, to do what he ran on,”
Or words to that effect.
Later, my president stood in front of reporters and proclaimed his innocence. He was not only blameless, Ambassador Sondland had provided the proof. On a paper in his hand, along with the rest of the denial, the Latin words were written in huge block letters, in thick sharpie printing, so they could have been read by any random school child.
Just a quick comment on what’s going on in terms of testimony with Ambassador Sondland. And I just noticed one thing.
And I would say that means it’s all over.
Okay. So it’s game over.
“What do you want from Ukraine?” he asks me, screaming. “What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories.”
Apparently, the Ambassador is excitable, screaming that way at the President.
“What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories. What do you want? What do you want?” Right?
So the Ambassador is not only high strung, he repeats himself a lot.
It was a very short and abrupt conversation that he had with me.
He just said; now he’s talking about what my response; so he’s going:
“What do you want? What do you want? I hear all these theories. What do you want?”
It seems he wants to know what Donald Trump wants. He keeps asking.
And now here’s my response, that he gave. Just gave.
Ready? You have the cameras rolling?
“I want nothing! That’s what I want from Ukraine!”
That’s what I said.
“I want nothing.”
I said it twice. So he goes, he asks me the question:
“What do you want? They keep hearing all these things. What do you want?”
He finally gets me… I don’t know him very well. I have not spoken to him much. This is not a man I know well. Seems like a nice guy though. But I don’t know him well.
Get that? It seems he doesn’t know him very well.
But here’s my response. Now, if you weren’t fake news, you’d cover it properly. I say to the ambassador’s response:
“I want nothing.
“I want nothing.
“I want no quid pro quo.
“Tell Zelensky, President Zelensky, to do the right thing.”
So here’s my answer.
“I want nothing.
“I want nothing.
“I want no quid pro quo.
“Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.”
Then he says this is the final word from the President of the United States.
“I want nothing.”
Thank you folks have a good time. I’m going.
Fox News personalities agree with the president that the Sondland testimony severely damages the case against Mr. Trump. Jesse Watters explains:
It turns out this story has some major holes.
Now, in fairness, Mr. Trump had already explained that he had never read the account by the whistleblower. By coincidence, the President’s conversation with the Ambassador, the one involving a lot of screaming and repetition, did happen right after the whistleblower account was registered, but before it went public. And it did just happen to contain the same Latin phrase.
Quid pro quo.
It does take me to movieland. A gangster is angry at a television comedian who continually portrays a corrupt mob boss in a returning skit. As the gangster sits and glowers, his lawyer explains:
He feels that the portrayal of said character is slanderous and defamatory and done with malicious intent, therefore abrogating the public figure defense and rendering it to wit, actionable.
The comedian goes nose to nose with the mobster:
Did you say that, Karl? What a guy!
Okay. I suppose, if Mr. Nixon can speak into a flower vase:
We can do that, but it would be wrong.
… then a …um… plain spoken president would hear this:
What do you want from Ukraine?
And answer with:
No quid pro quo!
And it would mean he was completely innocent of anything, anything at all. No ham-handed attempt to create a record here.
Decades from now, “quid pro quo” might be part of a running gag. Maybe a gangster speaks it slowly and distinctly into a flower pot.
The punchline might be:
Did you say that, Karl? What a guy!
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