Bag Man: Downfall of A Brazen Crook in the White House

 

Rachel Maddow, “Bag Man: Downfall of A Brazen Crook in the White House,” Crown Publishing, 2020, 263 pp..

“Long before Donald Trump disrupted the rules of politics, Spiro Agnew consistently derided liberals, the establishment, ivory tower professors, and the press. In Bag Man, Maddow provides   new details about the corruption and astonishing fall of Nixon’s vice president. Maddow’s reporting and vivid storytelling, first presented in a podcast, bring to life the lessons from the investigation and prosecution of a leader at the top of American government, providing useful guidance to today’s Trump saga.

Maddow’s book and podcast describing Spiro Agnew’s crimes and punishment is a reminder that Agnew’s crimes were, to a degree, punished.  At the time, I was focused on Nixon and Watergate and did not keep up with Agnew’s problems.  Agnew’s problems were very much overshadowed at the time by Nixon and his problems.  Had this happened at any other time it would undoubtedly went down as the most astonishing and sordid chapter visited upon a White House in modern times.  Agnew, in 1973, became the only vice president ever convicted of a felony, other than Aaron Burr. His crime was tax evasion, but he had also taken bribes and kickbacks during a previous stint in local Maryland politics. yet because he was not part of Nixon’s inner circle, he had nothing to do with the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

My Notes:

 Pg. 27:  The vice presidency of Agnew marked the birth of the bruising know-nothing confrontational conservatism that has been eating the lunch of seemly, Kiwanis Club Republicanism ever since.

Pg. 32:  What Joe McCarthy had done to try to stir up fear and suspicion in the general public about the Commies in the 1950s, Agnew was effectively trying to replicate a decade and a half later when it came to members of the press.

Pg. 36ff:  The Republican incumbents in 1972 won forty-nine states, won the electoral college 520 to 17 and won the popular vote by nearly twenty million votes, 61 percent to 37 percent.  (six months after the election it all began to come apart for Nixon). The actual break-ins at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex had taken place about a year earlier, when the 1972 general election campaign was just getting under way.

Pg. 125ff:  Attempts were made to shut down the investigation of Agnew.  The prosecutor’s brother, George Beall, was solicited to get his brother to back off the investigation—George Bush (Sr) was the go-between. 

Pg. 144:  There were questions on how Nixon was able to afford the purchase of both the San Clemente compound and another one in Biscayne Bay, Florida.  The White House released an audit that claimed everything was on the up and up.  Among other oddities noted by reporters: three former members of the firm conducting the audit had been unconditionally pardoned after being convicted of distributing false financial statements and mail fraud—pardoned by Nixon.  That was awkward.

Pg. 170:  The Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, asked the head of the Office of Legal Counsel to consider the question of whether a sitting vice president could be indicted.  The team at OLC, traveled slightly afield of the central question at hand.  The final draft of the OLC memo, dated September 24, 1973, was titled “Amenability of the President, Vice President, and Other Civil Officers to Federal Criminal Prosecution While in Office.”

OLC Memo:  The reasoning stated that a president could not be indicted while in office but a Vice President while in office could be indicted.

The path to this conclusion was a tortured one fo the Office of Legal Counsel.  The Constitution language was vague, and arguable.  “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the US: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”  But it was still vague if no impeachment conviction had occurred as in the case of Nixon.

Pg. 174:  Over time this OLC memo asserting that a vice president can be indicted but a president cannot, has become fairly momentous when it comes to defining the legal limitations of presidential scandal and crime.  (Mueller felt he could not indict Trump because of this memo.)

Vice President Aaron Burr had served much of his last year in office under indictment in New York state having illegally challenged Hamilton to a duel and killed him.

Pg. 217:  Ten days before Nixon’s Saturday night massacre secured the plea bargain and resignation of Agnew. 

Pg. 240:  Years later, in 1980, Agnew had to pay $268,482 to the state of Maryland.  (The bribe money plus interest).

Pg. 244:  Ultimately, Agnew failed to save himself.  But he left a scorched-earth battle plan for any corrupt officeholder that followed:

Attack the investigation as a witch hunt.

Obstruct it behind the scenes.

Attack individual investigators in personal terms.

Attack the credibility of the Justice Department itself.

Attack the media