The Trump Justice Department Is Relitigating Watergate — Opening a Review of Whether the Prosecutors Who Brought Down Richard Nixon Committed "Misconduct," and Recasting the Most Thoroughly Proven Presidential Crime in American History as a "Deep State" Plot Against an Innocent Man — in a Transparent Bid to Delegitimize Accountability Itself and Lay Groundwork to Excuse Trump; a Member of the Committee That Voted to Impeach Nixon Called It "Beyond Stupid"
In early October 2026, it was reported that the Trump Justice Department has opened a preliminary review of whether the Watergate special prosecutors — the ones who held Richard Nixon accountable in the 1970s — committed misconduct. The review follows a presentation by Geoff Shepard, a former Nixon aide and longtime Watergate revisionist who argues the prosecutors violated defendants' rights and that Nixon was treated unfairly. The purpose is not subtle. It is the latest move to recast Nixon as a victim of the "deep state," and to yoke his case to Trump's: Vice President JD Vance has said that "how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump." In other words, if Watergate can be reframed as a frame-up, then so, by extension, can every investigation of Trump. Elizabeth Holtzman — who as a member of the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon — called the effort "just beyond stupid and beyond absurd," because to believe Nixon was railroaded, "you'd have to say that everybody was duped — that the Republicans were duped, that the Supreme Court was duped, that everybody was duped except this guy and Trump." Watergate is not a contested historical question. It is the best-documented presidential crime in American history, ended by Nixon's own tape-recorded voice. Using the Justice Department to pretend otherwise is not scholarship. It is the weaponization of law enforcement against the historical record, in the service of the current president.