Profiles in Ducking

Elected Republican Leaders - Including Iowa's - Are No "Profile in Courage."

One of the low points in American history occurred when President Richard Nixon decided that “when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal,” and began running an on-going criminal enterprise out of the White House.

Watergate was the catch-all phrase for Nixon’s crimes, but they extended far beyond what Nixon’s White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tried to dismiss as a “third rate burglary attempt” by operatives for Nixon’s re-election committee, at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel.

Nixon’s bulging portfolio of presidential crimes eventually forced him from the presidency, but within a month after resigning to avoid impeachment, Nixon received a stunning gift: a “full, free, and absolute pardon” for “all offenses against the United States” he “committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.”

The new President who granted Nixon the “full, free, and absolute pardon" of course, was Gerald Ford, who Nixon himself had appointed Vice President, the office from which Ford would succeed to the presidency upon Nixon’s resignation.

Nixon appointed Ford to the vice presidency after Nixon’s first Vice President, Spiro Agnew, resigned when investigators discovered he’d been accepting bribes for years, even accepting envelopes stuffed with new $100 bills in his office in the Executive Office Building (EOB), next door to the White House.

The bribes had been on-going since Agnew’s days as Baltimore County Executive before he became Governor.

It was a bribery on the “installment payment plan” scheme. Agnew had sold his office like department stores sell flower patterned sofas with fluffy pillows, complete with “easy payments” over time.

When confronted and prosecuted by US Attorney George Beall - a Republican - in Maryland, and Attorney General Elliot Richardson - also a Republican - in Washington, DC, Agnew pled “no contest” and resigned. Prosecutors were happy to accept that plea in exchange for his resignation, to quickly get him out of the line of succession to the presidency. Nixon’s own criminal conduct was making his future in the presidency look a bit doubtful, so the time line was important.

All of which is to say, the Republican Party has a long history of sending crooks to high offices.

As criminals in high office go, Donald Trump is not the Republican Party’s first “rodeo.”

There was a time when at least some in the Republican Party were willing to put country over party, law over criminality, integrity over corruption. Beall and Richardson are textbook examples of it.

There were others, too: 1964 Republican presidential nominee Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott (R-PA) and House Republican Leader John Rhodes (R-AZ), who all had to make those same choices - country over party, law over criminality, integrity over corruption - as Nixon’s crimes came crashing down around him.

On August 7, 1974, Goldwater, Scott and Rhodes visited Nixon and informed him that if he did not resign, he would certainly be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate. Goldwater reportedly gave Nixon an estimate of the number of “votes to convict” he counted in the Senate, adding “and one of them will be mine.”

Nixon resigned the next day.

Republicans like Beall, Richardson, Goldwater, Scott and Rhodes no longer exist in leadership positions in the Republican Party. Instead, today’s Republican leaders continue to fawn over the twice impeached, recently indicted for 34 felonies, subject of multiple criminal investigations in multiple jurisdictions, and likely to be convicted of multiple crimes Donald Trump.

He remains the front runner in the Republican race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Instead of slinking off to one of his golf courses and quietly being grateful he’s not already in prison, Trump continues to prance around the country, fleecing donors out of millions of dollars, and aiming his belligerent, bigoted and hateful rhetoric at any audience that will listen to him. Sadly, today’s Republican Party seems to be full of plenty of folks who will.

This past week, Trump ratcheted up his arrogance another notch, telling Sean Hannity on Fox “News” that he would continue to run for president, even if he is convicted of a crime.

Not a single elected Republican leader stepped forward to even whisper “Hold on there a moment, Mr. Trump.” Not one.

Beall, Richardson, Goldwater, Rhodes, and Scott are no longer with us. Each has died, The first among them to go was Barry Goldwater, in 1998; Elliot Richardson was next, in 1999; Rhodes and Scott passed away in 2003; Beall, the last of the Republican heroes, died in 2017.

No one has taken their place. When Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tried, their party practically ate them alive. And Republican voters cheered that banquet on.

So when Trump proclaimed that not even a conviction by a jury of his fellow American citizens would stop him from running for president, there were no objections from leading Republicans.

Just crickets.

No elected Republican leader stood up for the law, for integrity, or for our country.

None dared to suggest to Mr. Trump that actually, asking the party to nominate a convicted felon, one who even tried to overthrow the government the last time he lost an election, is not a very good idea. In fact, it is a very bad idea.

Not even Iowa’s elected Republican leaders - who one would think might have some influence in the Republican Party, as party leaders in the state where the 2024 Republican presidential nomination contest begins. Nothing to say. At all.

Sen. Chuck Grassley? Crickets.

Sen. Joni Ernst? Crickets.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks? Nothing.

Rep. Ashley Hinson? Not a thing.

Rep. Zach Nunn? Silence.

Rep. Randy Feenstra? Not even a murmur of objection.

And certainly not Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds.

Their silence is Iowa’s shame.

Maybe some day somebody will write a book about them. I hope it’s called “Profiles in Ducking.” They are certainly not “Profiles in Courage.”

Barry Piatt’s weekly column is part of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative (IWC), which links some of Iowa’s best writers and thinkers directly with readers. The IWC, like this column, is a reader supported, so, please check out the columns listed below and consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to any or all of them.

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