Nicolai Haugsted
Trump’s Justice Department gives decades-old Watergate allegations a fresh hearing.
Watergate has spent more than half a century as shorthand for presidential scandal in the United States.
Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 after the investigation exposed abuses reaching into his administration, while White House recordings supplied evidence of his role in obstructing the investigation into the Democratic National Committee break-in.
Now, more than 50 years later, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has agreed to hear an argument challenging part of that history, RadarOnline can confirm.
Former Nixon aide Geoff Shepard recently delivered a roughly two-hour presentation to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, alleging misconduct by prosecutors who handled Watergate. The department stresses that listening to Shepard does not mean it has opened a formal investigation.
A former Nixon aide gets another hearing
Shepard has spent years arguing that Watergate prosecutors engaged in improper conduct that undermined defendants’ rights.
His allegations include claims that prosecutors secretly communicated with judges and withheld information from defense lawyers.
Shepard previously asked the Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate his allegations during the Biden administration. That request was rejected in 2022.
Trump-era officials have now given him another opportunity to present his case.
“OPR declined Mr. Shepherd’s request to open an investigation in 2022 under the previous administration,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement reported by RadarOnline.
“Given his expertise and scholarship on Watergate, he was recently invited to give a presentation to OPR, but that presentation does not constitute an investigation.”
The spokesperson added: “OPR remains focused on ensuring that Department attorneys meet the highest professional standards.”
No formal case has been announced.
Watergate itself is not suddenly an open question
Giving Shepard a hearing does not erase the extensive historical record surrounding Nixon.
Five men were arrested after breaking into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. Investigations subsequently exposed political espionage, campaign misconduct and efforts by senior administration officials to obstruct the investigation.
Nixon’s own recording system ultimately proved particularly damaging.
The Supreme Court unanimously ordered him to surrender subpoenaed recordings in July 1974. A recording from June 23, 1972 — later known as the “smoking gun” tape — documented Nixon directing an effort to use the CIA to impede the FBI’s Watergate investigation.
Three articles of impeachment were approved by the House Judiciary Committee before Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. President Gerald Ford subsequently granted him a full pardon.
Shepard’s allegations concern the conduct of Watergate prosecutors, rather than eliminating that documentary record.
Nixon is getting another look from Trump allies
Renewed attention from the Justice Department comes alongside a broader reassessment of Nixon among several prominent figures on the political right.
Vice President JD Vance offered perhaps the clearest example during a June appearance at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California.
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vance said.
“The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
Vance went further by explicitly connecting Nixon’s downfall to Trump’s political and legal battles.
“If you look at the story of 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 the first Trump administration,” Vance said.
His characterization represents Vance’s political interpretation of Watergate, rather than the conclusion reflected in the historical record maintained by the National Archives.
Trump and Nixon comparisons enter the DOJ conversation
Republican Rep. Riley Moore has separately argued that Nixon was “framed,” while Shepard has characterized the Watergate prosecution through the modern political language of “lawfare.”
Such arguments fit neatly with Trump allies’ longstanding contention that government institutions and prosecutors have been weaponized against Republican political figures.
Watergate therefore offers an irresistible historical comparison for that argument: another Republican president, another politically explosive investigation and another fight over the power of federal prosecutors.
Major differences remain.
The National Archives describes Watergate as a constitutional crisis involving documented abuses of governmental power, and Nixon’s own recordings provide direct evidence that he participated in obstructing the investigation.
