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Worse Than Watergate

As this story continues to unfold, there’s a moment from the campaign that I keep replaying in my head over and over again. It was my third debate against Trump. He had just attacked me by quoting out of context a line from an email stolen by the Russians and released by WikiLeaks. The moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News, was piling on as well. I thought the American people deserved to know what was really going on.

“The most important question of this evening, Chris, is finally, will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this, and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in this election,” I said. Trump retreated to his usual pro-Putin talking points: “He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good.” Then, turning to me, he added, “Putin, from everything I see, has no respect for this person.”

“Well,” I fired back, “that’s because he would rather have a puppet as President of the United States.” Trump seemed befuddled. “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet,” he stammered.

I think about that line every time I see him on TV now. When he’s yucking it up in the Oval Office with the Russian foreign minister and divulging classified information. When he’s giving the cold shoulder to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and other European allies. When he’s lying through his teeth about Russia or anything else. “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.” This man is President of the United States. And no one is happier than Vladimir Putin.

In mid-July 2017, as I was putting the finishing touches on this book, Trump met with Putin in Germany. He not only didn’t challenge him publicly on interfering in our election—he actually floated the idea of a joint cybersecurity unit, which is a classic example of asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Then, the news broke that Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner met in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer connected to the Kremlin who promised to provide damaging information about me and wanted to discuss easing the sanctions on Russia included in the Magnitsky Act. Donald Trump Jr. admitted all this! He was disappointed the dirt didn’t pan out the way he’d hoped. You can’t make this stuff up. I’m sure there’s more to come, so stay tuned.

I know some will dismiss everything in this chapter as me trying to shift blame for my loss in 2016. That’s wrong. This is about the future. In the nineteenth century, nations fought two kinds of wars: on land and at sea. In the twentieth century, that expanded to the skies. In the twenty-first century, wars will increasingly be fought in cyberspace. Yet our President is too proud, too weak, or too shortsighted to face this threat head-on. No foreign power in modern history has attacked us with so few consequences, and that puts us all at risk.

I’m not saying this as a Democrat or as a former candidate. I’m saying this as someone who loves our country and will always be grateful for the blessings America has given to me and to the world. I’m worried. I’m worried about our democracy at home, with lies and corruption threatening our bedrock values, institutions, and the rule of law. And I’m worried about the future of democracy around the world. Generations of farsighted leaders on both sides of the Atlantic came together to build a new liberal order out of the ashes of World War II. They defended universal human rights, defied totalitarianism, and delivered unprecedented peace, prosperity, and freedom. As Americans, that is our inheritance. We should be proud of it and we should protect it. But now, between Trump and Putin, all that is at risk.

In June 2017, Jim Clapper was asked how the Russia scandal compared with Watergate. “I lived through Watergate. I was on active duty then in the Air Force. I was a young officer. It was a scary time,” he replied. “I have to say, though, I think when you compare the two, Watergate pales, really, in my view, compared to what we’re confronting now.”

I also lived through Watergate. I was a young attorney working for the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry into Richard Nixon. I listened to the tapes. I dug into all the evidence of Nixon’s crimes. And I agree with Jim Clapper. What we are facing now—an attack on our democracy by our principal foreign adversary, potentially aided and abetted by the President’s own team—is much more serious.