What timing! He welcomes Putin envoy – and Kissinger
IT was a day when Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia was firmly in the spotlight – amid a political furore which drew comparisons to the Watergate scandal of the Nixon era.
And so some may say the US President’s guests to the White House yesterday were rather unfortunate. The US President met with Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and, later on, with Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State under Nixon.
The sight of President Nixon’s Secretary of State in the Oval Office made many feel like they were in a time warp back to the 1970s.
The White House said all the meetings had been scheduled in advance and that it was just a coincidence they fell yesterday. However Mr Kissinger is one of the few living politicians who has personally dealt with a similar situation that Mr Trump now finds himself in.
The sacking of FBI director James Comey led to Democrats comparing it with Mr Nixon’s notorious Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal. Yesterday The White House press pool was called into the Oval Office for what they expected to be a photo opportunity featuring Trump and Sergei Lavrov – but instead found him sitting with Mr Kissinger.
Trump had earlier welcomed Mr Lavrov and
Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US, a key figure in the FBI’s investigation into Mr Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia. Mr Lavrov also posed for photographs with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and was asked by members of the press about the firing of Mr Comey. He shot back with a sarcastic remark, saying: ‘Was he fired? You’re kidding’.
Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre came in October 1973, when the embattled president dismissed Archibald Cox, who was the independent special prosecutor investigating the break-in at Democratic Party offices at Washington’s Watergate complex. Mr Cox had just issued a sub- poena demanding the president hand over copies of White House audio tapes when the president ordered his sacking.
The night before he was ousted, Mr Cox had given an emotional news conference during which he said: ‘Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.’
Both Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, refused to comply and resigned instead.
Solicitor General Robert H Bork, the Justice Department’s third-in-command, obeyed Nixon’s order and sacked the investigator after being ferried to the White House by limousine and sworn in as the new attorney general. But Nixon was forced to appoint a new prosecutor and eventually handed him incriminating transcripts of some of the White House tapes.
Faced with impeachment, he resigned the following year. Ever since Watergate, presidents have shrunk from challenging the FBI no matter how difficult their relations became.
Only Bill Clinton dared sack an FBI director, ousting William Sessions in 1993 amid ethical concerns, which included him spending $10,000 of government money on a fence for his house.