Trump’s Kremlingate scandal is no Watergate… it’s much worse

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It is not yet known

if President Donald Trump was involved in secret deals with the Russians, which would be tantamount to treason.

Yet Republicans remain foursquare behind the President.

Most Republicans were willing to excuse the Watergate break-in and cover up, spinning the scandal as a media creation. Senator Bob Dole, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, opined: “The greatest political scandal of this campaign is the brazen manner in which, without benefit of clergy, The Washington Post has set up housekeeping with the McGovern campaign.”

Republican support for Nixon fell from a high of 90 per cent at the start of the Senate Watergate Committee hearings in 1973 but never dropped below 50 per cent even as his approval among the general public fell to a low of 24 per cent.

Mr Trump also has terrible approval ratings among the public at large (38 per cent) but, like Nixon, he is keeping the support of most of his base – 72 per cent of

In the summer of 1974, a critical mass of Republicans finally decided they could no longer defend Nixon.

“There are only so many lies you can take,” Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona said on August 6. “And now there has been one too many. Nixon should get his ass out of the White House — today!”

Mr Trump’s fate depends on how many lies today’s Republicans can swallow. So far, there is no indication that they have had their fill, but it is still early: 447 days elapsed between the appointment of special prosecutor Archibald Cox on May 18, 1973, and Nixon’s resignation on August 8, 1974.

We are less than 40 days past May 17, the day Mr Mueller accepted the same role.