Richard Nixon was innocent

Geoff Shepard worked for President Nixon when he faced impeachment, and his opinion has changed now that all the documents have been released, as he details:

If the public had known of the totally erroneous accusations made in secret against President Nixon and the judicial and prosecutorial wrongdoing that characterized the Watergate investigations, it is doubtful the Democrats could have mustered the necessary two-thirds vote to convict and remove Nixon from office. And, if he had survived, then the due-process travesty of the cover-up trial might not have unfolded as it did.

In particular, he says that the so-called "smoking gun" tape was thought to be about covering up the Watergate break-in, but actually was about some campaign finance issue unrelated to Watergate.

The so-called independent prosecutor was actually an army of Democrat loyalists who were out to get Nixon. They lied to the grand jury and House Judiciary Committee about having evidence linking Nixon to hush payments, and Nixon never even learned of the lies.

The court system had been corrupted, with Judge Sirica and the appeals court secretly working with the Democrats.

Nixon's chief accuser was John Dean, but the public did not know (1) Dean had committed many crimes, and faced a long prison sentence; (2) Dean was offered a sweet plea bargain deal; (3) Dean changed his story to implicate Nixon only as part of the deal; and (4) Dean never had to serve a day in a real prison.

The article does not even mention how the assistant FBI director was leaking as "Deep Throat" as a personal vendetta against Nixon for not getting a promotion.

Would this have all come out in a Senate trial? Would it have mattered if the public had already turned anti-Nixon? I don't know, but it is too bad we didn't learn the truth at the time.

It is tempting to have a full Senate trial for Pres. Trump, with testimony from all the relevant parties. But it will be a waste of time, as there is no underlying crime, and no firm accusations to investigate. Trump has released the transcript, and explained his defense in a letter. There are no significant facts in dispute.