Politics
During Watergate, the Supreme Court spoke with one voice. Can it do the same in Trump's case?
Fifty years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court was mulling a landmark case with profound implications for America’s democracy.
The question before justices in the Watergate tapes dispute was whether the president was above the law, shielded from prosecutors and a judge who were investigating a crime.
The court’s answer was clear, unflinching and unanimous.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruling helped resolve another constitutional crisis in 1974, when President Nixon claimed executive privilege over his White House tapes during the Watergate investigation.
(Associated Press)
The Constitution has no “absolute, unqualified presidential privilege of immunity,” the court said in July 1974 in United States vs. Nixon. The president’s claim of executive privilege for his White House tapes, justices said, “cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of … the fair administration of criminal justice.”
Chief Justice Warren Burger, an appointee of then-President Nixon, wrote the court’s opinion. The Watergate case marked a high point for an often divided and contentious court and helped bring together a nation that was in the grip of a constitutional crisis.
The same basic issue is before the court again in Trump vs. United States: Are presidents above the law, immune forever from criminal charges for their actions in the White House? Or can they be prosecuted and held to account for breaking the law?
The decision figures to rewrite the law on the powers of the president and a cast a lasting shadow on the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Few are predicting the current court will rise to the occasion and deliver a clear, unanimous ruling.
The two sides of the debate drew a sharp contrast when the court heard arguments in late April.
“Without presidential immunity from criminal prosecution,” Trump’s attorney John Sauer told the court, “there can be no presidency as we know it.”
Justice Department veteran Michael Dreeben replied that presidential immunity had been rejected in the past and should be rejected now.
“All former presidents have known that they could be indicted and convicted. And Watergate cemented that understanding,” Dreeben said, arguing on behalf of special counsel Jack Smith.
The Justice Department’s Michael Dreeben, speaking to justices on April 25 in this artist’s sketch, argued that “all former presidents have known that they could be indicted and convicted. And Watergate cemented that understanding.”
(Dana Verkouteren / Associated Press)
If the justices split along ideological lines, with the three liberals in dissent, the decision is sure to be condemned as partisan.
So the chief justice is likely to try to put together a majority that includes at least one liberal for what could be seen as a middle-ground position.
That would mean rejecting Trump’s claim of absolute immunity as well as Smith’s view that a former president has no shield from being prosecuted, even for truly official acts.
Trump was indicted last year on accusations of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he’d lost to Joe Biden, including by making false claims of election fraud and encouraging thousands of his supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when the House and Senate met to confirm Biden’s election.
Trump pleaded not guilty and insisted that his actions — taken while he was president — should be forever immune from prosecution.
Several Justices — some of whom have worked in Washington for decades — said during arguments in April that a president’s use of his “core executive powers” should be off-limits to future charges. They are wary of opening the door to politically driven criminal investigations.
Prior to Trump, no president had been indicted after leaving office, though at times charges were contemplated.
Could President Reagan have been prosecuted for the so-called Iran-Contra affair, a secret White House scheme to sell arms to Iran to support rebels in Nicaragua after Congress blocked their funding? Could President George H.W. Bush have been prosecuted for denying he knew about the scheme when he was vice president? While no such charges were brought, an independent counsel looked into those allegations.
President Reagan, seen in 1987, and his vice president and successor, George H.W. Bush, were investigated for possible charges in the Iran-Contra scandal, but were not among the 13 people indicted.
(Dennis Cook / Associated Press)
President Clinton was also threatened with prosecution after leaving office for having lied to investigators about his relationship with a White House intern.
To take a more recent example, could former President George W. Bush have been investigated or prosecuted by a Democratic administration for his responsibility in the harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or over the alleged torture of prisoners at secret CIA sites in Europe?
The Obama administration did not pursue any such charges, but former White House lawyers, including now-Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, voiced concern about subjecting presidents to criminal charges after they leave office.
A critical question in the Trump case is: What qualifies as an “official” act by a president, and what sort of actions are considered private, even potentially criminal?
Most of the justices appeared to agree during arguments in April that Trump had been indicted over a private scheme, not for the use of any core executive powers.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, noted that the former president was accused of enlisting lawyers to submit “false claims of election fraud” and to send “fraudulent slates of presidential electors” to Congress.
“Sounds private,” she said.
Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett was among a majority of justices in April who seemed to agree that the former president had been indicted over a private scheme as a candidate, not for official presidential actions.
(Morry Gash / Associated Press)
Sauer, the Trump attorney, agreed.
“So you would not dispute those were private, and you wouldn’t raise a claim that they were official?,” Barrett asked.
Again, the lawyer agreed.
Later, when pressed by others, Sauer agreed with a lower court that had drawn a distinction between the conduct of an officeholder and that of a candidate for office. Prosecutors relied on that distinction, arguing that Trump was indicted for his actions as a failed candidate for reelection, not as an officeholder carrying out his official duties.
Barrett’s questions hinted at the possibility of a narrow ruling rejecting Trump’s claim of immunity from charges that he conspired to overturn his election defeat. The three liberal justices could agree with that.
But conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said they favored a broader shield for presidents when they use their official powers.
If that becomes the majority opinion, the court’s liberals may well refuse to go along. They voiced concern about shielding a president who abuses his power.
What if the president orders a “military coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked during the arguments.
As commander in chief, if a president “told the generals: ‘I don’t feel like leaving office. I want to stage a coup,’” she asked, would that be an official act, shielded from future prosecution?
“It could well be,” Sauer replied.
John Sauer, right, with the former president and fellow Trump lawyer John Lauro in January, said in April that a president “could well be” be shielded from prosecution for ordering a military coup to stay in office.
(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
So the problem facing the chief justice is that an opinion supporting a president’s immunity for official acts could drive the three liberals to dissent, while some conservatives may balk and refuse to join a ruling if it only holds that an ex-president can be prosecuted.
Four years ago, Roberts had a solid 7-2 majority rule against a Trump claim of “absolute immunity” and order the then-president to turn over financial and tax records to New York prosecutors.
The chief justice said the presidential supremacy claimed by Trump had never been part of America’s history.
“In our judicial system, the public has a right to every man’s evidence. Since the earliest days of the republic, ‘every man’ has included the president of the United States,” Roberts wrote in Trump vs. Vance. Two conservative justices, Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented.
Critics say the Roberts court has already delivered a victory of sorts for Trump by taking so long to decide on his immunity claim.
“This case goes to the heart of our democracy, and they’ve been slow-walking it,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy21 and a champion of campaign funding limits since the Watergate era. The court decided the Watergate case 16 days after the oral argument, he noted.
This year, by contrast, the justices have taken months to ponder a claim of immunity, a delay that has postponed Trump’s federal prosecutions and is almost certain to prevent a jury from deciding before the November election whether he conspired to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
“The court should never have taken this case,” Wertheimer said. “The voters were entitled to know whether Trump engaged in criminal conduct to overturn an election he lost.”
He’s not the only Watergate-era lawyer who is troubled. In 1974, Philip Lacovara, as counsel to the special prosecutor, urged the Supreme Court to reject Nixon’s claim of executive privilege with a “definitive” ruling. Nixon had hinted he may defy the decision if the justices were divided.
Vice President Gerald R. Ford, in the foreground at Nixon’s final Cabinet meeting before his August 1974 resignation, would go on to pardon his former boss ahead of his “possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States.”
(David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images)
Just 16 days after the court ordered him to disclose the tapes, Nixon resigned. A month later, President Ford granted him a full pardon, after saying his predecessor was facing “possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States.”
In a recent interview, Lacovara warned against making a former president immune from criminal prosecution, noting that history has shown that sometimes strong men with no moral compass can win election.
“That’s why this could be the most dangerous decision the court has ever made,” he said of Trump’s case. “Once you crack it open and say the president gets to violate some laws, there’s no way to constrain it. You have started down a very dangerous road.”
Politics
Omar’s disclosures erased millions, leaving her with potential negative net worth. She won’t explain why.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., refused to address her revised financial disclosures that could imply she has a negative net worth after the progressive lawmaker dramatically reducing the reported value of assets tied to her husband’s business ventures.
“Can you tell us if your husband still has the consulting business and the wine business?” Fox News Digital asked Omar.
The congresswoman stayed silent as she was repeatedly questioned, after previously telling Fox News Digital that the original filing — showing Omar’s reported assets reducing by as much as $29.9 million — was inaccurate and “incomplete” information.
ILHAN OMAR’S OFFICE SAYS SHE’S ‘NOT A MILLIONAIRE’ AFTER $30M FILING REVISED DOWN TO UNDER $100K: REPORT
US Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, speaks during a press conference with family members of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as members of Congress call for US investigations into Israel’s actions and reintroduce the Justice for Shireen Act, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 18, 2023. The Al Jazeera journalist, who was a dual US citizen, was killed on May 11, 2022. The Israeli army later admitted one of its soldiers likely shot the reporter. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The controversy surrounding Omar’s finances began when a 2024 financial report estimated that Omar and her husband possessed between $6 million and $30 million in assets, all while the Minnesota fraud scandal within the Somali community was beginning to come to fruition.
A more recent 2025 financial disclosure report shows Omar’s revised value of shared assets between her and husband to sit at a maximum of $125,000 — a multi-million-dollar drop from the year prior. The lower estimate of their assets, $20,000, compared to the low and high debt estimates, $30,000 and $100,000, would imply the Minnesota Democrat could have a negative net worth.
Both her and her husband have separate debts, each ranging somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 — from her own student loans and her husband’s credit card debt, according to the disclosures.
WATCH: OMAR SILENT WHEN CONFRONTED ON ALLEGED TIES TO MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
RICHFIELD, MN – AUGUST 08: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (C) campaigns with her husband Tim Mynett (R) at the Richfield Farmers Market on August 8, 2020 in Richfield, Minnesota. Omar is hoping to retain her seat as the representative for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in next week’s primary election. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The biggest change in the documents involved Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett. His reported ownership interests in both his winery and venture capital advisory firm, which were previously valued in the millions of dollars, are listed with no value now.
In Omar’s 2024 financial disclosure records, Mynett’s share in his winery was valued between $1 million and $5 million, and his share at the venture capital advisory firm was valued between $5 million and $25 million. Now, his equity interests are both listed at $0.
Omar’s office previously told Fox News Digital that Mynett has partners in both businesses and said the earlier disclosure mistakenly reflected the businesses’ total equity rather than his ownership interest. The office also said the original filing listed assets without accounting for liabilities.
VANCE REFERS TIM WALZ, MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL TO DOJ FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OVER STATE’S ALLEGED FRAUD
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has publicly voiced his interest in the Ethics Committee opening an investigation into Omar’s personal finances after the 2025 financial reports came out showing the possibility of a $29 million drop in her net worth.
Vice President JD Vance also has previously said the U.S. Department of Justice will be opening a probe into her alleged fraud as part of the administration’s anti-fraud taskforce that he spearheads, though no formal investigations have been shared with the public at this time.
Omar has been reluctant to answer Fox News Digital’s questions about her financial fallout and potential probes to be opened against her.
The Minnesota lawmaker similarly dodged answering any of Fox News Digital’s questions just last month about the revised disclosures.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“There’s also the possibility that it might rain on this sunny day,” Omar replied without responding directly to the content of the question.
Fox News Digital’s Robert Schmad contributed to this report.
As a student years ago, I dove deep into the history of the Red-hunting McCarthy era and became familiar with the actor who emerged second only to Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy as the villain of that insidious time: his shameless, conniving young lawyer, Roy Cohn. Never would I have imagined that a future president would count Cohn as a mentor and role model.
Then came Donald Trump.
Now, in Cohn-inflected McCarthyesque style, President Trump is channeling his tutor yet again, baselessly labeling his political enemies — all Democrats — as communists as he looks ahead to the fall’s midterm elections. Once more Trump shows that his catchphrase “Make America great again” means regressing, this time to Trump’s formative 1950s and the McCarthy era that sadly helped define it.
In recent speeches, including on the Fourth of July, Trump’s utterances of “communist” or “communism” reached double digits each time. (As that implies, the president didn’t set aside his divisive rhetoric even for the nation’s 250th birthday.)
“Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America,” Trump said late on the Fourth on the National Mall.
Trump couples his commie-baiting with a dash of his trademark xenophobia. “There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including by newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success,” he said at Mount Rushmore a day earlier. (He’s got it backward, of course: Immigrants come here for the American way of life and promise of success.)
Here’s the irony: Trump’s actions in his second term make him look more like the commie. He’s projecting again.
Now that Trump is exploiting a few victories lately by left-wing democratic socialists in Democratic primaries to paint the entire party as communists, it’s time to review the record — his record.
A hallmark of communism is government ownership of companies and control of the economy, at the expense of private property and free markets. In just over a year, Trump has used billions of taxpayers’ dollars to buy shares for the government in a growing list of private companies — U.S. Steel, Intel, Westinghouse and more — citing national security. The companies don’t always welcome their new stakeholder; at a minimum, they rightly fear it for the demands the government could make about prices and production.
“It’s what Putin did,” the estranged Republicans at the Lincoln Project posted online Monday. “Trump is the closest we’ve ever come to communism.”
“What began as a populist revolt against so-called elites has become a program of state ownership, price fixing and top-down industrial control,” free-market economist Veronique de Rugy wrote in The Times last October of Trump’s actions. “The power to ‘partner’ with business is the power to control it.”
Comrade Trump’s first big government grab, and a model for those to come, was in June last year, when he wrested a permanent “golden share” in U.S. Steel in return for approving its sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel. The company’s charter was revised to give the U.S. president extraordinary veto power over nearly a dozen corporate activities, including closing or relocating plants, supply-chain decisions, even pricing.
“We have a golden share, which I control,” Trump told reporters at the time, in words I never thought I’d hear from a president of the party once associated with free markets.
Just last week, Trump boasted to CNBC how he’d extracted a 10% stake in beleaguered chip giant Intel last August, after first demanding that its chief executive resign. “Intel came in. They had a problem. I said, ‘I can solve your problem, but I want 10% of the company.’ … Somebody said that’s not very American. I said, ‘No, I think it is very American, actually.’ And I’ve done that with other deals.”
And so he has.
The Pentagon is now the largest stockholder in struggling MP Materials, a large rare-earth mine in California, and guarantees a 10-year price floor for its output that stunned competitors. The administration has since taken shares in other rare-earth companies. The Commerce Department took an option for an 8% stake in Westinghouse, to spur construction of nuclear reactors, and has the right to 20% if the government decides the company should go public. The government takes a 15% cut of Nvidia’s and Advanced Micro Devices’ AI chip sales to China.
As much as anything he does, Trump’s direct intervention in private enterprise invites the question “What if Biden/Harris/Obama did that?” The answer, of course: Trump and Republicans would cry “Communist!”
Trump’s actions are the sort Americans generally have only seen during economic emergencies or major wars, and then rarely. I covered the frenzied and ultimately successful response to the near-collapse of the global financial system and the U.S. auto, insurance and housing industries. Behind the scenes in the Obama White House (and George W. Bush’s at the outset) was constant, angst-filled debate about any actions smacking of government takeovers and a determination that interventions be temporary, unlike Trump’s schemes. (For all the still-lingering unpopularity of the banking bailout, the Treasury — the taxpayers — got all the money back and then some, and exited the business.)
Trump’s economic big-footing isn’t the only way in which he resembles the commies Americans know best, and whom he so admires: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jung Un. There are also the images of himself everywhere, monuments planned, drearily long and self-adulating speeches and interference in the nation’s cultural, educational and legal spheres and — worst of all — in elections.
At Rushmore, Trump closed with a demand that Congress pass his so-called SAVE America Act to restrict voting. “We do that and we’re not going to lose an election for 100 years,” he said, speaking of course about Republicans.
One-party rule through central government election finagling? Now that’s a communist.
Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @jackiekcalmes
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Maine state Rep. Valli Geiger, a Rockland Democrat, former nurse and former mayor, is drawing sudden national attention after saying now-former Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner encouraged her to consider taking his place on the ballot in the Maine Senate race.
While Geiger has not been named the replacement nominee, her name entered the Maine Senate scramble after she told local outlet WMTW that Platner called her Monday night, praised her as a “fighter” and asked whether he could put her name forward. Platner’s campaign told the outlet he had not made an endorsement decision but confirmed he encouraged Geiger to consider running if he stepped aside.
After Geiger said Platner called her about potentially putting her name forward, Geiger posted Tuesday she would not “throw Graham under the bus,” while also saying she would not “slander or accuse” Jenny Racicot, the woman who accused Platner of rape, “of anything more than telling the truth as she experienced it.”
By Wednesday, local outlets were reporting that Geiger said Platner had encouraged her to consider running if he withdrew. Platner, who suspended his campaign Wednesday night, has denied the claim.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IF PLATNER DROPS OUT? HERE’S WHO COULD REPLACE HIM ON THE BALLOT AND HOW IT COULD WORK
Graham Platner Maine State Rep. Valli Geiger (Maine State Legislature/Getty Images)
“For the movement to continue, it can’t be me. For that reason, we are suspending campaign operations,” Platner said in a video posted to social media.
Geiger is a third-term Democratic state representative from Rockland, according to her legislative biography, representing a coastal House district in Maine that includes Rockland, Criehaven Township, Matinicus Isle Plantation, the Muscle Ridge Islands, North Haven and part of Owls Head. Her biography says she serves on the Labor Committee and the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee.
Before entering the state legislature, Geiger served six years on the Rockland City Council, including one year as mayor and four years on the Rockland Comprehensive Planning Commission, three of them as chair.
Her biography says she holds a master’s degree in sustainable design and built her own passive-solar, net-zero-energy house. It also describes her as a former nurse at Pen Bay Medical Center who later worked as a health policy analyst and health administrator, including as director of the Healthreach Hospice program and clinical director for Federally Qualified Health Centers around Maine.
The Maine State Capitol May 18, 2026, in Augusta, Maine. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
PLATNER CAMPAIGN PUTTING ‘THUMB ON SCALE’ TO INFLUENCE POSSIBLE REPLACEMENT, MAINE DEM ALLEGES
Geiger’s connection to Platner predates the latest replacement speculation. Local reporting has described her as a close Platner supporter, and WMTW reported she previously stood with him and credited him with helping secure funding for rape kit tracking in Maine.
In her Facebook post responding to Racicot’s allegation, Geiger wrote that Racicot’s story “seems credible” but added that “none of us knows the truth nor will we ever.” She also described Platner as “a man becoming a better man” and said she had hoped he would lead the political movement his campaign had built and will not “throw Graham under the bus.”
In the post, Geiger also praised Platner’s “passion for economic populism” and said she had granted him “an enormous amount of grace” for his behavior during what she described as his “dark years” after multiple deployments.
Dr. Nirav D. Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks during a news conference about COVID-19 at Maine Emergency Management Agency in Augusta. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The Maine state representative is not the only Democrat whose name has surfaced as Maine Democrats prepare for the possibility that Platner exits the race against Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Several Democrats have expressed interest or are considering bids, including former gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah.
Under Maine law, the Maine Democratic Party can replace him on the general election ballot by selecting a new nominee through its party process, with the replacement required to be chosen by July 27.
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
-
Los Angeles, Ca39 minutes agoCalifornia teen e-biker baiting police to chase tracked by drone, arrested
-
Detroit, MI59 minutes agoOur picks for state\nSenate from Wayne Co. | Endorsements
-
San Francisco, CA1 hour agoMan reported missing in San Francisco
-
Dallas, TX1 hour agoHow to buy France World Cup semifinal soccer tickets in Dallas
-
Miami, FL1 hour agoMiami-Dade Schools names six semifinalists for superintendent
-
Boston, MA1 hour agoLawsuit: ICE detained East Boston father despite legal status
-
Denver, CO1 hour agoVictor Marx wins GOP primary for Colorado governor, defeating veteran lawmaker after unorthodox campaign
-
Seattle, WA2 hours agoWidower of pregnant woman who was shot to death in Seattle sues homelessness authority
